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Videofilm about the Sailors' Mutiny in Kiel 1918

German videofilm with time witnesses: "Kiel schreibt Geschichte - Matrosenaufstand im November 1918". 60 minutes, VHS or DVD.

By Klaus Kuhl, Kiel 1991

See a small part of the videofilm:
Internet-Explorer: Interview with Julius Bredenbek (1.3 minutes; 3.5 MB)
Netscape-Navig.: Interview mit Julius Bredenbek (1.3 Minuten; 3.2 MB)
For non-commercial use only

Julius Bredenbek was then a member of the worker's youth, and later became a well known unionist and Socialdemocrat, personal specialist for Lauritz Lauritzen (see [Timewitnesses])

Translated text of the video clip:
Kuhl: The soldier’s council (Soldatenrat) sent delegations to Berlin repeatedly to see Noske and protest against measures downsizing their authority. From your memory, did the workers support this protest?
Bredenbek: Yes, partly. But the larger part was too tired politically, as well as too little developed to comprehend the situation. People wanted to see the war and the consequences of the war eliminated by all means, they wanted order in the country. How we assess this nowadays is a different thing, but this was the overall situation. Tiredness of the war, rejection of the old political powers, yes, but there was no readiness to do something constructively for it. “This will be done by those on top,” was a common saying also among the organised workers, “they will do it allright.”
Kuhl: Could have loyalty against the party leadership also played a part?
Bredenbek: Partly also. One could almost say even a certain implicit obedience against party respective trade union. That’s obvious.

The film can be borrowed from the Stadtbildstelle in Kiel or Flensburg in Germany or it can be bought from me against a contribution. It is based on different material from different archives and longer interviews with time witnesses, among others with one of the leaders of the mutiny: Lothar Popp.

The acompanying brochure for the videofilm can be downloaded here (private use only): november_video_text.pdf (1.2 MB)

A first version of this film has been produced under the title "Der Zündfunke" by Kay Gerdes for the Medienpädagogik am Kieler Kulturzentrum "Pumpe". More information here.

Evaluation of the film: Der Film über den Matrosenauftstand ist 1991 im Umatic Format erstellt und 2005 in das DVD Format umgewandelt worden, durch die lange Lagerung des Masterbandes gibt es leider einige Tonschwankungen. Außerdem enthält die DVD einige falsche Aussagen/Darstellungen (diese sind im Begleitheft gekennzeichnet und korrigiert worden) und vermischt nicht gekennzeichnete Kommentare mit Faktendarstellungen. Aus all diesen Gründen wird seit einiger Zeit eine Neu-Auflage vorbereitet, die hoffentlich noch vor 2018 erscheinen wird. Im Nachlass Dirk Dähnhardts, der freundlicherweise von seiner Frau Ursula Dähnhardt zur Einsicht zur Verfügung gestellt wurde, befand sich eine Einschätzung des Films, die zu einem ähnlichen Ergebnis kommt. Eine Abschrift des Dokuments, das vermutlich Anfang der 90er Jahre erstellt worden sein könnte, finden Sie hier >>

Other interesting films (German only):

Update: 4 Feb. 2011

 

Naval mutiny : [Overview] [Interview] [Recollection] [CV Popp] [CV Artelt] [Witnesses] [Videofilm] [Timeline] [Evaluations]