Kiel Canal Kiel Canal The Kiel Canal (, literally "North-[to]-Baltic Sea canal", formerly known as the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal) is a long 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 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 Sound or Belts. Besides its two sea entrances, the Kiel Canal is linked, at Oldenbüttel, to the navigable River
White Sea–Baltic Canal the 1920s had been demoted from a town to a village, now became a town again, and a large port. As is discussed further below, during the 1930s a number of smaller naval vessels were transferred from the Baltic to the White Sea in order to provide warships for the Soviet Northern naval Flotilla, that became the Northern Fleet in 1937. There was no action near the White Sea–Baltic Canal during the Winter War of 1939-1940, as during that war the USSR was invading Finland, rather than the other way around. On the other hand, with Germany's full-scale invasion of