Klaus Störtebeker

Klaus Störtebeker (c. 1360 – 1401) was a leader of the Likedeeler, or Victual Brothers, pirates hired as privateers for Albert of Sweden against Margaret of Denmark, then raiders of Hanseatic shipping. The name Likedeeler referred to their practice of sharing their spoils equally. Expelled from Visby on Gotland in 1398, they used Marienhafe in East Frisia as a base.

Captured near Heligoland by a Hamburg fleet on 22 April 1401, he and 72 companions were beheaded on Hamburg's Grasbrook that October. Legend says his headless body passed eleven men before the headsman stopped him.