Uploaded September 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This video is a summary of the Kiel Mutiny and the german Novemberrevolution that rocked Imperial germany at the end of 1918 and eventually caused the german emperor (Kaiser) to abdicate and caused two different german republics to be proclaimed within a day, a liberal democratic one and a communist council republic. I explain the historical context that lead to these events like the anglo-german naval race, the scramble for africa, world war one and the development of the german empire.
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Second channel: youtube.com/channel/UCtXcyUuCaUMY2GGU_8iM1hg
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:01 The Situation
8:47 The fatal order
13:40 The time to act!
17:05 Betrayal
21:58 Ending
25:34 Conclusion
5 person discord invite. Hit the bell to catch it under the next video. And please only use it if you willbe active on the server, otherwise leave it for others: discord.gg/tVfzCP9bFb
Transcript:
Hello everybody. Today we are talking about a topic which I completely glossed over in my world war one video. And that is a protest of the german sailors that started in 1918 and eventually caused the government of the Kaiser to collapse and not one but two competing governments forming to fill in the vacuum.
This means we will talk about the Kieler Mutiny and the wider Novemberrevolution. It’s a story about war, insubordination, protest, rebellion, revolution and betrayal. And amazingly basically nobody in the entire English-speaking world had ever heard about it.
So, let’s start, right after you subscribed, because I want to reach 50 thousand subscribers before January so you seriously need to sub, or I will feel bad. That being said, let’s get into the historical context.
The story we are telling will only start at the end of world war one in 1918. But it’s important to keep in mind that the unified German state was very young at that point. It only formed in 1871 during the Franco Prussian war. Before then Germany was always deliberately kept in the form of many single nations that barely even had a unified German identity.
The reason was that if all German speaking people unified they would completely upset the balance of power in Europe. This is why Austria and France spend the entire post-Napoleonic time trying to prevent a German unification.
But then Prussia got a good chancellor and an even better military strategist, and they defeated both the Austrian AND the French armies. And they even captured the French emperor and accidentally turned Paris into a socialist commune. I have a video on that.
The war was officially Prussia and it’s allies, aka all predominantly German states besides Austria against France. The Prussians won, more or less because they were better at using the railroads to mobilise, because they had more advanced breach loading rifles and most importantly their emperor wasn’t a sad off brand wannabee napoleon. Long story.
Essentially the Germans won and proclaimed the German empire, in the hall of mirrors in Versailles which is the seat of the French emperors. Historians usually classify this as a dick move. That didn’t help French german relations at all. In addition Germany got the regions of Alsace and Loraine which had both French and German speakers so it was disputed territory.
They also got a Frick load of reparations from the French government which they spent on a shiny new parliament building called the Reichstag. Which couldn’t do jack shit without approval of the emperor but hey, it was there, so yay for spending money on purely symbolic government organs.
Now there was a single unified german state. With 41 million inhabitants. The largest army in the world, the largest industry and working population in the world thanks to the Ruhr area, which was super industrialised because it had lots of coal and a great water way in the form of the rhine.
Kiel was a very large city in the german empire at the time. It had always been a major city, being located on northern European trade routes but the german Kaiser declared it the main base of the eastern fleet. The western fleet was instead anchored in Willhelmshafen.
Of course along with the fleet came many more advancements for the city. It needed places for the sailors to stay, docs to repair and upgrade the ships, slip ways to build new ones. Metal working industry large enough to provide the massive amounts of hardened steel that made up the hulls of the ships. Stores and markets to feed all these people and so on.
This video is a summary of the Kiel Mutiny and the german Novemberrevolution that rocked Imperial germany at the end of 1918 and eventually caused the german emperor (Kaiser) to abdicate and caused two different german republics to be proclaimed within a day, a liberal democratic one and a communist council republic. I explain the historical context that lead to these events like the anglo-german naval race, the scramble for africa, world war one and the development of the german empire.
Patreon: patreon.com/viki1999
Second channel: youtube.com/channel/UCtXcyUuCaUMY2GGU_8iM1hg
Subreddit: reddit.com/r/viki1999
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
E-Mail Address: viki1999mail@gmail.com
The song in the outro was produced by 08 (who gave me no way to credit them), you can listen to the whole remix on my second channel: youtu.be/jZOrMsIOZh0
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:01 The Situation
8:47 The fatal order
13:40 The time to act!
17:05 Betrayal
21:58 Ending
25:34 Conclusion
5 person discord invite. Hit the bell to catch it under the next video. And please only use it if you willbe active on the server, otherwise leave it for others: discord.gg/tVfzCP9bFb
Transcript:
Hello everybody. Today we are talking about a topic which I completely glossed over in my world war one video. And that is a protest of the german sailors that started in 1918 and eventually caused the government of the Kaiser to collapse and not one but two competing governments forming to fill in the vacuum.
This means we will talk about the Kieler Mutiny and the wider Novemberrevolution. It’s a story about war, insubordination, protest, rebellion, revolution and betrayal. And amazingly basically nobody in the entire English-speaking world had ever heard about it.
So, let’s start, right after you subscribed, because I want to reach 50 thousand subscribers before January so you seriously need to sub, or I will feel bad. That being said, let’s get into the historical context.
The story we are telling will only start at the end of world war one in 1918. But it’s important to keep in mind that the unified German state was very young at that point. It only formed in 1871 during the Franco Prussian war. Before then Germany was always deliberately kept in the form of many single nations that barely even had a unified German identity.
The reason was that if all German speaking people unified they would completely upset the balance of power in Europe. This is why Austria and France spend the entire post-Napoleonic time trying to prevent a German unification.
But then Prussia got a good chancellor and an even better military strategist, and they defeated both the Austrian AND the French armies. And they even captured the French emperor and accidentally turned Paris into a socialist commune. I have a video on that.
The war was officially Prussia and it’s allies, aka all predominantly German states besides Austria against France. The Prussians won, more or less because they were better at using the railroads to mobilise, because they had more advanced breach loading rifles and most importantly their emperor wasn’t a sad off brand wannabee napoleon. Long story.
Essentially the Germans won and proclaimed the German empire, in the hall of mirrors in Versailles which is the seat of the French emperors. Historians usually classify this as a dick move. That didn’t help French german relations at all. In addition Germany got the regions of Alsace and Loraine which had both French and German speakers so it was disputed territory.
They also got a Frick load of reparations from the French government which they spent on a shiny new parliament building called the Reichstag. Which couldn’t do jack shit without approval of the emperor but hey, it was there, so yay for spending money on purely symbolic government organs.
Now there was a single unified german state. With 41 million inhabitants. The largest army in the world, the largest industry and working population in the world thanks to the Ruhr area, which was super industrialised because it had lots of coal and a great water way in the form of the rhine.
Kiel was a very large city in the german empire at the time. It had always been a major city, being located on northern European trade routes but the german Kaiser declared it the main base of the eastern fleet. The western fleet was instead anchored in Willhelmshafen.
Of course along with the fleet came many more advancements for the city. It needed places for the sailors to stay, docs to repair and upgrade the ships, slip ways to build new ones. Metal working industry large enough to provide the massive amounts of hardened steel that made up the hulls of the ships. Stores and markets to feed all these people and so on.
