Felix von Luckner Felix Graf von Luckner ( born Dresden , Germany , 9 June 1881 , died Malmö , Sweden , 13 April 1966 ) , was a German nobleman , navy officer , author and noted sailor who earned the epithet " Der Seeteufel " ( the Sea - Devil ) – and his crew that of " Die Piraten des Kaisers " ( the Emperor ' s Pirates ) – for his exploits in command of the sailing commerce raider SMS " Seeadler " ( " Sea Eagle " ) in 1916 – 1917 . It was his habit of successfully waging war without any casualties that made him a hero and a legend on both sides . He was the great - grandson of Nicolas Luckner , Marshal of France and commander - in - chief of the French Army of the Rhine , who had been elevated to count in the 18th century by the King of Denmark . He was married twice , firstly to Petra ( né e Schultz ) from Hamburg with whom he had a daughter , Inge - Maria , born in 1913 . They divorced in 1914 . On 24 September 1924 he married Ingeborg ( née Engeström ) in Malmö . Early life . First journey . The young Felix had dreams of being a sailor as a child but his father was determined that he should follow the family cavalry tradition . After failing his exams at various private schools , at the age of thirteen , von Luckner ran away to sea , with the promise in his mind that he would not return until he was wearing " the Emperor ' s naval uniform , and with honour " . He signed up , under the assumed name of " Phylax Lüdecke " , as an unpaid cabin boy on the Russian sailing ship " Niobe " travelling between Hamburg ( Germany ) and Australia . His story might have ended there , because the Russian captain , fearing that the lives of other crew members would be endangered , refused to allow a lifeboat to be launched in order to pick von Luckner up when he fell overboard in the middle of the ocean . The chief mate defied the captain ( who had threatened him with a harpoon ) , and launched a lifeboat with the help of volunteers . As a number of albatrosses circled over Luckner , one swooped down and seized his outstretched hand in its beak but Luckner grabbed the bird in desperation . Although severely pecked , he hung on for his life . The flapping of the bird ' s huge wings and the circling of the other albatrosses gave the crew of the lifeboat a point to aim at in his rescue . Jack - of - all - trades . Arriving at Fremantle , Western Australia , he jumped ship and for seven years worked in a bewildering array of occupations : a seller of the Salvation Army ' s " The War Cry " , an assistant lighthouse keeper at the Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in Augusta , Western Australia ( a job he abandoned when he was discovered with his hotel keeper ' s daughter by her father ) , a kangaroo hunter , a circus worker , a professional boxer ( due to his exceptional strength ) , a fisherman , a seaman , a guard in the Mexican army for President Díaz , a railway construction worker , a barman , and a tavern keeper . He was incarcerated for a short time in a Chilean jail accused of stealing pigs , he twice suffered broken legs , and was thrown out of hospital in Jamaica for lack of money . Von Luckner was also an accomplished magician – Kaiser Wilhelm was fascinated by his tricks and frequently invited von Luckner aboard his yacht to entertain important dignitaries . Back in Germany . At the age of twenty he entered a German navigation training school , where he passed the examinations for his mate ' s commission . By 1908 he had joined the Hamburg - Südamerikanische Line steamer " Petropolis " , intending to serve for nine months before volunteering to serve in the Imperial Navy for a year , to obtain a naval commission . He had vowed not to return to his family except in uniform and was eventually welcomed back by his family , who had given him up for lost . He was finally called up by the Navy in February 1912 and served on the gunboat SMS " Panther " . World War I . In the early part of the war , Felix von Luckner saw action at the Battle of Heligoland Bight , and during the Battle of Jutland he commanded a gun turret aboard the battleship " Kronprinz Wilhelm " . At the beginning of the First World War , Germany converted a considerable number of merchant ships into merchant raider s by equipping them with guns and sending them in search of Allied merchant shipping . Most of the armed raiders were not particularly successful , but they did tie up considerable Allied forces in hunting them . By early 1915 , most of the armed raiders had either been hunted down and sunk or had run out of fuel and been interned in neutral ports . Hoping to revive commerce raiding , the Imperial Navy equipped the impounded three - masted sailing ship " Pass of Balmaha " ( 1 , 571 tons ) with two 105 mm guns hidden behind hinged gunwales , several machine guns and two carefully hidden 500 HP auxiliary engines . She was commissioned as the auxiliary cruiser " Seeadler " ( " Sea Eagle " ) . As virtually the only officer in the German Navy with extensive experience of large sailing ships , von Luckner was appointed her commander . The Voyage of " Seeadler " . Raider . " Seeadler " left port on 21 December 1916 and managed to slip through the British blockade disguised as a Norwegian ship . Many of the crew of six officers and 57 men were selected for their ability to speak Norwegian , including von Luckner , in case they were intercepted by the British . By Christmas Day , she was southeast of Iceland , when she encountered the British armed merchant cruiser " Avenger " . " Avenger " put an inspection party aboard , but failed to detect the German deception . On 9 January 1917 , " Seeadler " came upon a single - funneled steamer . She raised a signal requesting a time signal ( not an uncommon thing to do for a sailing ship long out of contact with land ) , and too late for the target ship to take any evasive action , raised the German ensign . Three shots were needed to persuade the 3 , 268 ton " Gladys Royle " , carrying coal from Cardiff to Buenos Aires , to stop . Her crew was taken off unharmed , and she was scuttle d . The following day , " Seeadler " encountered another steamship , which refused to identify itself . The German ensign was raised and a shot fired across the bow of the " Lundy Island " , which was carrying sugar from Madagascar . The steamer still refused to stop , and four rounds were fired directly at her . The steamer hove to and lowered its boats , but its captain ignored an order to come to " Seeadler " . A German boarding party was sent over and discovered that the crew had abandoned ship when the first shots were fired , leaving the captain alone . Captain Bannister later told von Luckner that he had previously been captured by a German raider , and had given his parole which he had broken ; thus he was not anxious to be a prisoner of war again . Von Luckner continued his voyage southwards , and by 21 January , he was in mid - Atlantic between Brazil and West Africa when he found the 2 , 199 ton French three - masted barque " Charles Gounod " , which was loaded with corn . She was quickly dispatched , but her log book recorded information about other ships she had met and their intended route . On 24 January , the small 364 - ton Canadian schooner " Perce " was met and sunk by machine gun fire , after taking off her crew ( and her captain ' s new bride ) . The 3 , 071 ton French four - master " Antonin " , which was loaded with Chilean saltpetre , was overhauled on 3 February and soon scuttled . On 9 February , the 1 , 811 ton Italian " Buenos Ayres " , also carrying saltpetre , was sunk . On 19 February , a four - masted barque was spotted , which immediately piled on sail in an effort to get away ; however , " Seeadler ' s " engines allowed her to overhaul the 2 , 431 ton British " Pinmore " , which was carrying a cargo of grain . By coincidence , von Luckner had sailed in " Pinmore " in his civilian sailing days , back in 1902 . Von Luckner took " Pinmore " into Rio de Janeiro in order to get more supplies , before eventually scuttling her . The next ship to be stopped was the Danish barque " Viking " , but as there was nothing unusual about her cargo the neutral ship was allowed to proceed unmolested . More victims . On the morning of 26 February , the 1 , 953 ton British barque " British Yeoman " , carrying a welcome cargo including chickens and pigs , was stopped and sunk ; the same evening the French four - master " Le Rochfoucauld " fell victim to the " Seeadler " . The boarding party discovered " Le Rochfoucauld " had only recently been stopped by a British cruiser which was looking for " Seeadler " . On the evening of 5 March , " Seeadler " discovered a four - masted barque in the moonlight and signalled " Stop immediately ! German Cruiser " . Bizarrely , the captain of the 2 , 206 ton French ship " Dupleix " rowed across to " Seeadler " , convinced another French captain was playing a practical joke on him . He was soon disabused of the idea when his ship was scuttled . " Seeadler ' s " next victim on 10 March was asked for the time , but ignored the signal . Von Luckner ordered a smoke generator to be lit , and the 3 , 609 ton " Horngarth " turned back to render assistance to the ' burning ' sailing ship . A single shot put the British ship ' s radio out of commission ; this resulted in the only loss of life in the " Seeadler " ' s voyage . A British sailor , Douglas Page , was killed when a steam pipe was ruptured by the shot . " Horngarth " was soon scuttled by " Seeadler ' s " now experienced crew . By this time , von Luckner had the problem of feeding and keeping safe nearly 300 prisoners , in addition to his own crew . Consequently , when on 20 March , the French four - masted barque " Cambronne " was captured , von Luckner arranged for the ship ' s topgallant mast and additional spars and sails to be removed , before putting his prisoners aboard " Cambronne " under the command of Captain Mullen of " Pinmore " . The much - reduced rigging on " Cambronne " ensured " Seeadler " would be able to escape before her location could be reported to the hunting ships . The Royal Navy was well aware of " Seeadler ' s " general location and set a trap consisting of the armed merchant cruiser " Otranto " and the armoured cruisers " Lancaster " and " Orbita " ( ? ) at Cape Horn . However , a severe storm blew " Seeadler " considerably further south , before she entered the Pacific Ocean on 18 April and sailed north along the Chilean coast . By early June , " Seeadler " was east of Christmas Island and learned the United States had entered the war . " Seeadler " turned her attention to American shipping , sinking the 529 ton " A B Johnson " of San Francisco on 14 June , the 673 ton " R C Slade " the next day , and the schooner " Manila " on 8 July . By this time , " Seeadler " needed to be laid up so that her hull could be scraped clean . She put into the small island of Mopelia , also known as Maupihaa , a coral atoll some 10 km ( 6 mi ) in diameter in the Society Islands , some 450 km ( 280 mi ) from Tahiti . Wrecking and stranding . " Seeadler " was too large to enter the sheltered lagoon of Mopelia , and consequently had to anchor outside the reef . On 24 August , disaster struck . According to von Luckner , the ship was struck by a tsunami which wrecked " Seeadler " on the reef . However , some American prisoners alleged the ship drifted aground while the prisoners and most of the crew were having a picnic on the island . The crew and their 46 prisoners were now stranded on Mopelia , but they managed to salvage provisions , firearms , and two of the ships ' boats . Hide and seek . Von Luckner decided to sail with five of his men in one of the long open boats , rigged as a sloop and named " Kronprinzessin Cecilie " . Ever the optimist , he intended to sail to Fiji via the Cook Islands , capture a sailing ship , return to Mopelia for his crew and prisoners , and resume raiding . Three days after leaving Mopelia , the seamen reached Atiu Island in the Cook Islands group , where they pretended to be Dutch - American mariners crossing the Pacific for a bet . The New Zealand Resident , the administrator of the island , gave them enough supplies to reach another island in the group , Aitutaki , where they posed as Norwegians . The New Zealand Resident in Aitutaki was suspicious , but had no means of detaining the group , and von Luckner quickly took his party to the island of Rarotonga . Approaching Rarotonga in the dark , von Luckner saw a dark ship which he thought was an auxiliary cruiser , but in fact was a beached ship . Von Luckner pressed on to the Fijian Wakaya Island , arriving after a voyage of in an open boat . Most people on Wakaya accepted their story of being shipwrecked Norwegians , but one sceptic called a party of police from the old Fijian capital of Levuka . On 21 September , the police pretended that the non - existent gun on the inter - island ferry " Amra " would blow von Luckner out of the water . Not wishing to cause bloodshed , and not realizing the police were unarmed , von Luckner and his party surrendered and were confined in a prisoner - of - war camp on Motuihe Island , off Auckland , New Zealand . Meanwhile , back on Mopelia , a small French trading ship , the " Lutece " , anchored outside the reef . " Leutnant " Kling of " Seeadler " , having heard of his captain ' s capture on the radio , sailed out to " Lutece " and captured it at gunpoint . The French crew was put ashore with the other prisoners , and all the Germans embarked on the ship , now renamed the " Fortuna " , and set course for South America . The master of " A B Johnson " , Captain Smith , then took the remaining open boat from Mopelia with three other American seamen , and sailed to Pago Pago , arriving on 4 October , where they were finally able to inform the authorities of the activities of " Seeadler " and arrange for the rescue of the other 44 sailors still stranded on Mopelia . " Fortuna " , meanwhile , came to grief when she struck uncharted rocks off Easter Island . The crew scrambled ashore , where they were interned by the Chileans for the remainder of the war . Escape . Von Luckner still refused to accept that the war was over for him . The commander of the prisoner of war ( POW ) camp at Motuihe had a fast motor boat , the " Pearl " , at his disposal , and on 13 December 1917 , von Luckner faked setting up a play for Christmas with his men and used his provisions for the play to plan his escape . Von Luckner and a number of other prisoners seized the " Pearl " and made for the Coromandel Peninsula . Using a machine gun , he then seized the 90 ton scow " Moa " and , with the help of a handmade sextant and a map copied from a school atlas , sailed for the Kermadec Islands , which was a New Zealand provision island , with larger ships anchored there . A pursuing auxiliary ship , the " Iris " , had guessed von Luckner ' s probable destination and caught up with him on 21 December . A year after his mission began , the war finally ended for Felix von Luckner . He spent the remainder of the war in various POW camps in New Zealand before being repatriated to Germany in 1919 . Postwar life . On 12 May 1921 , Luckner became a Freemason of the Lodge " Zur goldenen Kugel " ( " Große Landesloge von Deutschland " ) in Hamburg . He wrote a book of his adventures which became a best - seller in Germany , and Lowell Thomas ' book about him spread his fame widely . In 1926 he raised funds to buy a sailing ship which he called the " Vaterland " and set out on a goodwill mission around the world , leaving Bremen on 19 September and arriving in New York on 22 October 1926 . An entertaining speaker , he was widely admired for his seamanship and for having fought his war with a minimal loss of life . This opened many doors for him in the United States where he spoke on hundreds of occasions across the country , both in German and later , increasingly in English . He won the support of many notables , such as diplomats , politicians and even the American Legion . Henry Ford presented him with a motor car and the city of San Francisco made him an honorary citizen . US President Calvin Coolidge wanted to meet him , but Luckner declined at the request of his government . Feeling that his " goodwill mission " , as he called it in his travelogue , " Seeteufel erobert Amerika " ( " Sea - devil conquers America " ) , could neither have greater success elsewhere , nor could he be financially sustained by the income as a speaker , however popular and successful ; he returned to Germany where he arrived on 19 April 1928 . He was a frequent visitor to the Heydrich home in Halle where he inspired a young Reinhard Heydrich , with stories of his adventures on " Seeadler " , to join the inter - war " Reichsmarine " . In 1937 and 1938 , he and his wife undertook a round - the - world voyage in his yacht " Seeteufel " , being welcomed in New Zealand and Australia , although some viewed him as an apologist for the Nazi regime . During their visit to the Australian state of Queensland , the von Luckners were feted by the press and public . The Brisbane office of the Commonwealth Investigation Branch ( CIB ) , maintained a surveillance of the von Luckners during the visit with the inspector in charge of the CIB in Brisbane , Bob Wake , attending a gala function held in honour of the German couple . The gala menu was decorated with a Swastika . The CIB kept detailed records of all of their contacts and when Australia declared war on Germany many of these contacts were rounded up and interned . During the Second World War , Adolf Hitler tried to use him for propaganda purposes , although as a Mason , he was not in one of the Nazi ' s favoured groups of people . He was implicated in a scandal , and put on trial before a " Sonderehrengericht " ( Special Court of Honor ) , in 1939 , for incest and having sexual congress with a minor , but he was never convicted . It is said that his retirement from public life was a condition for the discontinuation of the trial . Von Luckner refused to renounce his membership of the Masons or the various honorary citizenships granted in the US , and consequently he suffered by having his bank account frozen . In 1943 , he saved the life of a Jewish woman , Rose Janson , whom he provided with a passport he found on a bombsite , and who subsequently managed to escape to the US via a neutral country . At the end of the war , the mayor of Halle , where he was living , asked him to negotiate the town ' s surrender to the approaching American forces , which he did , although he did not return to the town after hearing that the Nazis had condemned him to death . Von Luckner was extremely strong and was noted for his ability to bend coins between the thumb , index and middle finger of his right hand and to tear up telephone directories ( the thickest being that of New York ) , with his bare hands . On the occasion of his visit to Australia in 1938 , the Sydney " Labor Daily " published a cartoon showing Kaiser Wilhelm tearing up the Belgian Neutrality Pact , Adolf Hitler tearing up another agreement , and von Luckner tearing up a directory , with the caption " They All Have The Habit " . Von Luckner was a prolific autograph signer , and his original autographs turn up frequently at auctions and estate sales . After the Second World War , von Luckner moved to Sweden , where he lived in Malmö with his Swedish second wife Ingeborg Engeström , until his death in Malmö at the age of 84 in 1966 . He is buried in the Main Cemetery Ohlsdorf , Hamburg . Writing . Count von Luckner wrote the introduction for Alfred von Niezychowski ' s book " The Cruise of the Kronprinz Wilhelm " , 1928 , published by Doubleday & Company , about the auxiliary cruiser " Kronprinz Wilhelm " , ( Note : although she had the same name , this was a different ship from the " Kronprinz Wilhelm " that Count von Luckner served in during the Battle of Jutland ) . TV series . Between 1973 and 1975 , a Franco - German Co - Production company produced a 39 - episode adventure series entitled " " Graf Luckner " " for the German ARD television network , featuring von Luckner as the hero . The French alternate title was " " Les Aventures du Capitaine Luckner " " . Episode 26 of the TV series Tales from Te Papa featured the sextant used by von Luckner in his escape attempt from New Zealand . The Count Felix von Luckner Society . On 29 March 2004 the society " Felix Graf von Luckner Gesellschaft e . V . " was founded in Halle , with the objective of commemorating Luckner ' s life and work , especially his role in safeguarding the city of Halle in April 1945 . The Society also wishes to create a memorial and museum for von Luckner in Halle , and to restore his yacht , " Seeteufel " , which is currently in poor condition in Russia . Within a few months of its creation , the Society had over 100 members in 14 countries .