Karl Artelt
Encyclopedia
Karl Artelt was a German revolutionary and a leader of the sailors' revolt in Kiel.
, later a well known poet, who taught him the basics of Marxism.
(Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) and later joined the (USPD
(Unhabhänige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands). In spring 1919 he was one of the founders of the KPD
(Kommunistishe Partei Deutschlands) in Magdeburg and in 1946 he joined the SED
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands).
, an international shipping line and spent some years amongst others as a stoker; these vessels were used to move copra in the South Seas. 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
. In September 1913 he returned to Magdeburg as a reservist and resumed his job at the Wolf factory.
At the beginning of 1915, he was detached to the Germania shipyard in Kiel as an engine fitter. After some months he was elected shop steward for the German metal workers union for the shipyard. In mid May 1916 the general war situation and the food supply in Kiel had deteriorated to such an extent that on 14 June, when the first early potatoes were distributed, there were assaults on sales points and storage halls. The following morning large numbers of the Germania shipyard workers went on strike. Karl Artelt was one of the strike leaders. During the winter the food supply situation worsened. At the end of March 1917, it was announced that bread rations were to be reduced. In protest 1,450 workers from the Howaldt shipyard and 4,000 workers from the Germania shipyard downed tools. Artelt was a member of the strike committee. He was apprehended because of these activities and tried at a court martial, where he was sentenced to six months in a fortress prison, which he had to serve at Groß-Strehlitz
in Upper Silesia.
Living in the prison with different officials from the workers movement had a sustainable influence on him. In one photograph he can be seen together with Prof. Dr. med. Krahn from Antwerp and Joseph Verlinden, president of the metal workers' union and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Antwerp.
When released from prison he received marching orders to move to Flanders, where he had to join the punishment battalion of the 2. Marine-Pioneerbataillon. When later Artelt protested against a leaflet of the military newspaper An Flanderns Küste, which according to his statement, "heavily insulted" the striking ammunition workers in Germany, he was sent to a mental home in Bruges. However, after six weeks of medical observation, a doctor ascertained his nerves were perfectly healthy. Soon thereafter he was transported back to Germany by express train. In mid May 1918, he sent a postcard from a navy hospital in Hamburg to his mother.
He was ordered back to Kiel as a much-in-demand specialist. After reporting to the division commander, 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 torpedoboat repair yard.
Other sources wrongly indicate the torpedo work-shop in Kiel-Friedrichsort. As a specialist of pumps he supervised a group of shipyard workers who had to worked for the navy. He used his job to secretly re-establish the navy shop stewards system, which had been smashed in 1917.
in November 1918. Artelt was the first to raise political demands 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 travelled by car from Kiel-Wik to the Marinestation Ostsee carrying a large red flag. Artelt personally confronted 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.
A photograph kept in the town archive in Kiel depicts most likely part of the march to the cemetery, where the burial service for the victims of the revolution was to take place on 10 November 1918. Karl Artelt is probably also in the picture. There are five people in the front row, and it was suggested Karl Artelt could be the one on the left. His grandson, also Karl Artelt, however, is absolutely sure that his grandfather is the second left in the first row.
"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").
Despite severe political antagonism even Gustav Noske
, who had come to Kiel to bring the uprising to an end, treated Artelt with respect; Noske wrote in "Von Kiel bis Kapp" (p. 52) about Artelt: "....he [Lothar Popp], was replaced by the inactive senior stoker Artelt, a personally honest man, who lost influence rapidly however, when he started to propagate spartakistic ideas." Artelt did not succeed with his request for an effective revolutionary troop - the balance of power had changed rapidly because of demobilisation - and he stepped back as chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council on 5 January 1919.
As secretary of the KPD in Merseburg/Querfurt, he organised the struggle to counter the Kapp-Lüttwitz-Putsch in 1920. A year later he took part in the March fighting in 1921 in “Mittel-Deutschland”. He was imprisoned and only released on 22 August 1921 from Naumburg
jail.
As party secretary in Düsseldorf
-Mörs, he was apprehended by the Belgian occupation authority and tried before an extraordinary court martial in Aachen, because of political agitation against the occupation. He was put into the detention camp at Rheindahlen
. He was then extradited by the Allied commission to the Supreme Imperial Attorney.
During the following years he functioned as district secretary of the German Communist Party in Bielefeld
and Kassel
.
In 1924 aged 34, he became chairman of the works council of the Schneider company in Nebra
. The firm was closed down after salary demands were justified by the social courts of Naumburg, Jena and Berlin. When the company was re-established, the workers' representatives were not re-employed.
Artelt was apprehended in 1933 and was supposed to be imprisoned. However, when the officer in charge recognised him as a former navy comrade, he refrained from doing so. Artelt nevertheless had to report to the police daily at noon and he was not allowed to leave Nebra. Every now and then he was apprehended and questioned but released afterwards. At the end of 1943 he had to carry out military service at the Lützkendorf mineral oil company. He was also put under Gestapo surveillance.
district. He became 1st district secretary.
From 1948 to 1949 he was district chairman and thereafter became first district secretary of the peoples congress, which was later re-named the National Front.
ln November 1948 Artelt held speeches with the consent of the Soviet and British occupational authorities at seven large rallies in Kiel and its surroundings. This was to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the sailors' mutiny in Kiel.
In the 1960s and 70s he became highly decorated and he gave lectures in factories, schools and so on, about his wild revolutionary past in Kiel and other parts of Germany.
From the middle of 1980 until his death on 28 September 1981 he lived in the "Clara Zetkin" old people's home in Halle
/Saale.
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 an engine operator called 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 WeinertErich Weinert
Erich Bernhard Gustav Weinert was a German Communist writer and a member of the Communist Party of Germany .-Biography:...
, later a well known poet, who taught him the basics of Marxism.
Party memberships
In 1908 he became a member of the SPDSocial Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
(Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands) and later joined the (USPD
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...
(Unhabhänige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands). In spring 1919 he was one of the founders of the KPD
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
(Kommunistishe Partei Deutschlands) in Magdeburg and in 1946 he joined the SED
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands).
East-Asia
In 1908 he was hired by the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft – HAPAGHamburg America Line
The Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany during...
, an international shipping line and spent some years amongst others as a stoker; these vessels were used to move copra in the South Seas. 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
Qingdao
' also known in the West by its postal map spelling Tsingtao, is a major city with a population of over 8.715 million in eastern Shandong province, Eastern China. Its built up area, made of 7 urban districts plus Jimo city, is home to about 4,346,000 inhabitants in 2010.It borders Yantai to the...
(Tsingtau). He became a contemporary witness of the Bourgeois revolution in China led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen
Sun Yat-sen was a Chinese doctor, revolutionary and political leader. As the foremost pioneer of Nationalist China, Sun is frequently referred to as the "Father of the Nation" , a view agreed upon by both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China...
. In September 1913 he returned to Magdeburg as a reservist and resumed his job at the Wolf factory.
First World War
When the first world war broke out he had to rejoin the navy, this time as an administrative clerk in the 1. Werft Division at Kiel-Wik.At the beginning of 1915, he was detached to the Germania shipyard in Kiel as an engine fitter. After some months he was elected shop steward for the German metal workers union for the shipyard. In mid May 1916 the general war situation and the food supply in Kiel had deteriorated to such an extent that on 14 June, when the first early potatoes were distributed, there were assaults on sales points and storage halls. The following morning large numbers of the Germania shipyard workers went on strike. Karl Artelt was one of the strike leaders. During the winter the food supply situation worsened. At the end of March 1917, it was announced that bread rations were to be reduced. In protest 1,450 workers from the Howaldt shipyard and 4,000 workers from the Germania shipyard downed tools. Artelt was a member of the strike committee. He was apprehended because of these activities and tried at a court martial, where he was sentenced to six months in a fortress prison, which he had to serve at Groß-Strehlitz
Strzelce Opolskie
Strzelce Opolskie is a town in south-western Poland with 19,628 inhabitants , situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Strzelce County. Strzelce Opolskie is one of the biggest centers of German minority in Poland....
in Upper Silesia.
Living in the prison with different officials from the workers movement had a sustainable influence on him. In one photograph he can be seen together with Prof. Dr. med. Krahn from Antwerp and Joseph Verlinden, president of the metal workers' union and leader of the Social Democratic Party of Antwerp.
When released from prison he received marching orders to move to Flanders, where he had to join the punishment battalion of the 2. Marine-Pioneerbataillon. When later Artelt protested against a leaflet of the military newspaper An Flanderns Küste, which according to his statement, "heavily insulted" the striking ammunition workers in Germany, he was sent to a mental home in Bruges. However, after six weeks of medical observation, a doctor ascertained his nerves were perfectly healthy. Soon thereafter he was transported back to Germany by express train. In mid May 1918, he sent a postcard from a navy hospital in Hamburg to his mother.
He was ordered back to Kiel as a much-in-demand specialist. After reporting to the division commander, 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 torpedoboat repair yard.
Other sources wrongly indicate the torpedo work-shop in Kiel-Friedrichsort. As a specialist of pumps he supervised a group of shipyard workers who had to worked for the navy. He used his job to secretly re-establish the navy shop stewards system, which had been smashed in 1917.
Kiel mutiny
Lothar Popp and Karl Artelt became the leaders of the sailors' mutiny in KielKiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
in November 1918. Artelt was the first to raise political demands 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 travelled by car from Kiel-Wik to the Marinestation Ostsee carrying a large red flag. Artelt personally confronted 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.
A photograph kept in the town archive in Kiel depicts most likely part of the march to the cemetery, where the burial service for the victims of the revolution was to take place on 10 November 1918. Karl Artelt is probably also in the picture. There are five people in the front row, and it was suggested Karl Artelt could be the one on the left. His grandson, also Karl Artelt, however, is absolutely sure that his grandfather is the second left in the first row.
"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").
Despite severe political antagonism even Gustav Noske
Gustav Noske
Gustav Noske was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany . He served as the first Minister of Defence of Germany between 1919 and 1920.-Biography:...
, who had come to Kiel to bring the uprising to an end, treated Artelt with respect; Noske wrote in "Von Kiel bis Kapp" (p. 52) about Artelt: "....he [Lothar Popp], was replaced by the inactive senior stoker Artelt, a personally honest man, who lost influence rapidly however, when he started to propagate spartakistic ideas." Artelt did not succeed with his request for an effective revolutionary troop - the balance of power had changed rapidly because of demobilisation - and he stepped back as chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council on 5 January 1919.
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 and was elected into the workers' council in March the same year. He was involved in the fighting for a council republic and against the Freikorps Märcker. He gave a speech from the balcony of a Government building in the Dome square, addressing the workers on strike. After the fighting ceased he went into hiding - first under an assumed name - in Nebra an der Unstrut.As secretary of the KPD in Merseburg/Querfurt, he organised the struggle to counter the Kapp-Lüttwitz-Putsch in 1920. A year later he took part in the March fighting in 1921 in “Mittel-Deutschland”. He was imprisoned and only released on 22 August 1921 from Naumburg
Naumburg
Naumburg is a town in Germany, on the Saale River. It is in the district Burgenlandkreis in the Bundesland of Saxony-Anhalt. It is approximately southwest of Leipzig, south-southwest of Halle, and north-northeast of Jena....
jail.
As party secretary in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
-Mörs, he was apprehended by the Belgian occupation authority and tried before an extraordinary court martial in Aachen, because of political agitation against the occupation. He was put into the detention camp at Rheindahlen
Rheindahlen
Rheindahlen may refer to*RAF Rheindahlen*Rheindahlen Military Complex*Rheindahlen, Mönchengladbach...
. He was then extradited by the Allied commission to the Supreme Imperial Attorney.
During the following years he functioned as district secretary of the German Communist Party in Bielefeld
Bielefeld
Bielefeld is an independent city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 323,000, it is also the most populous city in the Regierungsbezirk Detmold...
and Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
.
In 1924 aged 34, he became chairman of the works council of the Schneider company in Nebra
Nebra
Nebra is a town in the district of Burgenlandkreis of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated on the river Unstrut....
. The firm was closed down after salary demands were justified by the social courts of Naumburg, Jena and Berlin. When the company was re-established, the workers' representatives were not re-employed.
The Nazi era
In the mid 1920s he became a sales agent. He subsequently started his own small business and worked until the end of 1943 as an independent trader in Nebra.Artelt was apprehended in 1933 and was supposed to be imprisoned. However, when the officer in charge recognised him as a former navy comrade, he refrained from doing so. Artelt nevertheless had to report to the police daily at noon and he was not allowed to leave Nebra. Every now and then he was apprehended and questioned but released afterwards. At the end of 1943 he had to carry out military service at the Lützkendorf mineral oil company. He was also put under Gestapo surveillance.
After 1945
After the end of the second world war, Artelt became an initiator for the KPD and SPD merger into the SED in the QuerfurtQuerfurt
Querfurt a town in Saalekreis district in the south of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, situated in a fertile area on the Querne, west from Merseburg, on a branch line from Oberroblingen. Pop. 12,935 .-History:...
district. He became 1st district secretary.
From 1948 to 1949 he was district chairman and thereafter became first district secretary of the peoples congress, which was later re-named the National Front.
ln November 1948 Artelt held speeches with the consent of the Soviet and British occupational authorities at seven large rallies in Kiel and its surroundings. This was to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the sailors' mutiny in Kiel.
In the 1960s and 70s he became highly decorated and he gave lectures in factories, schools and so on, about his wild revolutionary past in Kiel and other parts of Germany.
From the middle of 1980 until his death on 28 September 1981 he lived in the "Clara Zetkin" old people's home in Halle
Halle, Saxony-Anhalt
Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...
/Saale.
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
Additional literature
- Karl Artelt (junior); in Magdeburger Biographisches Lexikon, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1
- 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
See also
- German RevolutionGerman RevolutionThe German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...