Qualla: Kiel

Kiel: Introduction

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit T meltzer, CC BY-SA 4.0. The order was never carried out, and it brought down an empire. On 24 October 1918, with Germany already suing for peace, Admiral Scheer told the High Seas Fleet to go out and fight the Royal Navy — without informing the government. The crews lying at Schillig Roads understood exactly what was being asked of them, and on the night of 30 October the men of the Third Squadron refused. Nearly two hundred sailors were arrested and brought here, to Kiel's military prison and Fort Herwarth. Their shipmates came to get them out. Ten days later there was no Kaiser.

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Image: T meltzer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kiel: A Count's Town at the End of a Fjord

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KarleHorn, CC BY-SA 3.0. Kiel sits at the head of a long Baltic inlet, the Kieler Förde, at the mouth of the Schwentine and about ninety kilometres north-east of Hamburg. The harbour is deep and stays ice-free, which explains almost everything that happened afterwards. Count Adolf IV of Holstein founded ...

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Image: KarleHorn | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kiel: The Kaiser's Harbour

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oberlausitzerin64, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 24 March 1865 King William I moved Prussia's Baltic fleet from Danzig to Kiel. An imperial shipyard followed in 1867, and in 1871 the new German Emperor named Kiel and Wilhelmshaven the empire's war harbours. A town of 18,770 people in 1864 held around 200,000 by 1910. Then c...

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Image: Oberlausitzerin64 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kiel: November 1918

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BAW_Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau, CC BY 2.0. On 1 November about 250 sailors met at the Union House to ask for their comrades' release. The police shut the building the next day, so the meeting moved outdoors and grew. By 3 November several thousand people were marching behind Karl Artelt and Lothar Popp under a demand for ...

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Image: BAW_Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau | CC BY 2.0

Kiel: Eighty Per Cent

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nordenfan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Being the navy's city carried a bill, and it came due between 1940 and 1945. Kiel was a fleet base, a U-boat yard and therefore a target. Allied bombing destroyed more than 80 per cent of what remained of the old town, 72 per cent of the central residential districts and 83 per c...

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Image: Nordenfan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Kiel: Still Facing the Water

Sat, 05 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Kiel Week returns every June, still the largest sailing event in the world — around two thousand boats and some three million people, half regatta and half street festival. Olympic sailing was held in the Bay of Kiel twice, in 1936 and 1972. Out at the fjord mouth stand the Laboe...

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Image: Public domain