All that such honorable gentlemen probably trembled behind the drawn curtains as the soldiers marched through Varel waving their red flag. Revolution! The war was lost, the marines in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven did not want to be led to the slaughter at the end for their admiralty's false sense of honor. They simply refused the orders, and they did it well! Because there had to be peace! How long we had starved and trembled every day because a letter would tell us that our husband, father, brother, son had died for the emperor and the fatherland! That's over now! For good! When I talk like that, all the gentlemen might look at me quite disconcerted. Am I even entitled to something like that, me - a weak and ignorant woman? O yes, sir, I am! Indeed! We women have been fighting for so long that we are no longer denied education. Yes, and political education especially! The only party who understood this were the Social Democrats. Years ago they already had demanded women's suffrage in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg. And now that there is no longer an emperor and the Grand Duke also had to abdicate, and that there is a workers' and soldiers' council in Oldenburg and also in Varel, times are finally changing. The Council of People's Representatives in Berlin under Friedrich Ebert wants to call elections for a constituent national assembly. And guess who will be allowed to vote for the first time: Yes, we women! And moreover, we ourselves can also be elected! I can tell you: That´s my vote!

While the Supreme Army Command was already pushing for an armistice in October 1918, the Admiralty ordered the fleet to leave for a final battle. But the marines did not want to to be sacrificed such pointlessly. In the fleet that was lying in the North Sea near Wilhelmshaven, many marines refused orders and in Kiel the soldiers allied with the workers to take power in the city. From there the revolution rolled through all of Germany. Everywhere workers' and soldiers' councils temporarily took power, including in Varel, where on November 6th the soldiers of the 15th Maritime Division stationed here showed solidarity with the revolutionaries in Wilhelmshaven. On November 9th the revolution reached Berlin. Kaiser Wilhelm II. had to abdicate, Philipp Scheidemann from the Social Democratic Party proclaimed the German Republic and a Council of People's Representatives with its chairman Friedrich Ebert took over government power. On November 11th, Grand Duke Friedrich August also abdicated and a short-lived “Republic of Oldenburg-Ostfriesland” was proclaimed. The Social Democrats worked towards a parliamentary democracy and introduced active and passive women's suffrage. Regrettably at that time only a few women were nominated and even elected. After all, the first woman to sit in the German Reichstag was called Marie Behncke and came from Varel, or more precisely: from Dangastermoor.