The succession of major, if mainly localised, uprisings that came to be chronicled as Germany's "November revolution" had their origins with naval mutinies in and Kiel, which then spread inland with the demoralised soldiers coming home from the western (and other) front(s), especially to towns and cities in Germany's industrial heartlands. Lütgens was among the leaders on the rebel side. Fighting in Wilhelmshaven persisted, and in January 1919 a group of naval officers and "professional soldiers" launched an organised counter-attack, targeting "communists", after which striking shipyard workers returned to work: in the "quasi-military" terms in which observers were inclined to assess the situation at the time, Lütgens was on the losing side. In May 1919 he was sentenced to an "exemplary" twelve-year jail term for his part in the uprising. During his trial Lütgens found himself on the receiving end of hostile publicity after a bank employee testified at his trial that he had been involved in the theft of 300,000 marks that had been set aside to be sent to Soviet Russia. The truth of the matter is impossible to determine: nor is it clear whether the court took the evidence of the bank employee seriously. Nevertheless, the hostile mainstream newspapers of the political centre and right made much of the bank clerk's allegations, branding Lütgens a bandit and a robber. For better and worse, he was now a man with a media profile.