1927 deaths

Nicola Sacco (pronounced [niˈkɔːla ˈsakko]; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (pronounced [bartoloˈmɛo vanˈtsetti, -ˈdzet-]; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant and Anarchist family who were controversially convicted of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a guard and a paymaster, during the April 15, 1920, armed robbery of the Slater and Morrill Shoe Company in Braintree, Massachusetts, United States. Seven years later, they were executed in the electric chair at Charlestown State Prison.
After a few hours' deliberation on July 14, 1921, the jury convicted Sacco and Vanzetti of first-degree murder and they were sentenced to death by the trial judge. Anti-Italianism, anti-immigrant, and anti-anarchist bias were suspected as having heavily influenced the verdict. A series of appeals followed, funded largely by the private Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee. The appeals were based on recanted testimony, conflicting ballistics evidence, a prejudicial pretrial statement by the jury foreman, and a confession by an alleged participant in the robbery. All appeals were denied by trial judge Webster Thayer and also later denied by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. By 1926, the case had drawn worldwide attention. As details of the trial and the men's suspected innocence became known, Sacco and Vanzetti became the center of one of the largest causes célèbres in modern history. In 1927, protests on their behalf were held in every major city in North America and Europe, as well as in Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dubai, Montevideo, Johannesburg, and Auckland.Celebrated writers, artists, and academics pleaded for their pardon or for a new trial. Harvard law professor and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter argued for their innocence in a widely read Atlantic Monthly article that was later published in book form. Even the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was convinced of their innocence and attempted to pressure American authorities to have them released. The two were scheduled to die in April 1927, accelerating the outcry. Responding to a massive influx of telegrams urging their pardon, Massachusetts governor Alvan T. Fuller appointed a three-man commission to investigate the case. After weeks of secret deliberation that included interviews with the judge, lawyers, and several witnesses, the commission upheld the verdict. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in the electric chair just after midnight on August 23, 1927.Investigations in the aftermath of the executions continued throughout the 1930s and '40s. The publication of the men's letters, containing eloquent professions of innocence, intensified the public's belief in their wrongful execution. However, a ballistic test performed in 1961 proved that the pistol found on Sacco was indeed used to commit the murders. On August 23, 1977—the 50th anniversary of the executions—Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis issued a proclamation that Sacco and Vanzetti had been unfairly tried and convicted and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names".

Valli Valli, born Valli Knust (11 February 1882 – 4 November 1927) was a British musical comedy actress and silent film performer born in Berlin, Germany. She was descended from an old English family and lived most of her life in England. Her brother was a captain in the Royal Fusiliers, who fought for the British in France in World War I. Her sisters Lulu (1887–1964) and Ida were both actresses, who used the stage names Lulu Valli and Ida Valli. Her brother-in-law, Philip Curtiss (Ida's husband), wrote Mummers in Mufti in 1921. She also had a brother named Cyril Alexander Eugene Knust (1897–1935).

Jurgis Matulaitis-Matulevičius (Polish: Jerzy Bolesław Matulewicz-Matulaitis; 13 April 1871 - 27 January 1927) was a Latin Church Catholic prelate who served as the Bishop of Vilnius from late 1918 until his resignation in 1925. Matulaitis was also the founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception and the Handmaids of Jesus in the Eucharist; he served as the Superior-General of the Marian Fathers from 1911 until his death. He worked in secret to revive the Marian Fathers after the Russian authorities suppressed all religious orders and he even relinquished his teaching position to better dedicate himself to that secret revival. He was a noted teacher and spiritual director who set up other branches of the order in places such as Switzerland and the United States far from Russian authorities.Matulaitis' cause for sainthood opened in the 1950s before he was titled as Venerable in 1982. Pope John Paul II beatified the late bishop on 28 June 1987 in Saint Peter's Basilica and referred to the bishop as a "man of God's heart".

Alexander Tietze (6 February 1864 – 19 March 1927) was a German surgeon born in Liebenau. Tietze syndrome is named after him.
In 1887 he received his doctorate at the University of Breslau, and from 1888 to 1895 was an assistant at the Breslau surgical clinic. During this time period he worked under Jan Mikulicz-Radecki (1850-1905). In 1894 he gained his habilitation, subsequently becoming a primary physician at the Allerheiligen-Hospital (1896). In 1914-1920 he was a member of the Breslau City Council.

Albert Van Coile (27 March 1900 – 4 April 1927) was a Belgian footballer. He played for Cercle Brugge. He also appeared once for the Belgium national football team.
Van Coile is especially remembered by the Cercle Brugge fans because he is the only player who died because of injuries sustained in a Cercle Brugge match. During a tournament in Tourcoing, Van Coile was playing as centre forward by occasion. In the match against US Tourcoing, he collided with the local goalkeeper. Van Coile suffered no visible injuries, but when his situation deteriorated the day after the match, doctors discovered a tear in his bowels. A speedy operation had no result. Van Coile died on 4 April.
His funeral received great attention in the media as well as in Bruges itself, where all the flags were lowered to half-staff in his honour. Van Coile's team, Cercle Brugge, were namely on the verge of becoming national champions in 1927. Ironically, during the funeral, Cercle's chairman René de Peellaert caught pneumonia, of which he died 14 days later.

Sophie von Adelung (11 March 1850 – 15 June 1927) was a German writer and painter. She also wrote under the pseudonym S. Aden.Sophie von Adelung was born in Stuttgart, into a family of Russian origin; her father, Nikolaus von Adelung (1809–1878), was secretary to Queen Olga, and was a privy councillor in the Kingdom of Württemberg. In addition to his other work, Nikolaus was literary executor of his father, Friedrich von Adelung. Sophie's mother, Alexandrine von Schubert (1824–1901), was the daughter of General Friedrich von Schubert. Other children of the marriage between Alexandrine and Nikolaus included a son, named after his father, who became a noted entomologist, and another daughter, Olga, with whom Sophie collaborated on several works.
Her books, which she often illustrated herself, were mainly directed at young people. She also translated stories into German from Russian. She wrote regularly for magazines such as Die Frau (Woman) and Fürs Haus (For the House). Some of her work appeared in Thekla von Gumpert's Töchter-Album (Daughter's Album).Her circle included the pianist Maria von Harder, a former pupil of Chopin, whose memories of the composer were recorded by von Adelung, and her own cousin, Sofia Kovalevskaya, who visited her Adelung relatives as a young woman. Sophie von Adelung produced a memoir of her cousin in 1896, after Kovalevskaya's death.

Hermann Abert (German: [ˈʔaːbɐt]; 25 March 1871 – 13 August 1927) was a German historian of music.

Christian Adam Landenberger (7 April 1862, Ebingen - 13 February 1927, Stuttgart) was a German Impressionist painter and a professor at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart. He is especially known for his landscapes.

Rudolf Magnus (2 September 1873, Brunswick – 25 July 1927, Pontresina) was a German pharmacologist and physiologist. He studied medicine, specialising in pharmacology, in Heidelberg, where he became associate professor of pharmacology in 1904. In 1908 he became the first professor of pharmacology in Utrecht, where he spent the rest of his working life.
Had he lived, he likely would have been awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on animal reflexes. The authors of Nobel, the Man and his Prizes by H.Schück et al., edited by the Nobel Foundation (2nd ed. Amsterdam, 1962, p. 311) wrote of Magnus and his co-worker De Kleyn: ‘The examiner [1927] declared that the work done by Magnus and De Kleyn clearly deserved a prize, and the prospects for an award seemed most favourable when Magnus unexpectedly died.’ For his life and work see, Rudolf Magnus, Physiologist and Pharmacologist: A Biography (2002, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) by his son, Dr.Otto Magnus.
Magnus had five children, Karl (1903-1989) lung specialist; Margarete (Gretl)(1905-1968)who worked as his secretary and translator; Dorothea who died aged 11; Erica (1909-1991) architect; and Otto (1913-2014) neurologist.
Magnus is most widely known for his work as a physiologist. His book Körperstellung ("Posture")., a study of functional neurology, is his best known work.

Sebastian Droste (born Willÿ Knobloch; 2 February 1898 – 27 June 1927) was a German poet, actor, and dancer associated with the underground art subculture of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.
Droste relocated from his hometown of Hamburg to Berlin in 1919. He earned a living as a naked dancer, choreographer and expressionist poet. His first poem appeared in April edition of Der Sturm that same year, titled 'Tanz' (Dance). A further 15 poems and ‘grotesques’ appeared across 12 editions of the journal alongside other artists and poets such as Kurt Schwitters and Paul Klee. He alternated between publishing under the name Willy or Willi Knobloch. Also in 1919 he published a drama in the Dresden based expressionist journal Menschen.In 1922, Droste married expressionist exotic dancer and actress in silent movies of the Berlin scene, Anita Berber. She and Droste performed fantasias with titles such as "Suicide," "Morphium," and "Mad House". Droste appeared as a dancer in the silent movie Algol.
In 1923, Droste and Berber jointly published a book of poetry, photographs, and drawings called Die Tänze des Lasters, des Grauens und der Ekstase (Dances of Vice, Horror, and Ecstasy), based on their performance of the same name. Full of expressionist imagery, the book offered a glimpse into the angst and cynicism shadowing their artistic and personal existences. Their marriage ended in 1923.
In 1925, Droste met with photographer Francis Bruguière in New York City where he styled himself as Baron Willy Sebastian Knobloch Droste. Together they composed over 60 photographs for a proposed expressionist film starring Drost tentatively titled The Way. UFA GmbH rejected the proposal and the photographs were instead published as part of a photographic journal in Die Dame in July 1925.
Droste was diagnosed with tuberculosis in early 1927. He returned to his parents' home in Hamburg, where he died on June 27 of the same year.