Kiel sailors' uprising
The Kiel sailors' uprising (also the Kiel sailors' and workers' uprising ) began on November 3rd, 1918. It triggered the November Revolution , which led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the proclamation of the republic in Germany .
At the end of October, the uprising was preceded by extensive refusals of orders by the crews of the German deep-sea fleet that had drawn together near Wilhelmshaven . These were directed against the fleet advance planned for October 30th . The Naval War Command (SKL) had planned an advance on the armed forces and traffic in the Thames estuary and on the coast of Flanders , although the Supreme Army Command (OHL) had ultimately demanded an immediate end to the First World War . This was intended to lure the far superior British Grand Fleet into a decisive battle. Apart from their senseless sacrifice, the occupations wanted to prevent the German request for a ceasefire from being rejected and the reputation of the new, democratic government of Max von Baden being damaged. The fleet command had to give up the plan, ordered the III. Squadron returned to Kiel , and had 48 crew members arrested on the way back. In contrast, there were protests in Kiel, which the city's workers joined. The workers had been planning a major strike for some time to back up the demand for a quick peace settlement. All attempts to suppress the uprising failed. Soon parts of the army also showed solidarity. Many sailors left Kiel and carried the uprising to all parts of the country. Within a few days, all the major cities of the German Reich were under the control of revolutionary workers 'and soldiers' councils .
prehistory
Socio-economic factors
During the World War, the middle and lower classes in particular suffered from poor supplies and falling real incomes. In addition, the state skimmed off the savings of the population through the war bonds that were later worthless . Food distribution was largely under the control of the military, whose backward organization made the situation much worse. In contrast, the armaments industry made large profits, the effective taxation of which was prevented by influential politicians, including Karl Helfferich . This and a rampant black market meant that the wealthy and senior officers experienced few restrictions, while many workers and most of the common soldiers suffered from shortages.
Millions of people lost, starvation winters, crop failures and defeats gradually increased the opposition to the war, which was barely perceptible at the beginning of the war. It is true that the SPD adhered to the so-called truce for the entire duration of the war and excluded those members of the parliament who voted against the war credits from their parliamentary group. But the war opponents formed the USPD in April 1917 , which demanded an immediate peace agreement. Despite suppressive measures, such as being transferred to the front, there were increasing strikes against the inadequate supplies. The demand for a quick end to the war was also raised more and more frequently. The auxiliary service law passed in December 1916 restricted the free movement of workers, but on the other hand led to a strengthening of trade union work in the factories because functionaries could be "complained about" from the front.
Situation in the Navy
Initially, the war was expected to last for a short time. However, the balance of forces that led to the long duration quickly became apparent. In the course of time, the greater resources of the Entente made themselves felt, especially when the USA entered the war. The British long-distance blockade , which had existed since August 1914, caused supply bottlenecks, material shortages and malnutrition in Germany. The Imperial Navy had assumed at the beginning of the war, despite warning voices of a decisive battle. However, the enemy's bases were out of range of their battle fleet and an attack was associated with too high a risk, so that individual collisions between the fleets only occurred by chance and mostly unintentionally. In the great Battle of the Skagerrak in mid-1916, the German inflicted the heavier losses on the British navy, but the naval warfare had to recognize that even a German victory would not change the strategic situation. The emperor forbade her to proceed too riskily. The naval officers had hopes of a decisive battle against the Royal Navy at the end of the war, but the fleet, the construction of which had contributed significantly to the deterioration of German-British relations, was now mostly at anchor. Since 1915, Germany had gone over to unrestricted submarine warfare , an alternative that was developed more by chance and not strategically well thought out. Up until the development of the convoy system, it brought supplies to Great Britain into serious difficulties, but on the other hand, it demanded increasing civilian, including American, casualties, making the United States' entry into war on the side of the Entente powers more and more likely. This then actually took place after the Zimmermann telegram in April 1917.
In France, open mutinies in 45 divisions broke out in April 1917 because the soldiers did not agree with the general staff's conduct of war, which led to enormous useless losses. This changed with the appointment of General Pétain as commander in chief. In the German army, refusals of orders only occurred after the spring offensive of 1918 on a larger and increasing scale, when the promised “last blow”, which was supposed to bring the final victory, had failed. The solidarity between soldiers and frontline officers for common survival in the trenches began to dissolve. In many naval divisions, however, there were rarely direct war missions. They were often qualified industrial workers who, often out of a thirst for adventure, had volunteered for respected naval service. Many of them also had great enthusiasm for the war at first. The naval officers were mostly bourgeois, to whom the branch of arms promoted by the emperor offered better opportunities for advancement than the army, which was still dominated by the nobility. In addition, the nobility was unable to provide the navy with the officers it needed. The naval officers saw the navy as the symbol of national unity. They felt themselves to be the “spearhead” who were called upon to bring Germany “world renown”. The bourgeois junior naval officers endeavored to adopt the manners, demeanor and arrogance of the Prussian officer corps. They appeared “ plutocratically provocative” and compensated for their frustration at the inaction of the large warships with harassment and humiliation of the subordinates who had been handed over to them.
Unrest in the fleet in the summer of 1917
The deteriorating living conditions on board also led to great displeasure on the part of the crews in view of the significantly better catering for the sea officers. In addition, the lack of use of the deep-sea fleet after years of fleet propaganda had stoked high expectations led to disillusionment and frustration. As a result, there were minor protests as early as the end of 1916. In the summer of 1917 there was major unrest in the fleet . Between June and August, eight larger ships protested against the poor food and the inhuman treatment of the crews. Among other things, about 400 sailors and stokers left the SMS Prinzregent Luitpold without permission , held a meeting, and then returned voluntarily on board.
The sailor Max Reichpietsch had turned to the USPD and the SPD on his home leave in Berlin at the beginning of June to bring the complaints there and to inquire about the cruet commissions. The crews then succeeded in enforcing this previously illegally denied possibility of complaint on the ships. In addition, stewardship structures were set up to improve contact with the comrades. Against the background of the public discussions at the time, the disputes became more acute: many crew members sympathized with the emerging efforts to conclude a peace without annexations and contributions. On the other hand, such views represented patriotic treason for the mostly pan - German -minded officers. The propaganda of the Pan-German Association and the Fatherland Party for radically expansionist war aims , which it co-founded in July 1917 , was distributed and propagated in the units through official channels.
Sometimes the crews also discussed organizing a strike in the fleet to enforce peace. For Semmroth, however, the associated charge of mutiny is “more than doubtful”. The naval leadership now presented the actions as efforts by a secret organization to undermine the clout of the fleet. Five sailors and stokers were sentenced to death in August 1917 for “treacherous uprising”. The military tribunal, however, equated the attempt at an insurrection - legally untenable - with an accomplished insurrection. The sentences of Max Reichpietsch and Albin Köbis were carried out shortly afterwards, the other death sentences commuted to prison sentences. In addition, a number of sometimes severe sentences were imposed.
The judgments were discussed in a Reichstag debate in October 1917. Ledebour and Dittmann of the USPD were indirectly accused of treason. However, the government exposed itself for apparently relying on false statements. An investigation by the Imperial Court against USPD MPs brought by the naval leadership did not reveal anything incriminating.
But the bitterness of the injustice they had experienced continued to affect the occupations. This played an important role in the events in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel at the end of 1918.
Workforce in Kiel
In 1865 Prussia relocated its "Naval Station of the Baltic Sea" from Danzig to Kiel; In 1871 the city was declared an imperial war port. Kiel grew faster than any other city in the empire. Due to the growth of the shipyards and the armaments factories, many workers streamed into the city, but they were more difficult to access for the organized labor movement and felt less committed to the truce policy. As early as the January strike in 1918, the workers in Kiel assumed a pioneering role throughout the Reich. A large wave of strikes in Austria-Hungary was followed by a large wave of strikes in Germany. The workers protested against the excessive demands of the OHL on Russia, which had offered peace after the overthrow of the tsar in March 1917 and the subsequent October Revolution . But the demands of the military, among other things, for far-reaching relinquishment of territory endangered a peace agreement. Despite the protests, the OHL enforced its ideas in the dictated peace of Brest-Litovsk . This meant that the official version of the German “defensive war” was no longer credible for large parts of the population.
War defeat and armistice petition
As soon as the victory in the east became foreseeable, the OHL moved the troops that had become free to the western front. But the following German spring offensive in 1918 failed, used up all reserves and left a demoralized army. The Entente Powers and the United States began extensive counter-offensives that forced Germany to continue to withdraw. Erich Ludendorff, Quartermaster General and “strong man” of the OHL had to admit to the Kaiser and the Reichstag on September 29, 1918 that the war was lost and that an armistice had to be sought within 48 hours. He demanded that this request should be made by a government based on a parliamentary majority. He hoped to get more favorable peace conditions and wanted to shift responsibility for the war defeat to the democratically minded politicians. Kaiser Wilhelm II agreed, and on October 3, the newly appointed Chancellor Prince Max von Baden formed a government that included center, SPD and liberal politicians. With the October reforms, the empire turned into a parliamentary monarchy. After some hesitation, the new administration asked Woodrow Wilson, the President of the United States, to broker a ceasefire. However, the public was not informed that this was under pressure from the OHL.
This gave the Conservatives and the Right of the Fatherland Party the opportunity to accuse the Democrats and Left of wanting to subdue Germany to the enemy. At the same time they started a campaign for an “honorable downfall”, which was also supported by the Protestant Church.
After the sinking of the ferry RMS Leinster by the German submarine UB-123 on October 10, 1918 in the Irish Sea, with around 500 dead, including many civilians, Wilson felt deceived by the German government, tightened the conditions and demanded that the German military must be made unable to resume the war. Ludendorff and Hindenburg took this as an opportunity to now publicly and without obtaining the consent of the government to call for a fight with the utmost strength.
Planned fleet advance
On the same day (October 23, 1918), the SKL under Reinhard Scheer and Magnus von Levetzow, as well as the Command of the High Seas Armed Forces (KdH) in coordination with Ludendorff, issued Operation Order No. 19. In doing so, they disregarded the Reich Chancellor's request to refrain from anything that could disrupt the peace process. They later invoked their alleged freedom of operation from the time before the constitutional reform. At that time the supreme command was still granted to the emperor. Levetzow himself reported, however, in the Süddeutsche Monatshefte that the Kaiser had mentioned on October 26th that on the same day he had given his consent to the subordination of military authority to civil authority, which was decided in the Reichstag.
Operation order No. 19 provided for an "attack against armed forces and traffic on the Flemish coast and in the Thames estuary". On the way back, the SKL hoped to encounter the Royal Navy at about Terschelling and fight a decisive battle with them. Despite the great preponderance of the British, parts of the naval leadership hoped for success. It was believed that the alerted Royal Navy could already be significantly weakened when marching through laid out minefields and submarine lines. According to Ernst von Weizsäcker's diary , 50% of naval officers expected no result, 40% a happy success, 10% a disaster. Most of today's historians estimate the chances of success as low or a defeat as certain, among other things because the British were able to decipher the German radio messages for years .
Depending on individual circumstances and their position in the military hierarchy, the naval officers' motives for the attack plan varied. When it came to ship units, resignation and the “honorable sinking”, i.e. the code of honor, predominated. The SKL and KdH primarily wanted to convincingly demonstrate the raison d'être of the German Navy and at the same time position themselves for a war of revenge. The fact that they kept their plan a secret from the government suggests that the move was intended to provoke the overthrow of the despised parliamentary government. Even inside, he would have made her appear even more like “Flaumacher” who wanted to give up before she had thrown everything into the balance. Due to renewed civilian casualties in the initially planned advance on the English and Flemish coasts, the government would probably no longer have come into question as a negotiating partner for US President Wilson. On 29 October 1918, this critical situation for the government reached its peak: SKL and KDH members of the predominantly 20 kilometers north of Wilhelmshaven before Schillig on roads lying German fleet command to sail the following day.
Refusal of order in front of Wilhelmshaven
On the same day, on October 29th, the KdH received the first reports of "excesses" on the ships of the III. Geschwaders SMS König , SMS Markgraf and SMS Kronprinz , on the small cruisers SMS Regensburg and SMS Strasbourg and on the liner SMS Nassau . At Adolf von Trotha's suggestion, the fleet chief Franz von Hipper ordered on October 30 at 2:00 a.m. to abandon the planned advance. Instead, the KdH planned an evolution (changes in formation when driving in association) in the Helgoland Bay in the morning, which had to be postponed due to fog. Because of further unrest in the 1st Squadron and in the 1st Reconnaissance Group, this attempt was also given up at 12:00. Now the KdH was planning a thrust of torpedo boats against the English east coast for the night of October 31st to November 1st, which would very likely also have claimed civilian casualties and thus made the armistice negotiations more difficult. The I. Squadron was supposed to take over cover tasks, the rest were supposed to expire to evolve. However, sailors on the ships of the 1st Squadron SMS Thuringia and SMS Helgoland refused the clear command on October 30th at 10:00 p.m. and committed acts of sabotage by October 31st. When torpedo boats and a submarine threatened to bombard their ships, they gave up. Several hundred sailors were arrested and taken to Bremen-Oslebshausen. Vice-Admiral Hugo Kraft, who was inexperienced as a squadron chief, sent the III. Squadron, which was considered to be the main trouble spot, returned to the home port of Kiel and had 48 sailors and stokers from SMS Markgraf arrested during the journey through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal.
The Reichstag delegate Wilhelm Dittmann (USPD, later SPD) made interrogation statements from 14 jailed sailors known in the later committee of inquiry into the guilt issues of the World War about what had been discussed at that time in their environment or on their ship as a whole: One had from speeches by officers (ammunition in Honor shooting, heroic death) and from various preparatory measures (such as maps provided) on the plan for a naval advance on the English coast. According to nine reports, which mentioned speeches, conversations and speeches of senior officers overheard by fair runners, the opinion prevailed in the ship that the officers wanted to die a hero's death instead of leading a "life in shame". According to eight statements, the officers had not obtained permission from the government for their planned naval advance. After two of these statements, the officers wanted to overthrow the government. Eight statements reported discussions among the officers about using the action to prevent the peace negotiations or bring them to fruition. Confidants of the III. Squadron at a meeting at the Reichsmarineamt (RMA) on November 7, 1918. According to this, the teams involved had essentially correctly assessed the situation and retained the authority of the new government.
Revolution in Kiel
In Kiel, the ship's crews sought contact with workers and land naval units in order to obtain the liberation of those arrested. A large demonstration to the detention center was stopped at gunpoint. As a result, the unrest grew so strong that soldiers' councils were finally formed to take over political and military power in Kiel. Governor Wilhelm Souchon had to negotiate. The requested infantry formations reached Kiel too late and the older soldiers could no longer be induced to use force against the members of the Navy. The workers went on a general strike to push through a quick peace settlement and to support the sailors. They set up a workers' council that controlled the authorities and political bodies. The SPD representative Gustav Noske sent from Berlin to Kiel failed in his attempt to persuade the rebels to break off the uprising. This then created a more effective council organization. Chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council was initially Lothar Popp , later Karl Artelt . Noske replaced Governor Souchon.
Friday 1st November
In the then World War, Germany was divided into military districts whose commanding officers were only responsible to the Kaiser ( Immediatrecht ). One of these districts was Kiel with the Reich War Harbor. The chief of the naval station of the Baltic Sea was at the same time governor of Kiel and was also responsible for civilian power in times of war. At the end of 1916 an authority coordinating the districts was created, which in October 1918 was given the role of "Chief Military Officer". The Prussian Minister of War General of the Infantry Heinrich Schëuch was entrusted with this office . On October 30, 1918, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon replaced Gustav Bachmann in the office of Governor in Kiel. Vice-Admiral Hugo Kraft let Souchon through one of his staff officers of the imminent arrival of the III. Inform the squadron and the incidents.
At around 1:00 a.m. on November 1st, the squadron reached the Holtenau lock in Kiel. From there the arrested were taken to the detention center on Feldstrasse and to Fort Herwarth in the north of Kiel. Some crew members were given shore leave without consulting the governor. At 10:00 am, Souchon and Kraft spoke to each other. Souchon insisted on the general strike expected in the next few days by about 70,000 Kiel workers. A connection between the potentially rebellious crews and the battle-tested Kiel workers must be prevented. Kiel is also overcrowded with soldiers, among other things because of the withdrawal from the Flemish coast. Kraft should therefore leave Kiel immediately. But he said the crews would calm down through the vacation. He even sent the SMS König to the dock of the Imperial Shipyard, so that the ship had to stay in the fjord for a long time and a connection between the crew and shipyard workers was practically evoked. Kraft and Souchon only agreed on intensive surveillance of the land travelers by deck officers and political police.
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The crews used the generously granted shore leave for advice. About 250 sailors, stokers and NCOs met in the evening in the trade union building and agreed to use all means to prevent the fleet from sailing again and to send delegations to the officers to have their comrades released. But the commanders rejected the delegates. Another meeting was arranged in the union building for the next evening. The sailors increasingly sought contact with the unions , the USPD and the SPD. Due to the crackdown by the military judiciary following the unrest in the fleet a year earlier, everyone was aware that those arrested would face the death penalty. Shop stewards of III. Squadrons later said they had stated, “When people are punished, there is a lot of excitement among the crews because individuals have been singled out for refusing to obey. That is why we said that people must not be punished because we were all there. "
Saturday, November 2nd
At 9:00 a.m. on November 2, the officers in charge, including the military police chief, met to discuss their next steps. They had received secret reports from the first meeting of the sailors. Kraft wanted the crews of the III. Squadron still grant shore leave. However, more patrols were sent out and an operational reserve of the sea battalion was kept ready in the engineering school near the union building. Souchon banned marines from entering the union house and from gathering in inns to prevent joint actions by workers and sailors. The guards turned away sailors who returned to the union building around 6:00 p.m. even the landlord of the inn “Harmonie” in Faulstrasse did not let them in. Smaller groups then went on separate paths to the remote large parade ground in the Vieburger wood. Around 600 people gradually gathered there, including members of naval units stationed on land, some of whom were posted to work at the shipyard.
According to the report of a detective disguised as a sailor, a crew member of the III. Squadron the meeting. He again emphasized the importance of freeing those arrested. One speaker each from the shipyard division and the Imperial Shipyard reported that their troops supported this cause. As the sixth speaker, Karl Artelt , chief heater of the Torpedo Division, demanded to refuse duty in order to prevent the naval advance and to enforce an immediate peace agreement. In addition, the militarists and the ruling class would have to be disempowered, if necessary by force. The following speakers reported on the preparations for the strike by the shipyard workers and on a security service in the shipyard division to suppress the strike. When shooting orders for comrades, one should shoot in the air and render the commanding officer harmless with blows from the butt: That protects against detection and does not make the comrades nervous. Vacation bans should be ignored. The participants agreed on a large protest meeting for the next day. Three USPD representatives, including Lothar Popp, promised support with all their might. When the meeting broke up, a company of marines appeared and arrested about 70 people, but let them escape again, showing their solidarity. Popp and Artelt then met in the party office of the USPD in Preusserstraße and created thousands of small handouts with the inscription: “Comrades don't shoot your brothers! Workers are demonstrating en masse, don't let the soldiers down! "
Late in the evening, important officers discussed countermeasures in the apartment of the Chief of Staff Rear Admiral Hans Küsel. They analyzed police reports, but they did not show the full extent of the solidarity of the marines and a company of the 1st Sailor Division with the movement. The leading officers continued to rate their units as essentially reliable. They informed Souchon and it was decided not to use any outside infantry.
Sunday 3rd November
On Sunday at 9:30 am, the commandant of the "Margrave" arrested another 57 crew members. City commander Heine ordered units of the sea battalion to bring the arrested persons to Fort Herwarth. The detainees initially refused this prisoner transport and only carried it out after being persuaded for a long time. At the same time, the top representatives of the navy in Kiel decided to call a city alarm in the afternoon in order to prevent the planned meeting on the large parade ground. They also sent out more patrols. Because city commander Wilhelm Heine again kept silent about the sea battalion's refusal to give orders and other commanders maintained the loyalty of their units, the gathering was not aware of the seriousness of the situation. In a telex to the Reichsmarineamt and the naval leadership, Souchon indirectly criticized the fact that the III. Squadron sent to Kiel and refused to withdraw for days. He described the situation as "extremely dangerous" and asked for an "excellent social democratic representative to be sent here to speak in terms of avoiding revolution and revolt."
At a meeting of more than 5,000 people in the union building at 12:00 noon, the SPD Reichstag member Heinrich Stubbe accused the Pan-Germans of wanting to continue the war until Germany was completely destroyed. He indirectly called a strike. USPD members distributed their handouts and verbally invited to the meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
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At 3:30 p.m. Heine set off the city alarm. Trumpeters and drummers marched through the streets urging all military personnel to return to their ships and barracks. But many ignored the order. Some did not know what to do with the signal; It was only because of this that others became aware of the planned meeting. Around 5:30 p.m., around 5,000 to 6,000 soldiers and workers had gathered in the Vieburger wood. Several speakers appeared, including the Kiel trade union leader Gustav Garbe and Karl Artelt. Garbe advocated waiting a few more days before the prisoners were released, but was not heard. The crowd moved to the "Waldwiese" bar, where a company of the 1st Sailor Division was housed. Members of this unit had refused to give orders the day before. Between 6:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., the crowd stormed the building from all sides, freed prisoners and captured weapons. In view of the overwhelming power and the unreliability of his men, the commanding officer waived orders to shoot. Detainees were released, weapons captured and taken away.
A barely manageable march of demonstrators moved on to the city center in the dark, where they probably met the governor's security forces. Popp and Artelt later reported that they had met a chain of sentries at the Hummelwiese (about 300 meters from the train station) and easily overrun them. At the train station a NCO patrol was met and disarmed. The latter is confirmed by a contemporary report in the Kieler Zeitung. According to a police report at the time, the patrol is said to have marched on “loyal to the king”. At the train station, the 57-year-old nurse Maria Schneider came under a tram in a crowd and died. The protesters moved on through the city center. The German Workers' Marseillaise was sung, the International and the Republic were celebrated. Shouts “Away with the Kaiser!” Aroused great approval. Finally the demonstrators marched up Brunswiker Strasse. When they turned onto Karlstrasse to get from there to Feldstrasse, they encountered serious resistance.
The following course of events has not been conclusively clarified, but is considered likely on the basis of all available documents: At 7 p.m., the demonstrators met a chain of a few police officers in Karlstrasse shortly after the intersection with Brunswiker Strasse, who after a brief scuffle into the street Long blessings fled. Shortly behind it stood another chain of posts, presumably armed with rifles, of 30 recruits and NCOs. The commanding officer Oskar Steinhäuser (I. Torpedo Division) warned the demonstrators to stay behind. However, when these advanced, he gave the order to fire. Contrary to Steimhäuser's expectations, the soldiers mainly shot in the air, but hit a demonstrator in the arm. Steinhäuser was knocked down from behind, possibly by one of his NCOs, but was able to get up again. The protesters advanced again. After another order to fire, the recruits shot directly into the crowd in a panic and fled. The demonstrators also backed away at first, but soon advanced again. Some knocked stone houses down again, and a pistol shot hit him in the chest. The policeman Gittel and the lieutenant at sea Karl Weiss came to his aid. White received a pistol shot in the head. All three continued to be ill-treated until a nurse intervened. Thereupon demonstrators took the injured opponents to other dead and injured in the establishment "Hope" a few steps away. A fire engine drove through the demonstration at high speed and blew the crowd apart. As some demonstrators rallied, a unit from the deck officers' school appeared and shot their feet and legs. Shortly afterwards, a unit of the Marine Battalion came, whose commander ordered the weapons to be loaded. Thereupon the remaining demonstrators finally dispersed. For the rest of the night, despite reports of gunfire, no further arguments became known. With this clash, the Kiel sailors and workers' uprising began. Seven men died, two more later from their serious injuries. 31 injured were put on record in hospital books; further undocumented injuries are considered likely. Steinhäuser, Weiß and Gittel were released cured after a long hospital stay.
Souchon and Küsel followed the events in the naval station of the Baltic Sea. After the storm of the "Waldwiese" they withdrew the management of the measures from the Kiel police chief Walter von Brüning and handed them over to the city commander Heine. At around 7 p.m. they called the IX. Reserve Army Corps in Altona, headquarters of the neighboring military district. After the demonstration broke up, they withdrew the demand, believing they were in control of the situation again. They did not find out that one of his NCOs had knocked down stone houses and the recruits had fled in a panic. In addition, Kraft had meanwhile agreed to the III. Squadron to withdraw from Kiel the next morning. In addition, various ships entered the fjord, including the II. Torpedo Boat Flotilla. On the torpedo boats and submarines there was often a better relationship between officers and men. Souchon requisitioned the units for the protection of the detention center, the station building and the officers' mess. He had the USPD office searched and ordered people found there to be arrested. The action was fruitless. In another telex, Souchon stated that it was necessary to relieve Kiel. Correspondingly, Altona had assured itself that infantry would be kept ready in the neighboring district, such as in Lübeck, Neumünster and Rendsburg, in the event that the situation worsened again. On the other hand, Souchon wrote that he was confident that he would be able to control the situation.
Monday 4th November
But already in the night at 2:00 a.m. there was unrest among the navy members in the shipyards. From 4:00 a.m. onwards, there were reports of unrest in various troop accommodation. The garrison was therefore put on alert early in the morning and the government renewed the requirement for infantry, while retaining supreme command over the units to be deployed. But although, according to Küsel, the promise had been made to keep units ready, only the Rendsburg infantry reached Kiel at a time when there was still a certain chance of a successful intervention.
In the course of the morning the unrest had spread. At 10 o'clock the workers of the Germania shipyard in Gaarden and the torpedo workshop in Friedrichsort went on strike. The naval leadership managed to enforce arrests and have those arrested brought to the military prison in the Wik. But this also escalated the events in the large barracks in this district in the north of Kiel. The members of the I. Torpedo Division wanted to leave the barracks at 3 p.m. and demonstrate. The detention center guard was strengthened, parts of the neighboring I. Shipyard Division and the submarine division were armed. The commander of the torpedo division lined up and warned his subordinates that they had to obey. But that increased the excitement. The navy members demonstrated through the barracks area. The officers withdrew, the detention center guard was withdrawn, and later the I. Shipyard Division and the U-Boat Division also joined. The insurgents armed themselves, presented their demands to the commandant and elected soldiers' councils. The demands were:
- Abdication of the Hohenzollern House.
- The lifting of the state of siege.
- Release of our disciplined comrades from 3rd Squadron.
- Release of all comrades in the prison in Celle [in the original "cell"] from the sailors' uprising in 1917.
- Release of all political prisoners.
- Introduction of universal, equal and secret suffrage for both sexes.
The soldiers' councils established themselves as direct organs of power for the soldiers instead of the officers. Karl Artelt became the first chairman.
The Rendsburg infantry was still a few kilometers away from the barracks. The 180 men came too late. They would have had no chance against the armed insurgents, who have now grown to several thousand men. At 1:45 p.m. City Commandant Heine found that the means of power still available were completely inadequate in relation to the insurgents, who were constantly gaining popularity. Shortly after 2 p.m. Souchon decided to negotiate. He banned the use of firearms and had a delegation from the Wik come to the naval station. Artelt and other members of the soldiers' council drove to the governor with a large red flag on their car.
At this point the III. Squadron Kiel; without the KING lying in the dock. In the morning Souchon had asked Kraft again urgently to withdraw the ships. But although Kraft had already promised, vacation was still granted and the boilers first had to be heated. So the departure was delayed again. About a thousand men stayed ashore. The sailors on the ships refused to let go of the lines. Ensigns and deck officers had to do that. The squadron went to Travemünde, where it stayed until November 9th. On the return voyage to Kiel, the officers were no longer allowed to lead the ships; the command was now the soldiers' councils.
Souchon assured the delegation from the Wik that no further troops would be drawn in from outside and the units on the way would be sent back. He also agreed to the arrested from the III. Release squadron. On the way back to the Wik, Artelt met the Rendsburg infantry, gave a speech and implored them not to shoot comrades. The troops then withdrew towards the city center, probably also because they had received the order to withdraw. The delegation announced the results in the Wik. A huge demonstration started to witness the imminent release and to hold a large gathering on Wilhelmplatz.
At 5 p.m. another round of negotiations took place in the station. Souchon had invited representatives of the labor movement who were attending a large meeting in the union building. Popp and Classen for the USPD, Rausch und Poller for the MSPD and again representatives of the sailors, including Karl Artelt, came to the station and presented their demands. Souchon declared himself ready to make these demands known to all units. Furthermore, a new round of negotiations was scheduled, in which the delegates expected from Berlin were to take part. It was about Conrad Haussmann as a representative of the government and Gustav Noske as a representative of the SPD leadership.
Then Karl Artelt and the judge-martial Eichheim went to the nearby military detention center on Feldstrasse and together let the arrested III. Squadron free. They were greeted enthusiastically by the naval members from the Wik who had meanwhile arrived there. Then they moved on to Wilhelmplatz. Artelt picked Noske up at 7:30 p.m. from the train station, where he was also greeted enthusiastically by a large crowd, and took him to Wilhelmplatz. There Noske gave a short speech calling for order to be kept. Shortly thereafter, a shot was fired, the crowd quickly dispersed, and a general shooting began. But it was apparently just a shot of joy.
The third round of negotiations in the governorate took place at 9 p.m. A protocol from the Kiel naval authorities and a summary by Popp and Artelt are available for this; the latter was drafted in December 1918. The entire military leadership in Kiel sat across from the leaders of the sailors and labor movement. Haussmann and Noske were also present. The military no longer had any means of power. They had to confirm again that all military units sent from abroad would be withdrawn. The infantry unit from Neumünster, housed in the basement of the naval station, had shown solidarity with the rebels, according to current records from Vice Admiral Wurmbach and Lothar Popps. Noske and Haussmann promised to forward the demands that could not be clarified in Kiel to Berlin. Lothar Popp concluded after a later statement: “You always talk about a sailor revolt. It was maybe yesterday and the day before yesterday, but not today. We are now at the beginning of the German revolution. "
Souchon's behavior
In addition to the aforementioned unit from Rendsburg, other infantrymen came to Kiel, but they arrived much later. A unit of 16 officers and 420 men, equipped with machine guns and mortars, reached the Kiel train station at around 3 p.m. when Souchon had already withdrawn all military measures against the rebels. The commanding officer, Captain Erich Trowitz, left a small group behind to protect the station and then moved to the naval remnants facility, but was moved a little later to the secondary school in Waitzstrasse, where the group from Rendsburg soon arrived. Later, Lieutenant Colonel v. Raven, who should have commanded the measures in Kiel in cooperation with two naval officers made available by the governor. As mentioned above, a hundred men from Neumünster were relocated to the local cellar under Lieutenant Otto von Trotta, called Treyden, to protect the nearby station. Units from Lübeck and Schleswig did not appear in Kiel until the evening and handed in their weapons in or in front of the train station and then drove back for the most part.
Trowitz claimed in an article that was to be published in 1936, but which had to be crushed at the request of Reich War Minister Werner von Blomberg , that he could easily have put down the uprising at the time if Souchon had not forbidden him from using armed force. In 1978 Ernst-Heinrich Schmidt renewed this thesis in his dissertation, relying largely on Trowitz, without a critical evaluation of this source becoming clear in his work. However, Trowitz's claim that his troops had carried out an order to shoot the insurgents must be regarded as implausible due to a large number of circumstantial evidence and due to the extensive demoralization of the troops at the time. It is similar with the claim that a massive outside intervention could have put down the uprising.
According to Dähnhardt , the shots in Karlstrasse had shown that the long-standing, deep-seated dissatisfaction could no longer be suppressed with violence and that this violence increased the solidarity process among the sailors among one another and with the Kiel workers. Souchon in Kiel would have faced almost impossible tasks. He had to rely on his subordinates, who were far too optimistic about the situation or who did not have the courage to admit their own failures. On the other hand, the uprising spread so quickly that the officers gave up. Souchon demonstrated a sense of responsibility, however, because the reckless use of force could no longer have suppressed the uprising, but would have evoked chaos with unforeseeable consequences. Wette and Rackwitz also judge similarly .
On the evening of November 4th, Kiel was firmly in the hands of the insurgents. Soldiers' councils were formed everywhere. A meeting of shop stewards decided to go on a general strike the following day.
Tuesday 5th November
Several armed clashes took place on the night of November 4th and 5th. Sailors, for example, set fire to the Hansa Hotel and a truck in the Ringstrasse because they had the impression that they were being shot at by officers. In addition to further shootings at the shipyard, there was an "insane shooting" at the midshipman's training ship SMS Alsace .
Rumors kept coming up that the Wandsbeck Hussars were on their way. For defense, units were formed and a warship was moved into the Hörn. Lothar Popp took the governor hostage and arrested him in the train station. When the rumors turned out to be false, Souchon was taken back to his hotel.
At around 7:30 a.m., the ships set the red flag in the port of Kiel. This led to disputes on some ships and the escape of SMS Silesia, as well as a torpedo boat and a submarine. On the battleship SMS König lying in the dock , the commander had set the war flag earlier. He ordered two officers to defend the flag. In a lengthy exchange of fire, she and the commander himself were seriously wounded; after that the red flag was set here too. One sailor and the officers died, the commander survived.
These events show that leading groups of the insurgents capable of acting had formed. The soldiers' councils arose spontaneously and in many cases were probably simply elected on call. A large number of delegations had been sitting together in the great hall of the trade union house since November 4, starting at 1 p.m., trying to formulate the movement's goals and program, build structures and coordinate the actions. When the news of the arming of the insurgents and probably also of the formation of the councils in the Wik arrived, it met with enthusiasm among those present. This should have contributed to a further consolidation of the structures. So Popp reported when he returned from the negotiations with the governor to the trade union building early in the morning of November 5th, “... we quickly succeeded in creating a certain division and a certain command. The soldiers' council had settled in some of the rooms and offices and began its work immediately. ”Nikolaus Goßrau began setting up a security service on behalf of the councils.
Two hours after the above-mentioned sailors' meeting, stewards and shop stewards met in the same room in the union building and decided to go on a general strike in support of the movement. A workers' council was also formed in the early morning at around 5 a.m. It essentially consisted of representatives from both social democratic parties, union officials and shop stewards. Chairman of the workers' council was the chairman of the Kiel trade union cartel Gustav Garbe .
The 14 Kiel points
Representatives of the members of the Navy and the workers probably also agreed on the 14 Kiel points in the early morning of November 5th , which were then adopted by many other councils throughout Germany in the next few days:
- Release of all prisoners and political prisoners.
- Complete freedom of speech and press.
- Lifting of the letter censorship.
- Appropriate treatment of the teams by superiors.
- All comrades on board and in the barracks returned with impunity.
- The exit of the fleet must be avoided under all circumstances.
- Any protective measures involving bloodshed must be avoided.
- Withdrawal of all troops not belonging to the garrison.
- All measures to protect private property are immediately determined by the soldiers' council.
- There are no longer any superiors out of service.
- Every man has unlimited personal freedom from the end of his service to the start of his next service.
- We greet officers who agree to the measures of the soldiers' council that is now in existence. Everything else has to quit the service without entitlement to supply.
- Every member of the soldiers' council is to be released from any service.
- All measures to be taken in the future are only to be taken with the consent of the Soldiers' Council.
The catalog described the measures to be taken immediately and cemented the decisive role of the soldiers' council in Kiel. However, he renounced a longer-term political program and initially relied on the continued work of the existing institutions. Only in point 12 approaches for a deeper military reform were indicated, in that only those officers should be accepted who were recognized by the men. With this catalog, according to Kollex, it was possible to create unity and thus secure power. Dähnhardt attributed the lack of foresight, among other things, to the heterogeneous composition of the committees - so there was in III. Squadrons have a strong tendency to come to terms with the government. He sees political shortsightedness as one of the main reasons why the soldiers' councils could be dissolved again after about six months.
In Kiel, the insurgents created facts and took weapons, sabers, cockades and insignia from the officers. Around 10 o'clock the workers' council appointed councilors for the civil institutions, to whom all important processes had to be presented and who could intervene in the decisions. In many cases, politically experienced city councilors were resorted to, who had previously been denied access to full-time positions by the undemocratic census suffrage . The nutrition office was taken over directly. The red flag was also set on the town hall.
At around 1 p.m., another large meeting was held on Wilhelmplatz. I.a. Popp and Noske gave speeches, which were only canceled for a short time because of the bad weather. Noske explained that it needed tight leadership, and he offered that he could take care of the movement. He was then elected provisional chairman of the soldiers' council. In his justification from Kiel to Kapp, published in 1920, Noske claimed that despite an intensive search he had not been able to find leadership in the movement that morning, and that Artelt or Garbe had therefore suggested that he take over this leadership himself for the time being. The fact that he was unable to find guidance seems implausible, because he writes himself that he found discussion groups in a dozen rooms in the union building. These were probably the associations of delegations and councils mentioned by Popp that had organized the defense of the city and the security service. Presumably Noske had preferred the administrative details, such as paying wages and transporting food. This would explain the courtesy of the USPD members Artelt and Popp, who had nothing against Noske taking these things in hand, but who did not allow political decisions to be made, unless a comparable political heavyweight from the USPD from Berlin, such as Haase or Ledebour , had arrived. The poster published by the soldiers' council the following day also described more organizational issues and was signed by both Noske and Artelt. Noske then had an office set up in the naval station, from where these things were probably easier to do and where Artelt also often stayed.
At this point, shortly after 1 p.m., an intense shooting began in large parts of the city, which lasted until around 3 p.m. The sailors had the impression that officers were shooting at them, especially from windows on higher floors. So far, there is little and uncertain evidence of this. On the other hand, there are also few but well-investigated cases in which the innocence of the accused was found. There were 10 dead and at least 21 injured from gunshot wounds.
Presumably during this time, inmates of the prison on the Ringstrasse were freed after using machine guns. On November 3rd, some inmates from the detention center were also moved here. In the late evening hours of November 5th, the city commandant, Captain z. S. Heine, shot dead by a patrol in his apartment when he resisted the intended arrest. The military police chief von Brüning, who was also the chief of police (he had replaced his predecessor von Schrötter in May 1918), had already escaped arrest by fleeing to Rügen. A red flag was now also waving at Kiel Castle, in the evening Prince Heinrich of Hohenzollern , the brother of Kaiser Wilhelm, who resided there, fled to his estate north of Eckernförde, camouflaged with a red flag on his car. A sailor who wanted to ride on the step to Eckernförde was killed.
Supraregional planning to put down the uprising
Haussmann returned to Berlin in the early evening. In the cabinet he stood up for the demands of the sailors and emphasized that the matter could only be held by the Social Democrats and the trade unions. The State Secretary of the Reichsmarineamt, Ritter v. Mann and Commander-in-Chief Schëuch, on the other hand, spoke out in favor of the toughest measures and locking down Kiel in order to set an example. The decision was postponed. In the evening Noske phoned Vice Chancellor v. Payer: The 40,000 men in Kiel could not be overwhelmed and the attempt would make any communication impossible. In another conversation with Ritter v. Mann repeated Noske's demands for amnesty for the sailors and for the emperor to resign or abdicate.
The Naval Warfare Command (SKL) did not wait for the cabinet's decision and sent a telegram to the command of the high seas, in which they ostensibly in agreement with the government ordered: All resistance must be broken immediately, the IX. Army corps should cordon off Kiel on land and the high seas command on the seaside. The head of SKL Scheer suggested to the emperor that Admiral v. Schröder should replace the Kiel governor Souchon and be transferred to Kiel at the head of a brigade. The emperor agreed and issued the relevant orders without consulting the government.
The next day the Cabinet accepted Haussmann's proposal unanimously and also decidedly rejected Schröder's assignment to Kiel. The SKL, however, defied the government again and confirmed the previous day's orders. But in the end Scheer also recommended that the emperor withdraw the order, since it had become clear to all those involved that there were no longer sufficient troops available.
Wednesday November 6th
With the measures decided on the previous afternoon and then published - including that only the patrols authorized by the soldiers' council were allowed to patrol armed - the situation in Kiel calmed down noticeably. The banks and the first shops opened again.
But there was a certain resignation. There was no news of the hoped-for expansion of the movement, apart from Eckernförde, Lübeck and Brunsbüttel. Noske wanted to take advantage of this. He first tried to prepare the atmosphere in his immediate vicinity to get the sailors to break off the uprising. In the afternoon there was a large mass gathering of about a thousand sailors, in which representatives of the workers also took part, in the "Schloßhof", today's metro-cinema . Noske gave his carefully prepared speech and described the great difficulties the movement was facing. The acquisition of food and money creates big problems. At the time, Kiel was isolated and rail traffic was suspended. Then he announced what the government would offer if the uprising stopped:
- Impunity for everyone involved in the movement.
- Amnesty for those convicted of moving in the fleet last year.
- Accelerated achievement of the armistice.
- Accelerating the question of abdication.
- Further reforms and democratization of the state.
The chairman of the workers' council Garbe (MSPD) and Popp (USPD) spoke against it and stated that there was still time to wait and that, on the contrary, an attempt should be made to expand the movement. The editor of the Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung Bernhard Rausch (MSPD) also argued against it: The movement should “never be dismantled in the sense that something would be given up that was politically achievable through it.” In the Schleswig report -Holsteinische Volkszeitung about the assembly this was explained in more detail: “The current fateful political situation dictates that the power relations that have arisen be fully exploited for the political and social progress of the German Reich. What has been achieved in the glorious onslaught has to be permanently attached. "
The planned naval advance had made it clear how weak democracy was. Neither Haussmann nor Noske had shown any serious efforts to hold the naval leadership accountable during the negotiations on November 4th. On the contrary: the SKL and KdH had the operational orders destroyed, they denied any intention to attack and the government brought out a leaflet in which they untruthfully disseminated that the officers of the navy were obeying the government. This leaflet was also discussed at the November 4th hearing. The crews stood there as conscientious objectors.
Noske's appearance in Kiel had been interpreted by the insurgents as support. His speech made it clear to those gathered that the government was distancing itself from them. According to Popp's statements, the offer was unanimously rejected. If the offer had been accepted, the navy would have had to submit to the officers again. So they kept the option open to permanently disempower the military aristocracy.
Noske, however, claimed in his memoirs that the meeting had ended in chaos. The above-mentioned report by the Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung explained that, on the contrary, the assembly had passed some important resolutions, including the fact that Lothar Popp was elected chairman of the soldiers' council with equal rights, because the hoped-for arrival of a high-ranking USPD member from Berlin is still on let wait.
Nevertheless, Rausch also indicated that the meeting was chaotic at times. This was apparently related to a lack of legitimation of the participants. Popp then organized elections for shop stewards in all units overnight or the next day, who then elected a “Great Soldiers Council”, which in turn elected the “Supreme Soldiers Council” as an action committee.
Thursday November 7th
Conditions in Kiel continued to normalize. The trams were running again and the first small trains started running. News of the rapid spread of the revolution also arrived.
Noske came to the conviction that now "it was no longer necessary to wash the hand, it was a matter of taking the reins firmly in hand." In a small group he agreed with several MSPD leaders in Kiel that the workers' council should be proclaimed the provisional government of Schleswig -Holsteins. He resisted the proclamation of the republic, which was also desired. At the meeting of the Great Soldiers' Council that afternoon, it should be suggested that Noske should take over the governorship. The meeting, attended by around 800 elected representatives of the naval units, began at 3 p.m. According to a previous agreement, Lothar Popp suggested that Noske should replace Governor Souchon so that the administrative apparatus could finally get moving. Noske was elected unanimously. Then the assembly elected the Supreme Soldiers' Council (OSR) and this particular Lothar Popp as sole chairman. The OSR, to which Artelt also belonged, then sent a shop steward to all important military posts. These were mostly sergeants.
Noske informed Souchon, who left his post without resistance. The other officers were again asked by Noske to remain at their posts. The government in Berlin and the RMA confirmed Noske as the new governor.
While Popp saw the governor as the executive body of the soldiers 'council, with which it could "get the administrative apparatus in motion", Noske himself saw the soldiers' council more as a control body. In his first order of the day, which he drafted together with the OSR on the same evening, it said: “I have [...] been elected governor [...]. At my side is the 'Supreme Soldiers' Council of the Command Area of the Baltic Sea Station'. ”The day before, his attempt to break off the uprising had failed, but now he had been able to persuade the rebels to share their revolutionary position of power with an official government institution. Wette saw it as "an attempt to shift power back from a revolutionary body to a traditional authority." Dähnhardt explained that the councils did not oppose this development by saying that Noske gave them the feeling that they were the officers they feared an armed counter-attack to have control.
It could also have played an important role that Noske was already 50 years old when he came to Kiel, that he had made a name for himself as an opposition politician in the military sector, that he could speak convincingly, was an imposing figure, and overall exuded great authority. Popp and Artelt, on the other hand, were still relatively young (31 and 28 years old, respectively) and little experienced politically. They had hoped to get support from the USPD leadership in Berlin, and on that day the former SPD and current USPD chairman Hugo Haase actually appeared in Kiel. He had not been able to reach Kiel earlier because of the difficulties in rail traffic or because a telegram was withheld. At 6 p.m. Haase, Noske and Popp met for a conversation. Popp summarized this as follows: "... a completely uniform view of the position on the revolution was brought about." Even Haase did not turn out to be a counterweight to Noske, Kuhl judges.
The call drawn up that morning was also distributed at 6 p.m. It was signed by both the Workers 'and Soldiers' Councils and began with the sentence: "Political power is in our hands." It was asked to form councils everywhere, to work with the existing authorities, to support the new people's government and one to establish a free, social people's republic.
Friday November 8th
The police were not seen for several days. Now she was able to resume work under the supervision of the councilors Wilhelm Schweizer (USPD) and Friedrich Brodthuhn (MSPD), a further step towards normalization.
The revolution had meanwhile also reached the important centers of the German Empire, such as Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover and Cologne. On November 7th, Kurt Eisner in Bavaria proclaimed the republic as a free state . On November 8th, the revolution reached Frankfurt am Main and the Ruhr area. Kiel sailors often played a central role in this. With the successful uprising, an unregulated departure of the navy from Kiel had begun. Since the rail traffic was interrupted, they partly walked to Neumünster for the first few days. Some of the sailors traveled home, some left Kiel to carry on the revolution and thus secure Kiel's successes. This was reinforced by the vacation regulation enacted in the first government day order from the previous day. After that, the military authorities could independently issue garrison leave.
With this expansion of the revolution by the sailors, a typical pattern emerged: They mostly came by train, disarmed officers, marched with red flags to the local barracks, which soldiers usually joined. You passed factories, most of whose employees also joined. Everywhere the navy met people ready for revolution. Together they marched on into the city center, where important administrative centers were occupied, political prisoners were released and councils were elected.
Workers' councils also took command in the factories. A shipyard committee was formed at the Imperial Shipyard. Something similar happened at the Germania shipyard. The general strike ended on November 13th.
In the evening, representatives of the soldiers' council and officers met in Kiel to discuss the future relationship. No agreement was reached and it was decided to meet again the next day.
Saturday, November 9th
The III. Squadron came back from Travemünde and raised the red flag when entering the Kiel Fjord. The naval officers were not allowed to take part in the command of the ship. The development had plunged them into deep despair. But the command of the squadron to be ready for a possible change in the situation, as well as a speech by Noske after their arrival in Kiel, induced many officers to sign an undertaking not to take action against the soldiers' council and to submit to it.
In the morning the referee and officers' representatives met for renewed negotiations. A written compromise was agreed. This stipulated that those officers who submitted to the soldiers' council were allowed to remain in office. However, if they were to exercise command, they had to have the trust of their subordinates. Officers rejected by the crews had to be available in the station. The great majority of the officers agreed to it, although the announcement that the emperor had released them from their oath may have played an important role. However, a new start in terms of personnel was off the table.
Around noon, representatives of the workers' council appeared at the head of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, Friedrich von Moltke , who resided in Kiel at Schwanenweg 24, and informed him that he was now to work under the supervision of the new provisional government. For this purpose, the MSPD district party secretary Heinrich Kürbis was assigned as an alderman. Moltke agreed to do this and also instructed the levels subordinate to him, such as the district president in Schleswig, accordingly.
In a later review, the chairman of the People's Council in Schleswig-Holstein, as the provisional government later called himself, Peter Hillbrecht, saw a major omission in the area of justice: If the judiciary had also been appointed as an alderman at that time, “an infinite amount of reactionary efforts would have been withheld been. "
In Berlin, too, the Kiel sailors, of whom the first troops arrived on November 6th, played the role of a catalyst. On November 9th, the revolution in the capital was successful. Under the pressure of events, Chancellor Max von Baden announced the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II , whose resignation from the throne had been demanded by the SPD leadership. Then he handed over the business of government to the SPD chairman Friedrich Ebert . Philipp Scheidemann then proclaimed the first German Republic from the balcony of the Reichstag , while Karl Liebknecht proclaimed the Free Socialist Republic at the City Palace. The following day the Council of People's Representatives from the MSPD and USPD took over the business of government.
Kiel lost its pioneering role and Berlin moved into the focus of further development.
Sunday November 10th and Monday November 11th
The civilian victims were buried on November 10th in the Eichhof park cemetery with great sympathy from the population . Garbe and Popp gave the funeral orations. The members of the military were buried in the north cemetery one day later . Here Noske gave the funeral oration.
The armistice was signed on November 11th .
Approaches to military reform
The authors of the 14 Kiel Points assumed that a larger proportion of the officers would quit their duties. A few pointers speak for this:
- In the previous months there were frequent attacks in left-wing statements - also in the Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung - against high-ranking officers. So it was said z. B. these are all pan-German . This also applied to many naval officers.
- The naval officers fell into despair and resigned themselves when the intentions of the soldiers' councils became known to them.
- The concept of the people's armed forces , which was presented and explained both by the Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung editor Rausch and by the Kiel USPD organ “Republic”, was aimed at a democratically and republican-oriented officer corps, in pursuit of an old SPD program that teams would enjoy.
The naval command and Noske ensured, with reference to the indispensable expertise, that the great majority of the officers remained in service. The councils accepted it. The demobilization of the men gave the officers more and more influence.
When the Supreme Soldiers' Council made a new attempt at reform at the end of December and, despite Noske's resistance, built up a revolutionary security force, the Iron Brigade formed as a counterweight. This was under the hidden influence of the officers, who were initially not allowed to belong to the unit. Only a little later, with Noske's knowledge, the first reactionary volunteer corps was set up by Corvette Captain Wilfried von Loewenfeld . On November 8th, Loewenfeld had the III. Squadron must leave.
Lothar Popp resigned as chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council on December 10, his successor Karl Artelt on January 5, 1919. He was first followed by Hartig, then on January 16 by Franz Riefstahl, deck officer and member of the MSPD.
After all, the influence of the soldiers' councils had been pushed back to such an extent that Noske could abolish them. He brushed aside the protests of the councils by claiming that, as the Social Democratic Reichswehr Minister, he ensured control of the officers. This should turn out to be wrong at the latest with the Kapp Putsch . Wette ruled in 1988: Noske had nipped in the bud the exemplary testing of a future-oriented republican reform program, which could have been tested in Kiel. The Weimar Republic lacked an important stabilizing factor.
reception
Judgments by historians
In view of the course set in Kiel that was so important for the development of the Weimar Republic, the question has been discussed whether Noske and the SPD leadership could have acted differently.
In the 1980s, Karl Dietrich Erdmann still advocated the thesis that the SPD leadership had to rely on the old officer corps because of the danger of a council dictatorship and the lack of militancy of the social democratic masses. However, this thesis was disputed after a more detailed analysis: MSPD members were involved in prominent positions in the formation of the councils in Kiel: Erich Thümmel, together with Karl Artelt, called for the election of the first soldiers' council in the Wik. The later chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council, Franz Riefstahl, was a member of the MSPD. Gustav Garbe , the chairman of the workers' council, was even temporarily chairman of the MSPD in Kiel. The USPD in Kiel was not against the National Assembly either, but felt itself run over by the MSPD because of the early appointment. The USPD had been persecuted intensely and was not able to publish its own newspaper until December, through which it could make its views available to a wider public. She felt that she was clearly disadvantaged in the elections compared to the other parties.
Accordingly, Rackwitz came to the conclusion that there was no danger of a council dictatorship in Kiel and that Noske himself claimed that if he had wanted, he could have recruited a large number of devoted fighters in Kiel.
Some more recent publications also characterize the scope of action of the actors at the time as very limited: A more consistent approach against the power elites of the empire would not have been possible or would have allowed counter-revolutionary forces to gain even more strength than they already had. Wirsching justified this with an "uncontrollable complexity" and a "legitimation deficit", while Stalmann cited the "power of social and mental basic tendencies".
However, it is argued that Max von Baden's government was unable or unwilling to suspend the naval leadership until the serious allegations were clarified. Such a step might have saved the situation. The government thus proved to be too weak to implement the urgent fundamental social reforms (in particular the abolition of militarism). The rebels in Kiel refused to return to the old conditions. Revolutionary law thus prevailed . The legitimacy of this right was hardly disputed in Kiel:
- Drastic remarks by the Germania shipyard engineer Andersen in his diary about high officers indicate that larger parts of the bourgeoisie in Kiel welcomed radical reforms of the military system at the time.
- The liberal bourgeois city councilor Otto Ruer said at an SPD event at the National Assembly in the Kiel trade union building, at which Noske portrayed the USPD as dictatorial: "... the enemy you are looking for inside is not on the left, but on the right."
- Already on October 30, 1918, the loyal Kieler Neue Nachrichten wrote in a surprising twist that one had to end with the past, "so that change could be created as quickly as possible and work on the new structure started."
- In an analysis published in 1976, Peter von Oertzen saw indications that the bourgeoisie would have been prepared to go far with the SPD. This would have given the party leadership the opportunity to enforce significantly more.
However, after a brief phase of resignation, a clear radicalization can be observed among the naval officers. However, it is doubtful whether this radicalization would have intensified through further reforms, such as the democratization of the military. It was well advanced anyway. However, there are indications for the opposite thesis: A self-critical reappraisal of the past met with great resistance under the group pressure of the old naval networks and command structures. Critical minds had a difficult time. Instead of an honest reappraisal, one sought the blame with individual "scapegoats" (especially with Souchon). Perhaps this could have been avoided by a careful selection of democratically oriented officers and their political support. The sorted out former officers would have had the opportunity in their respective new environment to deal with their own mistakes without direct peer pressure. With the support of politics, a strong democratically oriented group within the naval officers could perhaps also have built up pressure to adapt.
Another factor that has restricted the freedom of action of the revolutionaries and the SPD leadership is the “uncontrollable complexity”. This includes in particular the postulated indispensable expertise of the naval officers for the conversion and transfer of the warships to the Allies. This is given by Rausch as an argument and assumed by Dähnhardt and Rackwitz as given, without this thesis having been examined in more detail. Kuhl, on the other hand, puts a question mark here and leads the transfer of III. Squadron from Travemünde to Kiel, which would have functioned without any problems without sea officers. Engineer officers, deck officers, NCOs and crews would have been able to maneuver a ship.
With regard to the last-mentioned point: “the power of social and mental basic tendencies”, the question must be asked whether Noske would have wanted to push through further reforms at all, even if he had not been prevented from doing so by the circumstances and his fear of chaotic conditions.
It is argued that Noske consistently opposed efforts to bring democratically or even critically-minded officers into important positions. He himself wrote in 1920: "... the behavior of the victors [has] shown how justified the war policy of the majority social democracy was, [...] as long as [...] the opponents rejected the honorable peace, we urged our people to use all our strengths to to ward off defeat and a dictated peace [...]. ”And later it was said: Germany had to“ regain a certain degree of defensibility as quickly as possible ”. Social democratic ideas could only be implemented after a peace "that the people could bear". Kuhl therefore sees the urgent task of Noske to maintain the military strength of the German Reich. He saw an exchange of parts of the officer corps as a weakening of this combat strength and therefore resisted it by all means. He sat out protests by the Social Democrat-oriented officers who began to organize in the Republican Leader Association until his naval chief von Trotha supported the putsch against the government in March 1920 and Noske had to resign as Reichswehr Minister.
Wette, Rackwitz and Kuhl see extensive design options for Noske in Kiel, but Noske would have refused to use them.
Initially, the events in the Kiel workforce, but also in larger parts of the bourgeoisie, were perceived positively, as the great sympathy at the funeral of the revolutionary victims showed. But the stab in the back legend in particular soon led to a distancing. It was not until the 1970s that the scientific processing of the events commissioned by the then museum and archive director Jürgen Jensen brought about a significant change. Dirk Dähnhardt presented an analysis that was published in 1978 under the title “Revolution in Kiel”. The careful work meant that the events could be viewed without ideological blinkers. Gradually, a positive perception of the uprising took hold. Martin Rackwitz summarized this in 2018 as follows: The events in Kiel were “a justified refusal to give orders and rebellion that saved the lives of tens of thousands of sailors and soldiers. This revolt against the military authorities required a great deal of courage. The sailors and workers from Kiel were the first to have this courage and thus pointed the way to a new era, something the city can be proud of. "
Commemoration in Kiel
In 1982 the monument “WIK - Fire from the Kettles” by the artist Hans-Jürgen Breuste was erected in the Ratsdienergarten to commemorate the sailors' uprising. At the trade union building in Legienstrasse , a plaque indicates the workers 'and soldiers' councils, some of which had their offices there. In the field road a plaque marks the place where the imperial patrol shot on November 3, 1918 the demonstrators. The victims of the sailors 'and workers' uprising are buried in the Eichhof park cemetery , where there is a memorial, and the north cemetery. At the Iltis bunker in Kiel, a painting on the revolution was created in 1989 as part of a job creation scheme under the direction of the artist Shahin Charmi . In November 2016 the boat harbor bridge of the Segler-Vereinigung Kiel (SVK) was named after Gustav Garbe. As early as 1930, the Free Gymnastics Association for Water Sports dedicated the bridge it had built with its own resources. This was reversed by the Nazis when they expropriated the workers' association. The Kiel Maritime Museum has a permanent section on this topic as well as special exhibitions. On November 7th, 2009 a memorial march took place, which was organized by the city of Kiel. On June 17, 2011 the station forecourt was renamed “Platz der Kieler Sailors” by the then mayor Torsten Albig . In 2018, a so-called 0 euro note was issued on which various historical motifs of the events are shown.
Various institutions offer guided city tours on the topic. In 2009, a virtual city tour was set up, which is available in German and English. The city of Kiel has also been offering a virtual city tour since 2017.
Polecat bunker 2013
Hans-Jürgen Breustes sculpture "WIK - Fire from the Boilers" has been a reminder of the Kiel sailors 'uprising in the council servants' garden since 1982
Memorial plaque on the Kiel trade union building in Legienstrasse
Stele at the place of the Kiel sailors
Infostele in front of the Karl Lennert Cancer Center, SH University Hospital, Feldstrasse 21, where the Naval Remnants Institute was located until 1964.
Memorial to the victims of the revolutionary years 1918–1920 in the Eichhof park cemetery near Kiel
Memorial stone at the Eichhoffriedhof
Those of the garrison who fell during the revolutionary years found their final resting place in Kiel's north cemetery
The stele on the corner of Kiellinie / Koesterallee is reminiscent of Gustav Garbe
0 euro note 2018 - 100 years of the sailors' uprising
100th anniversary logo
Photographs
Various private individuals and institutions made increased efforts to find photos of the events, especially in the preparation period for the 100th anniversary. In addition, all photos were subjected to a more detailed analysis.
It turned out that the photo opposite, which had long been considered an important document of the events in Kiel, had actually been taken in Berlin by Robert Sennecke .
The situation was similar with a photo that shows Noske in front of the “Waldschänke” restaurant during a troop inspection. This photo also does not show the restaurant in Kiel-Projensdorf, but the one of the same name in Berlin Hundekehle, where Noske is leaving a naval brigade to Kiel. In this respect, the photo still contains a keel reference. In the photo is also the naval chief v. To recognize Trotha.
Additional information
literature
History
- Christian Lübcke: Six days in November. A reconstruction of the Kiel sailors' uprising and its spread in Schleswig Holstein . In: Detlev Kraack (ed.): Journal of the Society for Schleswig-Holstein History, Vol. 143/144 (2018/2019), Husum 2019, pp. 171–215.
- Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (ed.): The hour of the sailors. Kiel and the German Revolution 1918. Darmstadt 2018, ISBN 978-3-8062-3698-9 .
- Martin Rackwitz : Kiel 1918. Revolution, departure to democracy and republic. Kiel 2018, ISBN 978-3-529-05174-6 .
- Klaus Kuhl: Kiel and the revolution of 1918. The diary of a shipyard engineer, written in the years 1917–1919. Edition and text analysis. Peter Lang, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-631-75857-1 .
- Klaus Kuhl: The rebellion of the sailors from Cattaro in February 1918 - a forerunner of the Kiel sailors' uprising? In: Jürgen Jensen (Ed.): Communications from the Society for Kiel City History. Volume 89, Issue 3, Kiel 2017, pp. 127–140.
- Christian Lübcke: Revolution in Kiel! That happened in November 1918. Eltville 2017, ISBN 978-3-944988-10-8 .
- Martin Rackwitz: War times in Kiel. Everyday life and politics on the home front 1914/18. Kiel 2013, ISBN 978-3-86935-214-5 .
- Wolfgang Niess : The revolution of 1918/19 in German historiography. Interpretations from the Weimar Republic to the 21st century. de Gruyter, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-11-028546-8 .
- Karl-Rudolf Fischer (Ed.): Revolution and Revolutionary Research - Contributions from the Kiel Initiative Group 1918/19. Ludwig Verlag, Kiel 2011, ISBN 978-3-86935-059-2 .
- Wolfram Wette : Gustav Noske and the revolution in Kiel 1918. Boyens Buchverlag, Heide 2010, ISBN 978-3-8042-1322-7 .
- Werner Rahn : From refusal to obey to revolution. The collapse of the Imperial Navy in 1918. In: Military history. (PDF; 8.5 MB). Issue 3, 2008, pp. 8-13 ISSN 0940-4163
- Manfred Jessen-Klingenberg , Detlev Kraack , Hans Christian Segeberg: The Kiel sailors' uprising and the November revolution in 1918. Between refusal of orders and a new democratic beginning. In memoriam of Prof. Dr. Christian Degn (1909-2004). (= Materials for history lessons. Vol. 1). Schleswig-Holsteinischer Heimatbund, Kiel 2004.
- Gerhard P. Groß : A question of honor? The naval command and the last naval advance in 1918. In: Jörg Duppler, Gerhard P. Groß (Hrsg.): End of the war 1918: event, effect, aftermath. Oldenbourg, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-486-56443-9 , pp. 350-366. (books.google.de)
- Leonidas Hill: signal for counter-revolution? - The plan for the last advance of the German deep sea fleet on October 30, 1918. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . No. 1, 1988, pp. 113-130.
- Dirk Dähnhardt : Revolution in Kiel. The transition from the German Empire to the Weimar Republic in 1918/19. Karl Wachholtz, Neumünster 1978, ISBN 3-529-02636-0 .
- Holger H. Herwig : The emperor's elite corps. The naval officers in Wilhelmine Germany . Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-7672-0514-9 .
- Wilhelm Deist : The policy of naval warfare and the rebellion of the fleet at the end of October 1918. In: Quarterly books for contemporary history. Volume 14, Issue 4, 1966, pp. 341-369, ISSN 0042-5702 .
Novels and essays
- Kay Jacobs : Kiel Dawn . Gmeiner-Verlag, Meßkirch 2018, ISBN 978-3-8392-2227-0 .
- Klaus Kordon : The red sailors or a forgotten winter. Novel. Beltz & Gelberg, 2018, ISBN 978-3-407-78921-1 .
- Theodor Plievier : The emperor's coolies. Novel of the German navy. (1984). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2018, ISBN 978-3-462-40176-9 .
- Sebastian Haffner : The German Revolution 1918/1919. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2004, ISBN 3-499-61622-X .
- Joachim Ringelnatz : As a mariner in the war. Diogenes, Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-257-23441-4 .
Spectacles
- Andrea Paluch , Robert Habeck , Frank Trende: 1918 - Revolution in Kiel (= Society for Kiel City History . Special publications of the Society for Kiel City History . Volume 61). Boyens Buchverlag, Heide 2008, ISBN 978-3-8042-1264-0 .
- Ernst Toller : Fire from the boilers. Historical play in twelve scenes. (1930). In: Deutsche Akademie der Künste (Ed.): Ernst Toller: Selected writings. With prefaces by Bodo Uhse and Bruno Kaiser. 2nd Edition. Volk & Welt, Berlin 1961, pp. 271–337.
Movies
- DEFA (1958): The Song of the Sailors , directed by Kurt Maetzig, 126 min., Bw. Overview of the film produced in the GDR ( Memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- 1968 November criminal , 85 min., Optical sound, b / w, D; this film can usually be borrowed from Stadtbild agencies. In a reportage-like, fictional survey of historical people, the film aims to shed light on the events of those November days. Their discussions and negotiations are mostly followed up in the form of interviews with representatives of the government, the Reichstag, the highest army command, soldiers and journalists. Their statements are based on historical files, minutes, speeches, diaries and other material.
- WDR (broadcast January 5, 1975): Was Grandpa revolutionary? by Stefan Bartmann and Karl Mertes, scientific advice Imanuel Geiss. Broadcast for the school competition as part of the Gustav Heinemann Prize. Contains u. a. Interviews with Lothar Popp and Gertrud Völcker.
- NDR (broadcast November 1, 1978): Sailors, Councilors , Republics by Hartmut Idzko and Jörg Knickrehm, approx. 23 minutes. Contains several descriptions u. a. by Lothar Popp.
- WDR (broadcast 1986): Eyewitnesses report on the naval riots in 1917/18 by Wolfgang Semmelroth and Claus-Ferdinand Siegfried (director), approx. 44 min. Contains many interesting interviews with important contemporary witnesses.
- Kai Zimmer (Nov. 2012): Revolution 18 , 25 min., 16: 9, color and b / w. A more artistically oriented experimental documentary film, which describes the period from August 1917 to November 1918 from the perspective of the diary entries of the engineer Nikolaus (also written Nicolaus) Andersen. Andersen worked at the Germania shipyard in Kiel. The film premiered on November 22, 2012 in the Kiel City Gallery.
- Kay Gerdes and Klaus Kuhl (2018): There is a revolution in Kiel! Published by the Gesellschaft für Kieler Stadtgeschichte eV as "Historical Film Documents No. 9". Playing time 53 minutes, DVD. Text, sources and information for teachers: (kurkuhl.de)
- NDR / arte (premiere October 2018 in the metro-Kino Kiel): 1918 - Uprising of the sailors , (working title: Novembersturm ), approx. 90 minutes; Screenwriter and director: Jens Becker . The focus is on Karl Artelt, played by Lucas Prisor. An attempt is made to illustrate the events and the mood at the time by means of a fictitious plot, which is, however, strongly oriented towards the actual processes.
Web links
- Material about the Kiel sailors' uprising, u. a .: CVs of Lothar Popp and Karl Artelt, interviews with Lothar Popp and other contemporary witnesses, detailed timeline with documents and images
- Ikarus (Ernst Schneider): The Wilhelmshaven Revolt, 1918–1919 (report by a participant written in 1943 in British exile)
- The virtual museum (joint project between Schleswig-Holstein and Danish institutes)
- Photos of the sailors' uprising
- NDR report on the exhibition "1918 - The Hour of the Sailors" in Kiel
- One hour of history: https://www.deutschlandfunknova.de/beitrag/erster-weltkrieg-kieler-matrosenaufstand (the photo on the website shows Wilhelmshaven and not Kiel).
Remarks
- ↑ The large units of the Imperial Navy had sufficient range, but the torpedo boats did not. Typical ranges of the large torpedo boats were 1000-2000 nm. That would have been just about enough for some to get to Scotland and back, but doubling the speed (attack, battle, retreat) meant roughly quadrupling consumption. (Geoffrey Bennett: Die Skagerrakschlacht. Munich 1980, p. 266.) With that one would have had to do without torpedo boats, but they played a major role in the navy's battle plans. Hence the statement made by Werner Rahn: "There was therefore a change in the [English] operational planning, which, taking advantage of the favorable geographical location, went over to the risk-free remote blockade in order to be able to interrupt the German sea connections outside the range of the German fleet." (Werner Rahn: Strategic options and experiences of the German naval command 1914 to 1944: On the chances and limits of a Central European continental power against sea powers. In: Werner Rahn (Hrsg.): Deutsche Marinen im Wandel. Munich 2005, pp. 197–233, here p. 201)
- ↑ So wrote the conservative Kieler Latest News . on October 8, 1918, of “a step in German self-humiliation” by those gentlemen of German democracy who had already made renunciation peace a program in 1917. Anonymous: The new peace offer. In: Kiel Latest News. October 8, 1918 (vol. 24, no. 236), p. 1. See also Kurt Riezler's diary (Head of Cabinet in the Foreign Office for the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Wilhelm Solf), in which it says on October 13, 1918: “... the OHL is very broken, but it is still being widespread that the civil government, which has lost its nerve, has full responsibility etc etc for the peace move, which cannot and must not be contradicted. ”Quoted from Wolfdieter Bihl (ed.): German sources on the history of the First World War. Darmstadt 1991, p. 478.
- ↑ In his note of October 23, 1918, Wilson wrote that the power of the military and that of the King of Prussia were still unbroken. He would only broker such a cease-fire that Germany would be unable to resume fighting. The exchange of notes is documented in detail in: Foreign Office and Reich Ministry of the Interior (ed.): Official documents on the history of the armistice in 1918. Berlin 1927.
- ↑ Dähnhardt speaks of 47 arrested persons (Dähnhardt, Revolution. P. 54) and gives F 4077/64921 as the source. According to the new signature of the Federal Archives it is RM 8/1022 and the information is on sheet 257. According to this, 23 stokers who refused to work on the boiler, 20 sailors who refused to stand and 5 suspected ringleaders were arrested and then put in detention centers brought ashore (total: 48). Dähnhardt was wrong about the number.
- ↑ There are weighty arguments for armed with pistols, including the oral report by a member of the patrol, Wilhelm Kleineweber, who testified in 1973 that the group was armed with pistols. However, there is only one direct observation that was promptly documented in writing: two detective officers in disguise wrote in their report that they had seen the “firearms loading”. These are most likely rifles and this report is more reliable because of its timeliness; see the detailed discussion: Kuhl, What happened in Kiel, pp. 19–22.
- ^ The commanding general of the deputy general command of the IX. Army Corps in Altona Falk wrote in 1936 to Trowitz: “I myself have been indispensable here since Sunday, November 3rd, on the evening of which the cry for help from the perplexed government of Kiel in Altona reached me; in an attempt to gather together what troops still had to be collected in the corps district and its neighborhood; in constant communication with the War Ministry; Requiring mobile troops (1 corps) to drive the rebels into pairs. The quick decision - approved by the War Ministry - to rush to meet the promised troops was unsuccessful. The events were faster than me. ”(Letter to Trowitz dated November 12, 1936; BArch (Federal Archives) RM 8/1025 Bl. 53–54).
- ↑ The next day Haase and Otto Baumgarten gave speeches in the trade union building at an event organized by the German Peace Society . Then Haase drove back to Berlin.
- ↑ Schweizer later rejoined the MSPD, was elected city councilor and for a time was parliamentary group chairman and chairman of the Kiel SPD. He later became head of the city police. See: Anonymous: Wilhelm Schweizer 65 years. In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung. June 25, 1965.
- ↑ A list of the victims can be found in: Klaus Kuhl: List of victims: Sailors uprising, February events in 1919 and the Kapp Putsch in Kiel. 2018. Accessible online (accessed July 12, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ↑ See also information on the People's Armed Forces Act in Eberhard Kolb: The workers' councils in German domestic policy 1918-1919 . Frankfurt am Main 1978, p. 177. The draft law was suggested by Ebert on December 5, 1918 and presented on December 14, but was never implemented.
- ↑ Compare “Files concerning Revolution 1918” in the Federal Archives, which contain, among other things, minutes of the negotiations; BArch RM 8/1022, Bl. 23–42 and 47–66.
- ↑ See the letter of November 1918 from MARKGRAF sailor Bock to his sister. There it says: "We do not have confidence in the government here because it is on weak feet." (Kuhl, recollections Bock, p. 6.)
- ↑ Andersen noted, for example, on August 2, 1918: “ Admiral von Holtzendorff is retiring. He also wanted to bring England to its knees with the submarines in 6 months. Shit is trumps, everyone was very wrong. He and Tirpitz can now join the association for the rapid defeat of England. "(Kuhl, Revolution. P. 206.)
- ↑ According to the report by Chief of Staff Küsel, Rear Admiral Seiferling, who was suspected of having a relationship with the USPD, was characterized as overstrained, very nervous and not always to be taken seriously; see: Hans Küsel, Rear Admiral a. D .: Contribution to the history of the revolutionary overthrow in the Imperial Navy and in Kiel . November 1918. Written after 1933. BArch RM 8/1026, Bl. 8–10. Karl Seiferling (1867–1936) was already on leave on November 2, 1918, was appointed inspector of the submarine system for one month on November 14, and then finally removed from service. See: Hans H. Hildebrand / Ernest Henriot: Germany's Admirals 1894–1945. The military careers of naval, engineering, medical, weapons and administrative officers with admiral rank (Volume 3: P – Z) . Osnabrück 1990, p. 325 f.
- ↑ The training concept for naval officers suppressed criticism and encouraged caste thinking. See: Thomas Scheerer: The naval officers of the Imperial Navy in the First World War. In: Werner Rahn (Ed.): German Marines in Transition . Munich 2005, pp. 269–286, here pp. 270, 273, 279.
- ↑ As a further indication, Kuhl cites the refusal of the crew of the MARKGRAF, which did not want any officers on board for the transfer. This could only be enforced with a forged telegram from Noske and the naval officers. See Dähnhardt, Revolution. P. 132.
- ↑ The second admiral staff officer in the staff of the Naval War Command Corvette Captain Paul Reymann had spoken out against the plan of the last battle, but Noske relied on v. Trotha, one of the creators of the plan; see Granier, Levetzow. P. 50.
- ↑ Loewenfeld wrote in a later report ( "Revolution 1918 und Märzwirren 1920" ) that he could only build up his Freikorps with the help of Noske. BArch RM 8/1013 pp. 42–52.
- ↑ Kuhl argues that Noske did not investigate the planned naval advance. Noske wrote succinctly “It has been denied.” (Noske, Kiel bis Kapp. P. 9) In his position, Noske could have had an investigation carried out relatively easily. But then his naval chief Adolf von Trotha , one of the authors of the plan, would have become untenable.
- ↑ On the controversial debates about the ideas competition and the erection of the monument in Kiel as well as on the intentions of the artist see: Peter Thurmann: Hans-Jürgen Breuste. WIK - fire from the boilers . In: Rudolf Jaworski, Witold Molik (ed.): Monuments in Kiel and Posen, parallels and contrasts . Kiel 2002; as well as Eckhard Colmorgen and Bernhard Liesching: A memorial of the November Revolution 1918 in Kiel . In: Democratic History , Volume 03 1988. Accessible online (accessed May 24, 2020) at: [1] .
- ↑ The photos and various illustrations are shown in: Rackwitz, Kiel 1918.
- ↑ See: Klaus Kuhl: Kiel und die Revolution von 1918. The diary of a shipyard engineer, written in the years 1917-1919. Edition and text analysis. Berlin 2018 (Kiel Workpieces Vol. 51).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jean-Jacques Becker, Gerd Krumeich: The great war. Germany and France in the First World War 1914–1918. Essen 2010, pp. 92 and 118.
- ↑ Thomas Nipperdey : German History 1866-1918. Vol. 2: Power state before democracy. Munich 2nd edition 1993, p. 788 f.
- ^ Wolfram Wette: Gustav Noske. A political biography. 2nd Edition. Düsseldorf 1988, pp. 158, 179 ff.
- ↑ Martin Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. Kiel 2018, p. 17 f .; Volker Ullrich : The January strike in Hamburg, Kiel and Bremen: A comparative study on the history of the strike movements in the First World War. In: Journal of the Association for Hamburg History 71, 1985, p. 51 f .; Ursula Büttner: Weimar - the overwhelmed republic 1918–1933. In: Gebhardt (Hrsg.): Handbook of German history. 10th edition. Stuttgart 2001, p. 259.
- ^ Hans-Joachim Bieber : Unions in War and Revolution. Labor movement, industry, the state and the military in Germany 1914–1920, Part I. Hamburg 1981, pp. 303–306 and 441–444. Ullrich, January strike, p. 49.
- ↑ Becker / Krumeich, The Great War, pp. 199, 288.
- ↑ Werner Rahn: Strategic options and experiences of the German naval command 1914 to 1944: On the chances and limits of a Central European continental power against sea powers. In: Werner Rahn (Ed.): German Marines in Transition. Munich 2005, pp. 197-233, here pp. 200-205.
- ^ Michael Salewski : The Wilhelmine fleet laws. Reality and illusion. In: Michael Salewski: The Germans and the Sea. Studies on German naval history in the 19th and 20th centuries. Stuttgart 1998, pp. 120 and 125.
- ↑ Becker / Krumeich, The Great War, p. 241 f.
- ↑ Hans Beckers : How I Was Sentenced to Death. The naval tragedy of the summer of 1917 . Frankfurt a. M. 3rd edition 1986, pp. 13, 26; Kurt Kühn : The uprising in the German deep-sea fleet and my way to the party . In: Working group of merited trade union veterans at the federal executive board of the FDGB (ed.): 1918. Memories of veterans of the German trade union movement of the November Revolution . Berlin (East) 1958 (Contributions to the History of the German Trade Union Movement Volume 1. The November Revolution of 1918 and the German Trade Unions, 2nd half volume) pp. 221–252, here p. 225; Daniel Horn (Ed.): War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy - The World War I Diary of Seaman Richard Stumpf. New Brunswick, New Jersey (USA) 1967, p. 23.
- ↑ Gerhard P. Groß: A question of honor? The naval leadership and the last naval advance in 1918. In: Werner Rahn (Hrsg.): Deutsche Marinen im Wandel. Munich 2005, pp. 287–304, here p. 294 ff.
- ↑ Holger H. Herwig : The emperor's elite corps. The naval officers in Wilhelmine Germany. Hamburg 1977, p. 52 f.
- ^ Stephan Huck : Naval strikes and sailors' revolts. A sign of the revolution? In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (ed.): 1918 - the hour of the sailors. Darmstadt 2018, pp. 78–83, here p. 79.
- ↑ Wolfgang Semmroth: The mutinies in summer 1917 and the November revolution . The role of military justice on the eve of the revolution. In: The Revolution 1918/19. 70 years later. Lecture event of the city of Wilhelmshaven. Edited and ed. by Norbert Credé on behalf of the city of Wilhelmshaven, Wilhelmshaven 1991 (= Wilhelmshavener Museum Talks, texts on the history of the city. Vol. 2), pp. 59–80, here p. 66.
- ↑ Semmroth, Meutereien, p. 67.
- ^ Wilhelm Dittmann : The naval justice murders of 1917 and the Admirals rebellion of 1918. Berlin 1926, pp. 78-90. The work is based on the official files that Dittmann evaluated on behalf of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into the World War (4th subcommittee) .
- ^ Martin Rackwitz: Wartime in Kiel. Everyday life and politics on the home front 1914/18. Kiel 2013, pp. 18–22; Volker Ullrich: January strike. P. 53.
- ^ Volker Ullrich: January strike. P. 55 f. and 61; Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 19-22.
- ↑ After Arthur Rosenberg quoted in: Ralf Hoffrogge : Richard Müller. The man behind the November Revolution. Berlin 2018, p. 53.Wilhelm Deist : The causes of the revolution of 1918/19 from a military-historical perspective. . In: Wilhelmshavener Museum Talks, Texts on the History of the City, Volume 2, The Revolution 1918/19 - 70 Years Later. Lecture event of the city of Wilhelmshaven on October 28 and 29, 1988, edited and edited by Norbert Credé on behalf of the city of Wilhelmshaven. Wilhelmshaven 1991, pp. 7-22, here p. 13.
- ↑ Becker / Krumeich, The Great War. P. 288 f.
- ↑ Becker / Krumeich, The great war. P. 291 f.
- ↑ Gottfried Mehnert: Evangelical Church and Politics 1917-19. The political currents in German Protestantism from the July crisis in 1917 to autumn 1919 (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties. Vol. 16). Düsseldorf 1959, p. 68 f.
- ↑ Ann B. Sides: When submarine UB-123 attacked the ferry Leinster, it torpedoed Germany's last hope for a 'soft peace' in 1918. In: Military History. Vol. 15, No. 4, 1998, pp. 24-28. The article is also available online (as of May 30, 2018): uboat.net . Rackwitz, Kiel 1918. pp. 25 f.
- ↑ Magnus von Levetzow: The last act . In: Süddeutsche Monatshefte . Vol. 21 (1924), Issue 7, pp. 55 ff. In addition, on October 15, 1918 the Kaiser had decreed: "The Chief Military Commander makes all his orders and decisions in agreement with the Chancellor or the representative appointed by him". Wolfdieter Bihl (Hrsg.): German sources on the history of the First World War. Darmstadt 1991, p. 478 f.
- ↑ Gerhard Granier (ed.): The German naval warfare in the First World War. Documentation. Koblenz 2000, p. 193 ff.
- ↑ Leonidas Hill: Signal for the counter-revolution? - The plan for the last advance of the German deep sea fleet on October 30, 1918. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 1. Issue, 1988, p. 119. Accessible online at: ifz-muenchen.de .
- ^ Wilhelm Deist : The policy of the naval warfare and the rebellion of the fleet at the end of October 1918. In: Quarterly books for contemporary history. 14/1966, No. 4, ISSN 0042-5702 , pp. 341-369, here p. 360; Big: question of honor. P. 292.
- ↑ Patrick Beesly: Room 40 . British naval intelligence, 1914-1918. San Diego 1982, pp. 294-297.
- ↑ Holger Afflerbach: "Go down with a waving flag". Refusals of surrender in the German Navy. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. Volume 49, Issue 4, 2001, p. 606.
- ^ Hill: Signal. P. 113, 128 f .; Mark Jones: The naval order of October 24, 1918. Sinking or starting gun for the final battle. In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (eds.): The hour of the sailors. Kiel and the German Revolution in 1918. Darmstadt 2018, p. 92.
- ↑ Theo Kruse: Motto: Fire from the boilers! In: NWZ Online from April 12, 2014 (accessed: May 25, 2020).
- ↑ Theo Kruse: Soldiers do not want to be cannon fodder In: NWZ Online from October 30, 2018. (Access: May 25, 2020).
- ↑ Rolf Güth: Marineführung und Meuterei 1918. In: Schiff und Zeit No. 7, 1978, pp. 1-8.
- ^ Dirk Dähnhardt: Revolution in Kiel. Neumünster 1978, p. 109.
- ^ Christian Lübcke: Revolution in Kiel! That happened in November 1918. Eltville 2017, p. 15 f.
- ↑ Albrecht Philipp, Eugen Fischer, Walter Bloch (eds.): The work of the investigative committee of the German constitutional assembly and the German Reichstag 1919–1930. Fourth Series (Volumes 1-12), 1925-1929; Section 2: The Internal Breakdown (Volumes 4–12), Volume 9/1: Resolution and Negotiation Report: Navy and Breakdown. 1928, pp. 110-125.
- ^ Excerpts from Klaus Kuhl: The role of the German naval officers during the events in October / November 1918. Kiel 2018, pp. 30–39.
- ↑ Becker / Krumeich, The great war. P. 92.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 33 f.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 33 f.
- ↑ Dähnhardt, Revolution, p. 28.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 46–50.
- ↑ Report on the negotiations between the Reichsmarineamt and the III. Squadron. Excerpts in: Kuhl, Rolle der Maritime Officers, p. 35.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 53 f.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. p. 54.
- ↑ Bundesarchiv BArch RM 31/2373 Bl. 11-14 (copy); published in Klaus Kuhl: The events on November 2, 1918 in Kiel. ; Lothar Popp, Karl Artelt: Origin and Development of the November Revolution 1918. How the German Republic came into being. Kiel 1918 (reprint as a special publication by the Society for Kiel City History, Volume 15), pp. III 1–30, here p. III 11.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 56 f.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 57 f .; Dähnhardt, revolution. P. 58 f.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 57 f.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 60 f.
- ↑ BArch (Federal Archives) RM 8/1010 Bl. 4–5.
- ↑ Anonymous: For peace, for freedom! In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung . November 4, 1918.
- ^ Steps on the Kiel way to democracy. Kieler Nachrichten , October 23, 2009, accessed on May 12, 2018 .
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 62–65.
- ↑ Lothar Popp, Karl Artelt: Origin and Development of the November Revolution 1918. How the German Republic came into being (reprint in Gesellschaft für Kieler Stadtgeschichte, special publication 15), Kiel 1983, pp. III 1–30, here p. III 13.
- ↑ Anonymous: Riots in Kiel. In: Kieler Zeitung. November 4, 1918 evening edition.
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. P. 64.
- ↑ Scientific estate Dirk Dähnhardts, StAK Sign. 65,496th
- ^ Klaus Kuhl: What happened in Kiel on the evening of November 3rd, 1918? New findings on the clash between patrols loyal to the emperor and protesting demonstrators. Workshop report. Kiel 2017. Accessible online (accessed May 15, 2020) at: [2] .
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. P. 65 f .; Klaus Kuhl: workshop report. P. 68.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 65–68.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 68 f.
- ↑ Lübcke, Revolution, p. 43 f.
- ^ Klaus Kuhl: Kiel and the revolution of 1918. The diary of a shipyard engineer, written in the years 1917–1919. Edition and text analysis. (= Kiel work pieces. Vol. 51). Berlin 2018, p. 48.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 70-77.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 80 f.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 78 ff.
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. P. 76 f.
- ↑ Klaus Kuhl: The rebellion of the sailors from Cattaro in February 1918 - a forerunner of the Kiel sailors uprising? In: Jürgen Jensen (Ed.): Communications from the Society for Kiel City History. Volume 89, Issue 3, Kiel 2017, pp. 127–140, here p. 132.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 80 f.
- ^ Klaus Kuhl: Second round of negotiations. Accessible online (accessed June 25, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 83 f.
- ↑ Gustav Noske: From Kiel to Kapp. On the history of the German revolution . Berlin 1920, p. 11 f.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 88 f.
- ↑ Minutes and reports are published under: Klaus Kuhl: Negotiations in the Kiel Gouvernement on November 4, 1918, 9:00 p.m. - 12:15 a.m. between the governor and other officers, the soldiers' council, the Workers' council, representatives of the social democratic parties and the representatives of the Haußmann and Noske government sent from Berlin, as well as other people. Accessible online (accessed June 25, 2018) at kurkuhl.de . See also: Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 89–92.
- ↑ Kuhl, negotiations, pp. 12-16.
- ^ NDR Interview 1978, published in Kuhl, Negotiations. P. 12.
- ^ Ernst-Heinrich Schmidt: Heimatheer and Revolution 1918. The military powers in the home area between the October reform and the November revolution. Stuttgart 1981. The work was published as Volume 23 as part of the series “Contributions to Military and War History” , published by the Military History Research Office.
- ^ Kuhl: Kiel and the revolution. Pp. 46-50.
- ↑ A presentation and critical appraisal of the Trowitz source can be found in: Klaus Kuhl: Comments on Ernst-Heinrich Schmidt: Heimatheer und Revolution 1918 . Accessible online (accessed June 25, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. P. 77 f.
- ^ Wolfram Wette : Gustav Noske and the Revolution in Kiel 1918 . Heide 2010, p. 18.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918, p. 82.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 48 f.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. p. 96.
- ^ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-23.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 50.
- ^ Lübcke: Revolution. Pp. 65-69.
- ↑ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-19.
- ↑ Bernhard Rausch: At the spring spring of the revolution. The Kiel sailors' survey . Kiel 1918 (reprint as a special publication by the Society for Kiel City History, vol. 15), p. II-15.
- ↑ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-19.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. p. 114.
- ↑ Knut-Hinrik Kollex: Blueprint for the Revolution. The "Kiel 14 points". In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (eds.): The hour of the sailors. Kiel and the German Revolution in 1918. Darmstadt 2018, pp. 122–127, here p. 127.
- ^ Kuhl: Naval officers. Pp. 33-39.
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. P. 91.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 105-108.
- ↑ Noske: Kiel bis Kapp, p. 15 ff.
- ↑ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-23 f.
- ^ A presentation and analysis of all reports available so far can be found in: Klaus Kuhl: The events from noon on November 5, 1918 in Kiel . Accessible online (accessed July 2, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ↑ Dähnhardt, Revolution, p. 100.
- ^ Kuhl, Events on November 5, pp. 3, 15.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 124 f.
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. Pp. 104-108.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 120 ff.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. p. 98.
- ^ Noske: Kiel to Kapp, p. 23 f.
- ^ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-25.
- ^ Rausch, Springquell, pp. II-25.
- ↑ Anonymous (probably Bernhard Rausch): The avalanche rolling. The sailors' movement in Kiel. In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung. November 7, 1918, p. 1.
- ^ Kuhl: negotiation. P. 7.
- ↑ Klaus Kuhl: The role of the German naval officers during the events in October / November 1918. Kiel 2018, pp. 12-13. Accessible online (accessed May 30, 2018): kurkuhl.de .
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 55 f.
- ^ Noske: Kiel to Kapp. P. 24.
- ^ Rausch: Springquell. P. II-25.
- ^ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-25.
- ↑ See Noske, Kiel to Kapp. P. 25, who writes: "Regular elections had taken place over the course of the day for a number of formations."
- ^ Klaus Kuhl: The events on November 6, 1918 in Kiel . Accessible online (accessed on July 5, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 232 f.
- ^ Noske: Kiel to Kapp. P. 25.
- ↑ Popp quoted from the shorthand of the meeting; see Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , p. III-26.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 139 f.
- ^ Noske: Kiel to Kapp. P. 26.
- ↑ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung, pp. III-27 ff.
- ↑ Bet: Noske in Kiel. P. 41 f.
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. P. 123.
- ^ Popp / Artelt, Ursprung , pp. III-27.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 59.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 59 f.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. p. 135.
- ↑ Sonja Kinzler, Jens Buttgereit: "Petrels of the Revolution". To spread the revolution by (Kiel) sailors. In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (eds.): The hour of the sailors. Kiel and the German Revolution in 1918. Darmstadt 2018, pp. 140–149.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918, p. 140.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. Pp. 57, 62 f.
- ^ Kuhl: Cattaro. P. 130 ff.
- ↑ BArch (Federal Archives) RM 31/2394 p. 5.
- ^ Dähnhardt: Revolution. Pp. 127-130.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. S. 144 f.
- ↑ Peter Hill Brecht: A year revolution . In Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung. November 5, 1919.
- ↑ Florian Altenhöner: Between triumph and misery . November 9, 1918 in Berlin. In: Sonja Kinzler, Doris Tillmann (eds.): The hour of the sailors. Kiel and the German Revolution in 1918. Darmstadt 2018, pp. 152–159.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 36.
- ↑ Walter Görlitz: Did the Kaiser rule? War diaries, records and letters from the chief of the naval cabinet, Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller 1914–1918. Göttingen 1959, p. 15.
- ^ Kuhl, Cattaro, p. 132.
- ^ Rausch, Springquell, pp. II-28.
- ↑ Anonymous: People's Army Act. In: Republic. Organ of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany for the Province of Schleswig-Holstein. December 17, 1918.
- ↑ Bet: Noske in Kiel. P. 58.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 135, 169.
- ↑ Bet: Noske in Kiel. Pp. 60-64.
- ↑ See: Klaus Kuhl (Ed.): “Now is the hour when we have become human.” Letters and memories from the sailor Karl (Carl) Bock from SMS MARKGRAF. Accessible online (accessed July 15, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 180 ff.
- ↑ Bet: Noske in Kiel, pp. 92 ff., 101.
- ↑ Wolfram Wette: When the first soldiers' council was formed in the torpedo division. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. December 12, 1988.
- ↑ Karl Dietrich Erdmann : Councils State or Parliamentary democracy. In: Communications from the Society for Kiel City History . Volume 68, Issue 9/10, 1983.
- ↑ Anonymous: Erich Thümmel died. In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung. 1957 (exact date not known, archived in FES). See also: Noske. Kiel to Kapp, p. 11, who describes Thümmel as a "very intelligent man" without naming his name.
- ↑ The date was initially set for February 16, 1919, but was brought forward at the Reichsrätekonferenz on the proposal of the MSPD. See: Anonymous: January 19th Election Day. In: Republic. Organ of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany for the Province of Schleswig-Holstein. December 21, 1918, p. 1.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918, p. 161.
- ↑ Noske, Kiel to Kapp, p. 54.
- ^ Andreas Wirsching: The paradoxical revolution 1918/19. In: From Politics and Contemporary History . 50–51 / 2008, pp. 6–12, here pp. 7, 12. See also: Wolfgang Niess: The revolution of 1918/19 in German historiography. Interpretations from the Weimar Republic to the 21st century . Berlin 2013, p. 415.
- ↑ Volker Stalmann: The rediscovery of the revolution of 1918/19. Research status and research perspectives. In: ZfG Heft 6, 2016, pp. 521–541, here p. 529.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 120.
- ↑ Anonymous: dictatorship or national assembly. In: Schleswig-Holsteinische Volkszeitung . November 29, 1918.
- ↑ Anonymous: The breakup of the alliance. In: Kiel latest news. October 30, 1918.
- ^ Peter von Oertzen: Works Councils in the November Revolution. 2nd Edition. Berlin 1976, p. 251.
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. pp. 239–243.
- ^ Rausch: Springquell. P. II-28.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 90.
- ^ Bernhard Rausch: From Kiel to Kapp. Noske's memories of the revolution. In: The New Time. (archived FES). 1920, pp. 486-491, here p. 491.
- ↑ Bet: Noske in Kiel. P. 100.
- ^ Noske: Kiel to Kapp. Pp. 57, 115.
- ^ Kuhl: Naval officers. P. 26.
- ↑ Bet: Noske in Kiel. P. 100.
- ^ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. p. 99.
- ^ Kuhl: Revolution. P. 89 ff.
- ↑ Oliver Auge: Problem case sailors revolt. Kiel's difficulties in dealing with a key date in his and German history. In: Advisory Board for History (Ed.): Democratic History. Yearbook for Schleswig-Holstein Vol. 25, Malente 2014, pp. 307–328. Accessible online (accessed July 8, 2017) at: beirat-fuer-geschichte.de
- ^ Uwe Danker: Revolution city Kiel. Starting point for the first German democracy. In: Advisory Board for History (Ed.): Democratic History. Yearbook for Schleswig-Holstein Vol. 25, Malente 2014, pp. 285–306. Accessible online (accessed July 8, 2017) at: beirat-fuer-geschichte.de .
- ↑ Rackwitz: Kiel 1918. P. 268 f.
- ↑ Memorial march starts at the forest meadow ; Kieler Nachrichten online, October 23, 2009 ( Memento from April 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ "Platz der Kieler Sailors" is inaugurated. ( Memento from October 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Klaus Kuhl: Virtual city tour of the Kiel sailors' uprising. Nov. 1918. Accessible online (accessed July 25, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .
- ↑ Anonymous: KulturSpuren. The 1918 Sailors' Uprising . Accessible online (accessed July 25, 2018) at: kiel.de.
- ↑ Klaus Kuhl: Information on the photo "Kieler sailors uprising". Accessible online (accessed on July 25, 2018) at: (pdf)
- ↑ Klaus Kuhl: Information on the photo "Noske - Waldschänke". Accessible online (accessed on July 25, 2018) at: kurkuhl.de .