The Kiel Canal, formerly known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal) is a 98-kilometre-long (61 mi) freshwater canal in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein. The canal was finished in 1895, but later widened, and links the North Sea at Brunsbüttel to the Baltic Sea at Kiel-Holtenau. An average of 250 nautical miles (460 km) is saved by using the Kiel Canal instead of going around the Jutland Peninsula. This not only saves time but also avoids storm-prone seas and having to pass through the Danish straits.
In June 1887, construction started at Holtenau (de), near Kiel. The canal took over 9,000 workers eight years to build. On 20 June 1895 Kaiser Wilhelm II officially opened the canal for transiting from Brunsbüttel to Holtenau. The next day a ceremony took place in Holtenau, where Wilhelm II named the waterway the Kaiser Wilhelm Kanal (after his grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I), and laid the final stone. British director Birt Acres filmed the opening of the canal; the Science Museum in London preserves surviving footage of this early film. The first vessel to pass through the canal was the aviso SMS Jagd, sent through in late April (before the canal officially opened) to determine if it was ready for use.
The first trans-Atlantic sailing ship to pass through the canal was Lilly, commanded by Johan Pitka. Lilly, a barque, was a wooden sailing ship of about 390 tons, built 1866 in Sunderland, U.K. She had a length of 127.5 feet (38.9 m), beam 28.7 feet (8.7 m), depth of 17.6 feet (5.4 m) and a 32-foot (9.8 m) keel.
In order to cope with the increasing traffic and the demands of the Imperial German Navy, between 1907 and 1914 the canal width was increased. The widening of the canal allowed the passage of a Dreadnought-sized battleship. This meant that such battleships could travel between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea without having to go around Denmark. The enlargement was completed with the installation of two larger canal locks in Brunsbüttel and Holtenau. More details
