His father, Joseph August Röckel, was a tenor, choir director and theatre entrepreneur who sang the role of Florestan at the premiere of the second version of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fidelio in 1806.

[6] Röckel was an ardent republican; he became friends with the likes of Mikhail Bakunin and was the editor of the revolutionary journal in Dresden, Volksblätter,[1] to which Wagner also contributed.

After the uprising failed, Röckel was captured[2] along with Bakunin and sentenced to death, while Wagner escaped to Zürich.

While Bakunin was handed over to Russia, Röckel served a thirteen-year sentence in solitary confinement at the Königstein Fortress and at Waldheim Prison,[7] and was only released in January 1862, the last of the May insurgents to be freed.

However Wagner later quarrelled with Röckel when, in the late 1860s, he believed that the latter had been gossiping about his relationship with Cosima von Bülow.