German pocket battleship Deutschland
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Shipyard: | Deutsche Werke, Kiel |
| Laid down: | February 5, 1929 |
| Launched: | May 19, 1931 |
| Commissioned: | April 1, 1933 |
| Fate: | Scuttled May 4, 1945; resunk 1949 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 12,100 t standard; 16,200 t full load |
| Length: | 610 ft (186 m) |
| Beam: | 71 ft (21.6 m) |
| Draft (max.): | 24 ft (7.4 m) |
| Armament: | 6 × 280 mm (11 inch) 8 × 150 mm (5.9 inch) 6 × 105 mm (4.1 inch) 8 × 37 mm 10 × 20 mm 8 × 533 mm (21 inch) torpedo tubes |
| Armor: | turret face: (160 mm) belt: (80 mm) deck: 40 mm) |
| Aircraft: | Two Arado 196 seaplanes, one catapult |
| Propulsion: | Eight MAN diesels, two screws, 52,050 hp (40 MW) |
| Speed: | 28.5 knots (53 km/h) |
| Range: | 8,900 nautical miles at 20 knots (16,500 km at 37 km/h) |
| Crew: | 1,150 |
The Deutschland (later re-named Lützow), was the lead ship of her class that served in the German Kriegsmarine before and during World War II. The ship was originally classified as Panzerschiff (armoured ship) by Germany but reclassified as heavy cruiser in February 1940. The British nicknamed the three ships of this class pocket battleship.
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[edit] Description
Its size and characteristics were severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany to ships of no more than 10,000 tons displacement. A number of technical innovations (including large scale use of welding to make the hull lighter) used to build a formidable warship within this restricted weight. Even so, the Deutschland was 600 tons overweight, although for political reasons its announced displacement was always given as the 10,000 tons of the treaty limit.
Two other very similar (but not identical) ships were built in its class, the Admiral Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer. As the Deutschland was the lead ship, she was the least advanced and lacks the distinctive high conning tower/bridge and masts of the Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee (which made the latter ships superficially resemble contemporary battleships).
[edit] History
Its keel was laid down in February 1929, at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel, and launched in May 1931. It completed fitting out in late 1931 and took its maiden voyage in May 1932.
During the Spanish Civil War the Deutschland was deployed to the Spanish coast in support of Franco's Nationalists in a total of seven operations between 1936 and 1939. During one of these deployments, on May 29, 1937, the Deutschland was attacked by two Republican bombers and as a result 31 German sailors were killed and 101 were wounded. As retaliation the sister ship Admiral Scheer bombarded Almería killing 19 civilians and destroying 35 buildings ([1]). The dead were first brought to Gibraltar and buried there but the bodies were exhumed on Hitler's orders and accompanied the Deutschland back to Germany for a large military funeral with Hitler attending ([2]).
After the start of World War II, she was renamed Lützow in November 1939 because Adolf Hitler feared that the loss of a ship with the name Deutschland (Germany) would have a significant negative psychological and propaganda effect.
In February 1940 she and her sisterships were re-classified as heavy cruisers, and in April of that year she participated in the invasion of Norway, where she followed the ill-fated Blücher into the Oslofjord, but turned back when the lead ship was sunk by the Norwegian coastal fortress Oscarsborg. Before Lützow could make good her escape the fortress managed to cause significant damage to her, the 15 cm guns of the Kopaas battery scoring three hits and knocking out the Lützow's forward Anton 28 cm gun turret. After the German flotilla had retreated out of Oscarsborg's range Lützow used her remaining Bruno turret to bombard the defenders from a range of 11 kilometers down the fjord. The fortress was also heavily bombed later on the same day but without Norwegian casualties, as the defenders had been ordered down into the underground tunnels of the fortress, after reports to the effect that the King and government had been safely evacuated from Oslo had been received, which the fortress' commander, Colonel Birger Eriksen, considered to be his main goal.
Lützow was then to return to Germany to repair and refit for an extended raiding cruise into the Atlantic, but was torpedoed by the British submarine Spearfish in the Skagerrak north of Jutland. The hit nearly tore off the entire stern of the ship and repairs were not finished until the spring of 1941. Later that year in June, Lützow was again torpedoed - this time by an RAF Bristol Beaufort Torpedo Bomber from 42 Squadron. The ship returned to Kiel and underwent repairs until January 1942.
She participated in various minor events during the next years, but her only other significant service came starting in September 1944 in the Baltic Sea where she fired on land targets in support of the retreating German army, a service she would continue to provide in the subsequent months.
The ship was badly damaged by three 6-ton Tallboy bombs dropped by the Royal Air Force in April 1945 as it lay off Swinemünde, and it came to rest on the bottom. It was repaired, and then continued to provide artillery support of the army. It was finally scuttled by its crew on 4 May 1945.
After the war, the Soviet Navy raised her and used her as a target ship for artillery practice. She finally sank in the Baltic Sea in 1949.
[edit] Commanders
- April 1933 - September 1935 Hermann Fischel
- September 1935 - September 1937 Paul Fanger
- October 1937 - November 1939 Paul Wenneker.
- December 1939 - April 1940 August Thiele
- April 1940 - June 1940 Weber
- June 1940 - August 1940 Heller
- March 1941 - July 1941 Leo Kreisch
- July 1941 - November 1943 Rudolf Stange
- September 1941 - January 1942 Leo Kreisch
- November 1943 - December 1943 Bieserfeld
- January 1944 - April 1945 Bodo-Heinrich Knocke
- April 1945 - May 1945 Ernst Lange
[edit] Further reading
- Siegfried Breyer, Gerhard Koop, (translated Edward Force), The German Navy At War 1939-1945: Volume 1 - The Battleships (Schiffer, West Chester, 1989)
- Bernard Ireland, Tony Gibbons, Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century (HarperCollins, New York, 1996) pp. 42-43
[edit] See also
- List of World War II ships
- List of Kriegsmarine ships
- List of naval ships of Germany
- List of ship launches in 1931
- List of ship commissionings in 1933
- List of shipwrecks in 1945 and list of shipwrecks in 1949
- Other ships of the Deutschland class
[edit] External links
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