Kiel Week

Regatta field in front of Laboe 2003

Kiel harbor with tall ships (2006)

The Gorch Fock at the 2014 Windjammer Parade

Naval ships from various nations as guests (2018)

The Kiel Week is an annual sailing regatta that has been held in Kiel since the end of the 19th century . It is considered one of the greatest sailing sport events in the world.

In the last few decades, a folk festival has also developed on the quay walls of tall ships, although the core of the event has always remained the sailing competitions.

In addition to the sporting aspects, it includes an extensive program with over 2,100 individual events (2012), including performances by international artists who offer live music in around 300 concerts on 16 stages.

There are also performances by numerous local groups on smaller stages. Every year around 3 million guests visit Kieler Woche, including numerous naval units from over 10 nations (2012), over 3,500 sailors from 36 nations (2012) and over a dozen city delegations (17 delegations from 11 nations in 2012) .

The maritime highlight is the tall ship parade (annually since 1998) on the last Saturday of the festival week, in which more than 100 tall and traditional sailors , historic steamers and hundreds of sailing yachts take part.

Every year there are also numerous naval and sailing school ships from other countries that dock at the Tirpitzmole and often invite visitors to the " Open Ship " (guided tour of the ship).

Another highlight since 2005 has been the annual presentation of the World Economic Prize , which is jointly awarded by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the City of Kiel. The award honors pioneers of a cosmopolitan, market economy society.

The Kiel Week traditionally ends with the magic of the stars over Kiel , a fireworks display .

time

The Kiel Week usually takes place in the last full week of June; exactly: It always ends on the last Sunday of June. It is officially opened on the evening of Saturday eight days in advance with the so-called glass , the typhon signal “ Leash off” and the subsequent Holstenbummel . The unofficial start of the festival is on Friday evening with the sound check on the stages in downtown Kiel. This makes a total of ten festive days that end on the last Sunday in June with a 20-minute firework display over the Kiel inner fjord .

Due to the coronavirus pandemic , the Kiel Week in 2020 will not take place at the end of June, as usual, but from September 5 to 13.

Sailing regattas

IACC class yacht at Kiel Week 2005

Pirate class regatta (2004)

The play line on the Krusenkoppel , June 2005

Most of the sailing races begin in Schilksee (in the Schilksee Olympic Center ), where the sporting center of the Kiel Week is largely located. But also on the keel line along the Kiel Fjord, especially from the west bank, you can follow other, smaller sporting activities such as marine cutter regattas, optimist sailing , canoe polo or classic cutter pulling . Furthermore, the big Kiel rowing clubs, EKRC, Germania, the rowing group of the university, the academic rowing club and the student rowing clubs always hold the city eight race from the Blücherbrücke to the student rowing jetty on Wednesday of the Kieler Woche. The traditional opening regatta of the Kieler Woche, the “ Aalregatta ” Kiel– Eckernförde –Kiel (since 1893, since 1906 as part of the Kieler Woche) was replaced in 2006 by the “Welcome Race” to Laboe (from 2010 back to Eckernförde), but is now with the aim of Schilksee continued as an independent event.

In addition to around 5,000 sailors from more than 50 nations who compete with around 2,000 boats, over three million visitors come to the city every year. The regattas take place in 16 national and international boat classes as well as in the ten Olympic classes. In addition, the yachts measure their strength in the ORC International I-IV classes and in various One Design classes.

Folk festival

An extensive folk festival has long been established around the sailing event . Stages and stands have been set up along the Kiellinie (a harbor promenade on the Kiel Fjord) and recently also on the Willy-Brandt-Ufer on the converted Hörn (Hafenspitze of Kiel), while the so-called "International Market" is being set up on the town hall square and in the pedestrian zone “Specialties from different countries offered. Various cultural events take place.

There is a special program for children on the “play line”. Many sponsors - especially from the Schleswig-Holstein media landscape - provide free concerts for bands, comedians and folklore groups on several stages. But there are also smaller amateur bands and showmen on the edge of the keel line and in town.

In 2012, on the initiative of citizens, the Kieler Woche was expanded to include the “Muddi Markt” - an area on the Holstenbrücke, which, in addition to the conventional consumer and program offers of a folk festival, has set itself the goal of creating a space for sustainable, to create fair and socially acceptable consumption and to enable playful access to topics of sustainable development. Since then, Muddi Markt eV has designed an independent ten-day educational, music and meeting program as a participatory project, which has attracted numerous visitors over the past few years and has taken a permanent place at Kiel Week.

The main sponsor of the Kieler Woche from 2002 to 2009 was the German vehicle manufacturer BMW . The automobile manufacturer Audi took on this role between 2010 and 2019 . The main sponsors (premium partners) also include HSH Nordbank (now “Hamburg Comercial Bank”) and Veolia Umweltservice .

The Kiel Week poster

Every year since 1948 a Kiel Week poster has advertised the festival week . Their design is another example of the cultural positioning and visual-creative tradition of the Kiel Week. In this context, a jury compiles a selection of graphic designers and then invites them to compete for the corporate design of the festival week. An invitation is already considered an award, as the design competition enjoys a high reputation and many motifs have been awarded national and international prizes.

Among others, the following graphic designers designed for the Kieler Woche: Ernst Irmler (1953), Anton Stankowski (1962), Hans Georg Hillmann (1964), Michael Engelmann (1965), Bruno K. Wiese (1971 & 1982), Rolf Müller (1972) , Hans Peter Hoch (1973), Otto Treumann (1975), Doris Casse-Schlüter (1985), Ruedi Baur (1986), Rosemarie Tissi (1990), Hans Günther Schmitz (1992), Christof Gassner (1993), Siegfried Odermatt ( 1994), Barbara & Gerd Baumann (1995), Willem Hendrik Crouwel (1998), Fons M. Hickmann (2002), Clemens Theobert Schedler (2003), Bernd Kuchenbeiser (2004), Cyan (2005), Klaus Hesse (2006), Markus Dreßen (2007), Peter Zizka (2008), Henning Wagenbreth (2009), Andrew and Jeffrey Goldstein (2010), Melchior Imboden (2011), Jens Müller and Karen Weiland (2013) Stefan Guzy and Björn Wiede (2015), Stan Hema (2016), Götz Gramlich (2017), Verena Panholzer (2018), Daniel Wiesmann (2019), Jiri Oplatek (2020).

The series of Kiel Week posters is a reflection of recent graphic history. The motifs are applied to a variety of objects and almost all of these applications - mostly developed by the competition winners themselves - achieve collector status after a short time.

history

Kiel regatta week 1894: The flower parade on the evening of June 28th; signed by Fritz Stoltenberg

Impression from the Kiel Week, by Fritz Stoltenberg around 1895

On July 23, 1882, 20 yachts started a regatta off Düsternbrook . Because of its great success, the regatta was repeated in the following years. Two years later, the sailing races took place over a whole week. The name "Kieler Woche" was created by a journalist who first named this event in the press in 1894. In 1889 Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the Kiel races for the first time . He was a commodore in the Imperial Yacht Club Kiel and promoted sailing just like his brother Heinrich von Prussia . In 1892, 100 registrations for participation in regattas were received for the first time. Kaiser Wilhelm II was a regular guest with the imperial yachts Meteor . The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal was ceremoniously opened as part of the Kieler Woche 1895 .

In 1899, the week ended with the race in Lübeck-Travemünde, which went back to the Hamburg merchants Hermann Wentzel and Hermann Dröge . Its winner received a bottle of Lübeck Rotspon . The regatta there was initiated by Hermann Fehlings , then chairman of the Lübeck Yacht Club . It was soon to become an independent event, the Travemuender Week .

In 1905 there were also races for motor boats as part of the Kiel Week . In the first quarter of a century, almost 6,000 boats took off. A new high point was set in 1914 with the opening of the new canal locks on the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. During the Kiel Week, on June 28, the Austrian heir to the throne was murdered in Sarajevo , whereupon the race was broken off. During the following First World War , no Kiel Week was held (1915-1919). When the National Socialists came to power, the content of the Kiel Week also changed. Sailing events continued to take place until the outbreak of war in 1939, but now clearly against the background of National Socialist propaganda . In 1936, for example, Kiel was the venue for the Olympic sailing competitions for the first time , but this event, too, must be viewed in connection with the constantly growing propaganda apparatus of the National Socialists. 1937-1939 the Kieler Woche was organized by the Yacht Club of Germany .

In the war years between 1940 and 1944, the Kiel Week did not take place again. In 1945, the first sailing week after the Second World War was organized by the British occupying forces under the name "Kiel Week", but without any German participation.

A new week of festivities, organized by the Kiel city council and celebrated in September 1947 under the name of Kiel under construction , was primarily intended to give the Kiel population new courage after the difficult war years. Numerous exhibitions, lectures and rallies reported on the construction work and progress and gave hope for the future of the city. In September 1948 Kiel was organized for the second time under construction , in 1949, for the first time after the war, a joint Kiel Week took place again, which was supposed to be a coexistence of sailing events - as in the "Kiel Week" - and cultural program, youth and folk festival.

In 1950, with Theodor Heuss, a Federal President opened the Kiel Week for the first time; since then, many Federal Presidents and Chancellors have also rung in the Kiel Weeks. Important stages and orchestras from all Scandinavian countries set new accents in the cultural part in 1962. In 1972 the Olympic sailing competitions were held in Kiel for the second time. In 1972 the first big “ Windjammer Parade ” (Operation Sail 1972) took place on this occasion - today it is a fixture in the Kiel Week program and always takes place on the penultimate day of the Kiel Week. Based on the model of the Olympic Game Road , the "Game Line" was set up on the " Kiellinie " (a promenade on the fjord) in 1974.

The 100th Kiel Week was held in 1994 (as there were no Kiel Weeks in the respective war years). The focus of the Kieler Woche 1995 was the 100th anniversary of the Kiel Canal . In 2007 the Kieler Woche celebrated its 125th anniversary. On this occasion, the filmmaker Gerald Grote published the documentary 8 Millimeter Kiel Week, which consists of private 8 mm film recordings and offers a review of the history of the Kiel Week.

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Kiel Week.TV

Kieler Woche.TV has been reporting on the events of the Kieler Woche since 2011. In 2012 the station was approved as a television station by the Hamburg / Schleswig-Holstein media authority. It is broadcast via DVB-T from the Kiel transmitter on channel 52 (= 722 MHz) and in parts also on the Kiel open channel .

literature

• Alexander Rost 100 years of the Kiel Week. A sailing story . Delius Klasing, 1982, ISBN 3-7688-0391-0
• Jens Christian Jensen (Ed.) 100 Years of the Kiel Week - Lyonel Feininger : paintings, watercolors and drawings, prints . Publisher: Kunsthalle Kiel der Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel 1982
• Jörn Danker: The Kiel Week is changing. The re-establishment of the Kieler Woche after the Second World War . New Malik-Verl., Kiel 1990.
• Werner Istel / Alexander Rost: The Kieler Woche (the largest sailing festival in the world since 1882) . Koehler, Hamburg 1996.
• Katrin Kroll: Kiel Week . Wachholtz, Neumünster 2007, ISBN 978-3-529-02555-6 . (160 p .; over 200 illustrations)
• Alexander Muschik: Rostock Baltic Sea Week versus Kiel Week - German-German festival week competition for the favor of the Nordic countries. In: Zeitgeschichte regional , ISSN  1434-1794 , Vol. 11 (2007), 1, pp. 71-78.
• Jens Müller, Karen Weiland: A5 / 04 - Kiel Week. History of a Design Contest ; Lars Müller Publishers, Baden 2010, ISBN 978-3-03778-231-6

Web links

Commons : Kieler Woche  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Website of the Kiel Week
• Media website of the Kiel Week

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kiel Week 2010 from June 19 to 27: colorful, lively and diverse. City of Kiel, April 30, 2010, accessed June 21, 2010
2. ↑ Positive Kieler Woche balance sheet: Kieler Woche 2012 in numbers ( memento from July 1st, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) In: Kieler Nachrichten , June 24th, 2012
3. ↑ Opened! ( Memento from June 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) , website of the Kieler Woche.
4. ↑ ^{a b} The Kiel Week 2020 is postponed. Kieler Nachrichten, March 19, 2020, accessed on March 19, 2020 . 
5. ↑ Sailing - the heart of the Kiel Week. In: kieler-woche.de , accessed on February 10, 2010
6. ↑ Veolia Umweltservice GmbH is the third premium partner of the Kieler Woche. City of Kiel, April 27, 2010, accessed on June 21, 2010
7. ↑ Kiel Week: From the friendship regatta to a major event. In: NDR Online , June 11, 2008, accessed June 26, 2010
8. ^ Hermann Wilhelm Fehling. In: Lübeckische Blätter , December 15, 1907, volume 49, number 50, p. 709.
9. ^ Visit of the emperor in Lübeck. In: Vaterstadtische Blätter ; Born 1899, No. 28, edition of July 9, 1899, pp. 341–343.
10. ^ The motorboat in the Kiel week. In: Die Yacht (Berlin), Issue 1 (1904), pp. 16-17
11. ^ Jördis Egert: Linking urban culture and festivalization using the example of the development of the Kieler Woche sailing sport festival. ( Memento of the original from February 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: uni-kiel.de , accessed on February 10, 2010 
12. ↑ Website of the transmitter Kieler Woche.TV
13. ↑ MA HSH grants approval for full television program “Hamburg 1 24” and for event radio for the Kieler Woche 2012 ( memento of the original from May 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.