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Karl Artelt on board the „Gneisenau“
1912 (lower row second from right); the board reads: master pump personnnel
SMS „Gneisenau“, Amoij, China 1912; family property (Karl
Artelt, grandson) Click to magnify. |
Karl Artelt was born 31 December 1890 in Magdeburg Alt-Salbke, Repkowstr. 12, as son of the engine operator August Artelt and his wife Marie. He attended the eight-classes primary school and thereafter conducted an apprenticeship in the machine production company R. Wolf in Magdeburg and became a trained enigine fitter. There he worked together with the later poet Erich Weinert, who taught him the basics of Marxism (source 9, see below).
He became a member of the SPD (Socialdemocratic Party of Germany) in 1908 and later of the USPD (Independent Socialdemocratic Party of Germany) (9). In Spring 1919 he was one of the founders of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) in Magdeburg and 1946 he joined the SED (United Socialistic Party of Germany).
In 1908 he was hired by the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG, an international shipping line) and spent i.a. some yeas as a stoker on board of ships, which were used to buy copra in the South sea (3, 7, 9). Two years later he had to join the German navy and served as stoker and later as 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 (3, 7, 9). In September 1913 he returned to Magdeburg as reservist and resumed his job at the Wolf factory (9).
Karl Artelt on board the „Gneisenau“ 1912 (lower row second from right); the board reads: master pump personnnel SMS „Gneisenau“, Amoij, China 1912; family property (Karl Artelt, grandson)
Click to magnify.
When the first world war broke out he had to rejoin the navy, this time as a clerk for the administration in the 1. Werft Division Kiel-Wik (7, 9).
Karl Artelt, 1. Werft-Division, left, (enlarged detail right), together with comrads of the 1. Torpedo-Division Kiel-Wik, September
1914; family property (Karl Artelt, grandson); click to magnify.
In the beginning of 1915 he was detached to the ship yard Germania in Kiel as engine fitter. After some few months he was elected shop stewart for the German metal workers union for the ship yard (7). In the middle of May 1916 the general war situation and the food supply in Kiel escalated. On 14 June when the first early potatoes were distributed, it came to assaults on sales points and storage halls. The following morning parts of the Germania ship yard workers went on strike (12, pg. 37). Karl Artelt was one of the strike leaders (7). During the winter the food supply situation aggravated. End of March 1917 when it was announced that bread rations were to be reduced 1450 workers from the Howaldt ship yard and 4000 workers from the Germania ship yard downed tools (12, S. 40). Artelt was a member of the strike committee (9). Because of these activities he was apprehended and tried at a court martial, where he was sentenced to six month fortress prison, which he served at Groß-Strelitz in Upper Silesia (1).
Artelt in April 1917 when he was tried by the extra ordinary court martial in Kiel; the photo was sent as post card on 2 November 1917 from the fortress prison Groß-Strelitz to his brother in law Walter Heinke in Magdeburg-Salbke; family property (Karl Artelt, grand son); click to magnify.
Living together in the prison with different officials from the workers movement had a sustainable influence on him (9). On one photo (below) he can be seen on the left side together with Prof. Dr. med. Krahn from Antwerpen and Joseph Verlinden, president of the metal workers' union and leader of socialdemocratic party of Antwerpen (right).
Groß-Strelitz 18 October 1917; explanation see above; family property (Karl Artelt, grand son); click to magnify.
When released from prison he also received marching orders to Flandern, where he had to join the punishment battalion of the 2. Marine-Pioneerbataillon (7). When Artelt protested against a leaflet of the military newspaper „An Flanderns Küste", which heavily insulted the striking ammunition workers in Germany, he was admitted to a mental home in Brügge. However after six weeks of medical observation the doctor ascertained his nerves were perfectly healthy (7). Soon thereafter he was transported back to Germany by express train (3, 2). Mid of May 1918 he sent a postcard from a navy hospital in Hamburg to his mother (11).
Then he was ordered back to Kiel as a highly demanded specialist. After reporting to the division commander there were difficulties to detach him: his former troup sent him to the marines' division, where he was rejected. Through captain Ludolf, who knew him from his case in 1917, he was eventually placed to the torpedo division (barracks in Kiel-Wik) where he worked in the repair ship yard for torpedo boats (see note 1 below) (2, 3). As a specialist for pumps he had to supervise a group of ship yard workers who had to work for the navy (2, 3). He used his job to secretly re-establish the navy shop stewarts system, which had been smashed during 1917 (7, 2) (see note 2 below).
Together with Lothar Popp he was the leader of the marines' mutiny in Kiel in November 1918. Artelt was the first to raise political demands (12) and founded the first soldiers' council 4 November 1918. As a representative of that council he was asked by Gouverneur Souchon to meet him for negotiations. Together with more represenatives of the sailors they were going by car from Kiel-Wik to the Marinestation Ostsee carrying a large red flag. Artelt personnally confronted those troups 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 (12).
Most likely this photo (town archive Kiel) shows part of the march to the burial service for the victims of the revolution in Kiel, 10 November 1918 (click to magnify). In the front row there are five persons, some identified the one on the left as Karl Artelt. The grand son Karl Artelt however is absolutely sure that his grand father is the person next to him (second left in the first row). He argued that his grand father was of rather small to middle height and that he, because of a problem with his eye sight, did not carry a rifle by that time but a pistol; siehe note 3 below.
„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).“ (3)
Despite severe political antagonism also Noske 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 troup (7) - the balance of power had changed rapidly i.a. through the demobilisation - and he stepped back as chairman of the Supreme Soldiers' Council on 5 January 1919 (12).
Threreafter he went back to Magdeburg and stayed temporarily in Alt-Salbke 93 at a befriended families' flat (13). There he belonged to the founding members of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) in mid February 1919 (7) and was elected into the workers' council in March the same year. He was involved in the fights for a council republic and against the Freicorps Maercker (7, 8) and he held a speech from the balkony of the Government building at the Dome square addressing the workers being on strike (11). After the fighting ceased he went into hiding - firstly under an assumed name - in Nebra an der Unstrut (9).
As secretary of the KPD in Merseburg/Querfurt he organised the fight to parry the Kapp-Lüttwitz-Putsch in 1920. A year later he took part in the March fightings 1921 in Middle Germany. He was imprisoned and only released on 22 August 1921 from the Naumburg jail (7).
As party secretary in Düsseldorf-Mörs, he was apprehended by the Belgian occupation authority and tried before an extra ordinary court martial in Aachen because of political agitation against the occupation. He was put into the detention camp Rhein Dahlen. Then he was extradited by the allied commission to the Supreme Imperial Attorney (7).
During the following years he functioned as district secretary of the the German Communist Party in Bielefeld and Kassel (9).
In the year 1924 aged meanwhile 34 he became chairman of the workers' representative body of the company Schneider in Nebra. The firm was closed down because of salary demands, which were justified accordng to the social courts of Naumburg, Jena and Berlin. When later the company was re-established the workers' representatives were not re-employed (7).
In the middle of the 1920ties he became a sales agent. Soon after he became self-employed and worked until the end of 1943 as an independent trader in Nebra (7).
Artelt was apprehended in 1933 and was supposed to be imprisoned. However when the officer in charge recognized him as a former navy comrad they refrained from doing so. But he had to report to the police daily at noon and he was not allowed to leave Nebra. Every now and then he was apprehended again and questioned but released afterwards. At the end of 1943 he had to do military service at the mineral oil company Lützkendorf. Also there he was under Gestapo surveillance (7).
After the end of the second world war Artelt became an initiator of the KPD and SPD merger into the SED (Socialistic United Party of Germany) in the district Querfurt and became 1st district secretary (7).
Karl Artelt as first secretary of the KPD respective SED of the district Querfurt/Saxony-Anhalt, second half of the 1940ies; family property (Karl Artelt, grand son); click to magnify.
From 1948 to 1949 he was district chairman and thereafter became first district secretary of the peoples congress, which was later re-named in National Front (7).
ln November 1948 Artelt held speeches with the consent of the Soviet and English occupational authorities at seven large rallies in Kiel and surroundings to comemmorate the 30th anniversary of the marines' mutiny in Kiel (7).
In the 1960/70ties the meanwhile highly decorated lectured in factories, schools etc. about his wild revolutionary past in Kiel and middle Germany (9).
Karl Artelt as „Roter Admiral (red admiral)“, 1964;
family property (Hans-Holger Artelt, grand son); click to magnify.
Karl Artelt on lecturing tour;
left: 1958 in Stralsund, family property (Karl Artelt, grand son);
right: ca. 1965, family property (Hans-Holger Artelt, grand son); click to magnify.
From the middle of 1980 until to his death on 28.9.1981 he
lived in the home for old people "Clara Zetkin" in Halle/Saale (9).
Note 1:
According to Dirk Dähnhardt, Revolution in Kiel (p. 56) Artelt worked in
the Torpedowerkstatt Friedrichsort. It seems Dähnhardt made a mistake here:
those sources which he refers to and in a report from the Bundesarchiv (see
below) show definetely that Artelt worked in the Torpedobootsreparatur-werkstatt
or -werft (ship workshop or yard for the repair of torpedo boats) in Kiel Wik.
Robert Rosentreter, Blaujacken im Novembersturm (p. 32) seems to have just copied
Dähnhardt's information, although he claims to refer to Artelt's statements
from 1960.
Note 2:
Also Hermann Knüfken describes in his book „Von Kiel bis Leningrad
(From Kiel to Leningrad)“ (Verlag BasisDruck, Berlin 2008) the re-establishment
of the shop stewart system within the navy (p. 32 ff.).
Note 3:
Information by Karl Artelt, grand son: The sailor third from right wearing a
coat and a sabre is my grand father. He was short or maybe of "medium height".
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the marines' mutiny in Kiel I was
asked - by then I was a student at the literature institute "Johannes R.
Becher" in Leipzig - to write two full-page articles for weekend editions
of the Magdeburg newspaper „Volksstimme" about this historic event.
By then we naturally also talked about "secondary issues". That is
why I remember very vividly, that he told me i.a. that he carried during the
time of the mutiny a pistol 08, because it was difficult for him to handle a
rifle (he had an inherent eye problem).
Because in 1945 he also received as 1st secretary of the KPD from the von der
Soviet military administration a pistol 08, we later talked about this weird
coincidence.
The sailor in the middle identified by others as Karl Artelt is out of question.
Whoever is still having doubts should compare the photos showing Artelt on board
the „Gneisenau" in 1912 with the Artelt wearing a coat on the photo
taken six years later marching through Kiel. When I was ca. three years old
I started to conciously recognize the face of my grand father and we were all
in all 39 years closely associated (living ten years in the same house, eight
years nearby his place in Nebra and many weekends spent together. Later when
I stayed in Magedburg I visited him very often. We had long talks, also on politics
and history.)
A little episode: As first district secretary of the KPD he possessed a pistol
08. Sometimes it laid on a chair in the kitchen and when I looked curiously
at it grand ma said: "Hot, don't touch!" - In later years when I raised
that issue he told me: "Such a weapon I also had in Kiel." - "No
rifle?" - "A rifle I had only 1914." (By that time he was clerk
- private, I. Werft division in Kiel-Wik, August to December 1914.)
So: […] That, what I know for sure is, that the man in the middle, wearing
a coat, is my grand father Karl Artelt. One hundred percent!
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Last updated 15.3.11
