 The sentences on the other three were commuted to penal servitude, but Reichpietsch and Köbis were executed by firing squad at the Wahner Heide proving ground near Cologne, on 5 September 1917.The executions were denounced as "naval judicial murders" by antiwar politicians and newspapers, and helped trigger the antiwar and socialist mutinies in the Navy, which led to the German Revolution of 1918–19.This has made Reichpietsch and Köbis heroes of the German socialist movement.