Der Hauptmann von Köpenick

Friedrich Wilhelm Voigt was born in East Prussia in 1849 and worked as a shoemaker.

In 1906 he disguised himself as a captain and took a gullible squad of soldiers to the town hall in Köpenick to arrest the mayor and rob the town treasury. He thus went down in the history of the district and of public interest with the coup of the "Köpenickiade".

After his release from prison, Wilhelm Voigt published his autobiography in 1909 under the title How I became Captain von Köpenick.

In 1930 Carl Zuckmayer published what is probably the best-known work on the Köpenickiade as a three-act tragicomedy, which premiered in 1931 as a play at the Deutsches Theater Berlin.

The permanent exhibition shows the course of events with texts and images and goes into the importance of the military in everyday life in the German Empire. Wilhelm Voigt himself and his tragic role are also addressed in the exhibition.