Felix Nikolaus Alexander Georg Graf[1] von Luckner (9 June 1881, Dresden – 13 April 1966, Malmö), sometimes called Count Luckner in English, was a German nobleman, naval officer, author, and 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) during the First World War.

After failing his exams at various private schools, at the age of thirteen 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 Luckner up when he fell overboard in the middle of the ocean.

[2] Arriving at Fremantle, Western Australia, Luckner jumped ship and for seven years worked in a bewildering array of occupations: he was 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 the lighthouse 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 prison accused of stealing pigs, he twice suffered broken legs, and he was thrown out of a hospital in Jamaica for lack of money.

At the age of twenty, Luckner entered a German navigation training school, where he passed the examinations for his mate's ticket.

Many of the crew of six officers and 57 men, including Luckner himself, had been selected for their ability to speak Norwegian, in case they were intercepted by the British.

Captain Bannister later told 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.

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.

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.

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 steamer Pinmore, which was carrying a cargo of grain.

Luckner ordered a smoke generator to be lit, and the 3,609 ton Horngarth turned back to render assistance to the 'burning' sailing ship.

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.

Luckner decided to sail with five of his men in one of the 10 m (32 ft 10 in) long open boats, rigged as a sloop and named Kronprinzessin Cecilie.

Three days after leaving Mopelia, the seamen reached Atiu Island, where they pretended to be Dutch-American mariners crossing the Pacific for a bet.

Most people on Wakaya accepted the Germans' story of being shipwrecked Norwegians, but one sceptic called a party of police from the old Fijian capital of Levuka.

Not wishing to cause bloodshed, and not realizing the police were unarmed, Luckner and his party surrendered[3] and were confined in a prisoner-of-war camp on Motuihe Island, off Auckland, New Zealand.

The French crew was put ashore with the other prisoners, and all the Germans embarked on the ship, which they renamed the Fortuna, and set course for South America.

On 12 May 1921, Luckner joined Regular Freemasonry of the Lodge Zur goldenen Kugel (Große Landesloge von Deutschland) in Hamburg.

In 1926 Luckner raised funds to buy a sailing ship which he called the Vaterland and he set out on a goodwill mission around the world, leaving Bremen on 19 September and arriving in New York Harbor on 22 October 1926.

He won the support of many notable people, including diplomats, politicians, and even World War I veterans belonging to the American Legion.

US President Calvin Coolidge wanted to meet him, but Luckner politely declined at the request of Foreign Office of the Weimar Republic.

In 1943, Count von Luckner saved the life of a German Jewish woman, Rose Janson, whom he provided with a passport he found on a bombsite, and which allowed her to subsequently escape to the United States via a neutral country.

Towards the end of the war in April, Count von Luckner was living in Halle, where he was briefly placed under guard by the 414th Infantry Regiment of the United States Army, which was engaged in house-to-house fighting against Wehrmact and Waffen-SS troops within the town after the garrison refused to surrender.

Episode 26 of the television series Tales from Te Papa featured the sextant used by Luckner in his attempt to escape from captivity in New Zealand.

The society also wishes to create a memorial and museum for Luckner in Halle and to restore his yacht Seeteufel, which is currently in poor condition and lying in Russia.