Karl Artelt

Karl Artelt (31 December 1890 – 28 September 1981) was a German revolutionary and a leader of the sailors' revolt in Kiel.

Birth and education Karl Artelt was born on 31 December 1890 in the German village of Salbke, at Repkowstr. 12, which was later suburbanized into Magdeburg, the son of engine operator August Artelt and his wife Marie. He attended the eight-classes primary school and thereafter did an apprenticeship with the machine production company R. Wolf in Magdeburg and became a qualified engine fitter. There, he worked together with Erich Weinert, later a well-known poet, who taught him the basics of Marxism.

Party memberships In 1908 he became a member of the SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) and later joined the USPD (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands). Two years later he was conscripted into the German navy, serving as a stoker and later as a pump specialist on board the armoured cruiser Gneisenau of the German East-Asia fleet in Qingdao (Tsingtau). He became a contemporary witness of the Bourgeois revolution in China led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Karl Artelt was one of the strike leaders.

Living in the prison with different officials from the workers movement had a sustainable influence on him.

Minutes of the Marinestation in Kiel mention Artelt as one of the "Haupthetzer (main agitators)" in a gathering in the union house on 12 April 1918. The record says he has, still as a member of the Sipyard Division (Werftdivision), addressed numerous sailors and workers. Mid-May 1918 he sent a postcard from a military hospital in Hamburger to his mother. It remains unclear, why he was admitted to this hospital.

After reporting to the division commander in Kiel, there were difficulties in detaching him: his former unit sent him to the "Matrosen Division" (sailors' division). However, he was rejected. Through a Captain Ludolf, who knew him from his case in 1917, he was eventually placed in the Torpedo Division (barracks in Kiel-Wik), where he worked in the torpedo boat repair workshop. As a specialist of pumps he supervised a group of shipyard workers who had to work for the navy.

Kiel mutiny

Lothar Popp and Karl Artelt became the leaders of the sailors' mutiny in Kiel in November 1918. Artelt was the first to raise political demands, including the "introduction of universal, equal and secret suffrage for both sexes" and founded the first soldiers' council on 4 November 1918. As a representative of that council, he was asked by governor Souchon to meet him for negotiations. Together with other sailors' representatives they went by car from Kiel-Wik to the Naval Station carrying a large red flag. Artelt personally confronted some of those troops who came to quell the uprising and convinced them to either move back or to support the mutineers. On 10 December 1918, Artelt became Lothar Popp's successor as chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council in Kiel. Popp remained in the council (probably only pro forma) as a political advisor.

Wrongly assigned to Kiel. The town archive Kiel keeps a photograph that was seen for a long time as depicting the burial procession for the victims of the revolution on 10 November 1918. Some identified Lothar Popp, Gustav Noske and Karl Artelt in the photo. The grandson of the latter, also Karl Artelt, was sure that his grandfather was the person second from left in the first row. However in February 2015 the town archive Kiel ascertained, following a hint from Matthias Sperwien, that this photo showed the funeral procession of 20 November 1918 in Berlin and not in Kiel for the victims of the revolution in the capital.

"Well into the Hitler war" a memorial plaque made of bronze was said to have been attached to the barracks building of the fifth company of the I. Torpedobootdivision in Kiel Wik, which read: Hier brach am 4. November 1918 unter Führung von Karl Artelt die deutsche Revolution aus; ("Here started the German revolution on 4 November 1918 led by Karl Artelt"). The balance of power had shifted fundamentally, among other things, due to demobilization. On 6 January 1919, the Supreme Soldiers' Council, against the opposition of Artelt and Popp, gave its consent to the establishment of the 1st Marine-Brigade (also called the Iron Brigade or Division), which sailed for Berlin three days later to support the government against leftist forces. This may have led to Artelt's resignation. He was discharged from the Navy towards the end of January 1919 and left Kiel. Artelt later provided two justifications for his resignation:

In letters in the late 1950s, he wrote that he had resigned because he had been unable to prevail in the Soldiers' Council against Noske's opposition to sending the ships to be interned under the Armistice to Leningrad instead of Scapa Flow. However, this does not fit with the date of his resignation, 6 January 1919. The fleet left Kiel on 18 November, and Noske went back to Berlin on 27 December. In a short CV written in 1960, on the other hand, he justified his resignation with the fact that Noske was torpedoing his demand to build a "powerful Red Force". It was probably inconceivable to Artelt, given the conflicts in Berlin, that under his chairmanship the Kiel Supreme Soldiers' Council would allow a force to be sent to Berlin to support the government.

Weimar Republic

Artelt went back to Magdeburg and stayed temporarily in Alt-Salbke 93 at a friends flat. There he joined founding members of the KPD in mid February 1919 He gave a speech from the balcony of a Government building in the Dome square, addressing the workers on strike. He was also put under Gestapo surveillance.

Publications Lothar Popp assisted by Karl Artelt: Ursprung und Entwicklung der November-Revolution 1918. Wie die deutsche Republik entstand (Beginning and development of the November revolution 1918. How the German republic was established), Behrens, Kiel 1919, Reprint als Sonderveröffentlichung 15 der Gesellschaft für Kieler Stadtgeschichte, Kiel 1983

References and annotations

Additional literature Karl Artelt (junior); in the Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon, Magdeburg 2002, Festschrift zum 40. Jahrestag der Novemberrevolution, hg. von der SED-Bezirksleitung Magdeburg Im Feuer geboren. Zum Kampf der KPD im Bezirk Magdeburg-Anhalt (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Stadt und des Bezirkes Magdeburg. Hg. von der SED-Bezirksleitung Magdeburg 1978) Quellensammlung zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung im Bezirk Magdeburg. Teil II 1917–45 Erinnerungsbericht Karl Artelts SAPMO-Bundesarchiv (Recollection report by Karl Artelt, German Federal archive), Sign.: SGY 30/0022