For a long time, Kiel maintained the character of a rather rural backwater. This quickly changed when, in 1865, Kiel became a Prussian naval base, and in 1871 was declared to be the principal naval port of the German Imperial Empire. The Navy was quickly followed by the dockyards, and the dockyards by the workers.
For almost the entire length of the inner fjord, the vessels of the Imperial Navy dominated the cityscape. They were moored to special anchored buoys.
Within a few years, Kiel grew into a major city. By 1900, Kiel had more than 100,000 inhabitants. By 1918, the population was to grow to 300,000, and after that to fall again substantially. Hardly any other German major city could show such statistical variations in population as Kiel.
At the end of the First World War, it was the uprising of sailors in Kiel which gave the signal for revolution in Germany. This led to the end of the Imperial Empire, and to Germany’s first democracy, the Weimar Republic.
The city suffered severely as a result of the consequences of the First World War, including the extensive dismantling of the Navy. The economy almost completely collapsed. The subsequent intensive programme of rearmament under the National Socialist regime once again gave the city a strong orientation towards military production. In the Second World War, as a great military base and focus for armaments production, Kiel was a major target for Allied bombers. After over 90 bombing raids, three-quarters of Kiel lay under dust and ashes.
