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Abstract

In the fall of 1918, the defeat of the German Reich could no longer be denied by the Supreme Army Command (OHL) and the political decision-makers. When the Naval War Command (SKL) nevertheless issued the order to provoke a naval battle against the British navy in October, numerous sailors from the High Seas Fleet mutinied in Wilhelmshaven. Sailors and workers in Kiel showed solidarity and protested their arrest. From November 3, 1918, they attempted to free the prisoners and bring about a ceasefire in what became known as the Kiel Sailors’ Uprising. When the protests turned into violent unrest between the insurgents and the police, the sailors organized themselves into workers’ and soldiers’ councils. In this appeal from November 7, 1918, the Kiel Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council called on the people of Schleswig-Holstein to support the establishment of a new “People’s Republic.”

Appeal to the Population of Schleswig-Holstein (November 7, 1918)

Source

Appeal to the Population of Schleswig-Holstein

Political power lies in our hands.

A provisional provincial government will be formed; it will establish a new order in cooperation with the existing authorities.

Our goal is a free, socially-minded people’s republic.

In those parts of the province where workers’ and soldiers’ councils do not yet exist, we call on the population of the city and the countryside to follow our example and stand united behind the new people’s government and support its work on behalf of the common good.

At first, our main task will be to secure the peace and heal the damage created by the war.

Issues that extend beyond the jurisdiction of the provincial administration remain, of course, under the authority of state and Reich legislation. We are willing to work together, in the customary ways, with the entire civil service, as long as it supports the new course.

We are determined to meet any opposition with all the public power at our disposal.

People of Schleswig-Holstein! An old democratic dream of freedom and unity, for which many of the best of you fought and suffered, will now become reality on a new and higher level!

Kiel, November 7, 1918.

The Workers’ and Soldiers’ Council.

Source of original German text: Kieler Stadtarchiv, KStA

Translation: Frederick Reuss