Karl Friedrich Max von Müller (16 June 1873 – 11 March 1923) was a German naval officer who was the captain of a commerce raider, the light cruiser SMS Emden during the First World War.

After attending gymnasia at Hanover and Kiel, he entered the military academy at Plön in Schleswig-Holstein, but transferred to the German Imperial Navy at Easter 1891.

After receiving high praise and assessments from his superiors, he was promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitän in December 1908, and assigned to the Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Navy Office) in Berlin, where he impressed Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.

Soon he achieved fame and notoriety in both the German and other imperial powers' newspapers for initiative and skill in shelling rebellious forts along the Yangtze, at Nanking.

She steamed out to sea on the evening of 31 July 1914, and on 4 August she intercepted and captured the Russian mail steamer Ryazan, the first prize taken by the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the Great War.

The remaining Frenchmen were transferred to a British steamer, Newburn, which had been stopped by the German ship, but not attacked, so as to enable them to be transported to Sabang, Sumatra, in the neutral Dutch East Indies.

A detachment of his crew which had gone ashore evaded capture and escaped to Germany under the leadership of Emden's first officer, Hellmuth von Mücke.