Historical Description[]
Situated on Germany’s Baltic coast, Kiel is the capital of the state of Schleswig-Holstein. The city was founded in 1242 and entered the Hanseatic League a few decades later. Long part of the Holy Roman Empire, it passed into Danish possession in 1777. One of Otto von Bismarck’s key moves in the unification of Germany was the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, which resulted in the annexation of Kiel and the rest of Schleswig-Holstein.
Under the new German Empire, Kiel became an important naval base. The Kiel Canal opened in 1895, allowing ships to pass between the North and Baltic Seas without traveling around Denmark. Toward the end of World War I, the sailors’ mutiny in Kiel sparked the German Revolution that deposed the kaiser and ushered in the Weimar Republic. It was heavily bombed by the Allies in World War II due to its importance as a shipbuilding center for the Third Reich. Today, the city may be best known for Kiel Week, the largest sailing event in the world.