SMS Blücher (1908)
 The Blücher before the renovation in 1913 with the original foremast
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The large cruiser SMS Blücher was a warship of the German Imperial Navy . It was named after the Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and was sunk on January 24, 1915 in a battle on the Dogger Bank.
Emergence
The construction of the ship was related to the maritime arms race between Germany and Great Britain in the years before the First World War . The ship was initially designed by a new class of British armored cruiser. While everyone was expecting another type of armored cruiser, the British had created a completely new type without being noticed. Like the ships of the line, this was equipped with a 30.5 cm caliber. At the suggestion of Lord Fishers one spoke of the "Battle Cruiser" ( battle cruiser ).
As a further development of the German large cruisers of the Scharnhorst class , the Blücher was inferior to the ships of the Invincible class in terms of speed and firepower despite better armor protection. Originally it was believed on the German side that the new Invincible class would have six to eight 23.5-cm guns. To respond to this threat, the German side constructed the Blücher - which was armed only with 21 cm guns (the German 21 cm guns proved to be superior to the British 23.5 cm guns) but in greater numbers.
When the Invincible- class battlecruisers were later completed and their real technical data became known, it was too late to convert the Blücher . Germany then began building battle cruisers with Von der Tann . However, until the end of the First World War, these ships were still referred to as large cruisers due to budgetary regulations.
history
After commissioning, the cruiser acted as the flagship of the 1st reconnaissance group of the deep sea fleet. When the great cruiser Von der Tann became operational , Blücher left the association in 1911 and was assigned to the naval artillery inspection department in September 1911 as an artillery test ship. During an association exercise, Blücher was stuck off the Danish island of Romsø on May 29, 1913 and had to be towed free by the Wettin liner . During the subsequent stay in the shipyard in Kiel, the damage was repaired and at the same time the foremast was replaced by a three-legged mast. The latter significantly changed the silhouette of the ship.
After the outbreak of the First World War, the Blücher was initially stationed in the Baltic Sea under the command of frigate captain Alexander Erdmann , but was then relocated to the North Sea. Together with the battle cruisers, the ship fired at Yarmouth on November 3, 1914 and Hartlepool on December 16, 1914 . When used against Hartlepool, the Blücher was hit by a coastal battery with three 15.2 cm grenades, which killed nine men of the crew. Despite the damage, she was able to return home on her own initiative.
In the battle on the Dogger Bank , the Blücher belonged to the naval unit led by Vice Admiral Franz Hipper , which was put to battle by superior British naval forces on the morning of January 24, 1915.
The Blücher , which was slower than the other German ships, formed the end of the retreating German association and was the first German ship to be shot at by British ships. When they unlocked and spread their fire, they got the battle cruiser New Zealand as an enemy. At 11.30 a.m. the Blücher received a heavy hit, which reduced her speed to 17 knots.
A signal hoisted around 12 noon on the severely damaged British flagship Lion , which had remained behind , was interpreted by the Deputy Commander Rear Admiral Moore on board the New Zealand to mean that the fire should be concentrated on the last ship. In fact, Admiral David Beatty had signaled to attack the rear enemy ships. But the four British battle cruisers concentrated their fire at 12:10 exclusively on Blucher .
The Blücher was taken under heavy fire by the four British battlecruisers and received 70 to 100 hits. British destroyers and light cruisers caught up and attacked twice. They scored at least two torpedo hits . Finally the Blücher capsized at 1:13 p.m., drifted for a few minutes and sank. 792 crew members died, 260 were rescued by a destroyer and taken into British captivity . The commander of the Blücher , Frigate Captain Erdmann, died there on February 15, 1915 of the consequences of pneumonia .
Admiral Hipper had to leave the Blücher to its fate, as the Seydlitz was badly damaged and had used almost all of its ammunition. Attempts to help would only have exposed other ships to destruction.
The photo, taken from a British ship, shows the capsizing ship from which crew members are trying to save themselves. It is one of the most famous war photographs of the First World War.
Commanders
| October 1909 to September 1910 | Sea captain Freiherr von Rössing |
| September 1910 to April 1911 | Sea captain Scheidt |
| April 7 to September 29, 1911 | Sea captain Heinrich Trendtel |
| September 1911 to September 1913 | Sea captain Pieper |
| September 1913 to January 1915 | Frigate Captain Erdmann |
memory
A memorial in memory of the Blücher is located at the Nordfriedhof Kiel .
See also
literature
- Kurt Gebeschus: Dogger Bank. Battle and sinking of the armored cruiser "Blücher". With 12 pictures, 8 drawings and 3 battle maps. Fountain publishing house. Berlin 1935.
- Axel Grießmer: Large cruisers of the Imperial Navy 1906–1918. Constructions and designs based on the Tirpitz plan. Bernard & Graefe Publishing House. Bonn 1996. ISBN 3-7637-5946-8 . [on Blücher see pp. 19–39].
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 80 .
- Magnus von Levetzow : The sea battle at the Dogger Bank. North German publishing and trust company. Berlin 1927.
- AD Lützow: Naval Archives. Individual depictions of the naval war 1914–1918. Volume 1: The North Sea War. Doggerbank – Skagerrak. Gerhard Stalling. Oldenburg 1931. (Reprint: Melchior-Verlag, Wolfenbüttel 2006. ISBN 3-939102-24-5 ( Historical Library )).
Web links
Footnotes
Coordinates: 54 ° 20 ′ 0 ″ N , 5 ° 43 ′ 0 ″ E