Emden (ship, 1925)

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Emden
Light Cruiser Emden off the US West Coast 1930.jpg
Ship data
flag German EmpireGerman Empire (Reichskriegsflagge) German Empire
Ship type Light cruiser
Shipyard Reichsmarinewerft , Wilhelmshaven
Build number 100
Launch January 7, 1925
Commissioning October 15, 1925
Whereabouts Blasted on May 3, 1945
Ship dimensions and crew
length
155.1 m ( Lüa )
150.5 m ( KWL )
width 14.2 m
Draft Max. 5.93 m
displacement Construction: 6,056 t
Maximum: 6,990 t
 
crew 483 men
Machine system
machine 10 × marine boilers
2 × geared turbine
Machine
performance 		45,900 hp (33,759 kW)
Top
speed 		29.4 kn (54 km / h)
propeller 2 three-winged ⌀ 3.75 m
Armament
Armor
  • Deck: 20-40 mm
  • Bulkheads: 40 mm
  • Belt: 50 mm
  • Command tower: 20–100 mm
  • Ammunition sleeve: 20 mm
Return to Wilhelmshaven, 1928
The Emden in front of China, 1931
Light cruiser Emden , 1935

The light cruiser Emden was a German warship of the Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic and later of the Kriegsmarine . After the two small cruisers Emden (commissioned in 1909) and Emden (commissioned in 1916), she was the third German warship to be named after the city of Emden .

history

Construction and commissioning

The referral to the design and planning work for the first German cruiser replica after the Versailles Treaty of 1919, the Court of Chief of the Admiralty in 1920, and the first construction rate of 25 million RM in after's then state the total estimated construction cost of 120 million RM was established in October 1920 in included the budget for 1921. The line plan of the hull for the first larger German warship, which was almost completely welded, was based on the last cruisers of the Imperial Navy , the Cöln class . Originally, it was even hoped to be able to use one of the unfinished Hulls of the Cologne class, but this was prohibited by the Naval Interallied Commission of Control (NIACC - part of the IMKK Interallied Military Control Commission) . However, some parts of the ships to be demolished could be used for the new building.

On January 7, 1925, ran Emden on the Reich Naval Shipyard Wilhelmshaven from the stack . The construction time had been delayed by financing problems due to the hyperinflation in 1922 and 1923 and difficulties with the procurement of materials, which is why the total construction costs can no longer be given with certainty. In addition, there were the changes to the construction that became necessary as a result of manufacturing difficulties in the industry and the objection of the IMKK military control commission against the planned twin towers . The original plan provided for eight 15 cm guns in four twin mountings and would have made the cruiser one of the most modern of its time. However, the Treaty of Versailles prohibited the development of new weapon systems, including new gun turrets. Since the German Navy, like most others, had not used twin turrets for small-caliber guns up to this point, all existing turret constructions were designed for 21 cm caliber or larger and thus too heavy for a cruiser, which, according to the Versailles Treaty, was no more than Was allowed to displace 6000 tons. This made a new design with much less effective individual guns necessary and gave the Emden an appearance very similar to its predecessors.

The cruiser was ceremoniously put into service by the Reichsmarine on October 15, 1925 .

Training ship

The Emden was planned even before its completion, not for military operations and was used as a training ship used. Several trips were made as part of the training.

  • 1st trip --- November 14, 1926 to March 14, 1928
Atlantic Ocean, Cape Town , Cocos Islands, Japan , Alaska , Cape Horn, Rio de Janeiro , Azores, Spain
  • 2nd trip --- December 5, 1928 to December 3, 1929
Suez Canal, Australia , Hawaii , Panama Canal, Las Palmas ( Canary Islands )
  • 3rd trip --- January 13th to May 13th 1930
Madeira , New Orleans , Jamaica , Puerto Rico , Las Palmas, Santa Cruz
  • 4th trip --- December 1, 1930 to December 8, 1931
Vigo (Spain), Suez Canal, Colombo , Trincomali, Bangkok, Manila, Nanking, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Osaka, Nii Jima, Tsuruga, Hakkodate, Ateru, Yokohama, Guam, Batavis ( Dutch East Indies ), Cocos Islands, Mauritius, Durban , Lobito, Luanda, Freetown, St. Vincent, Las Palmas, Santander

After these years in service as a training ship, whose longest voyage led to China in the early 1930s , the Emden was temporarily decommissioned by the Reichsmarine (from 1935: Kriegsmarine ) due to extensive renovation work. During the renovation, the firing of the steam boiler was switched from coal to oil and the maximum possible fuel supply was increased. The guns were exchanged for those with longer tubes of the same caliber, and larger torpedo tubes were installed. After that, she initially sailed again as a cadet training ship until 1939.

  • 5th trip --- November 10, 1934 to June 14, 1935
Santa Cruz (Tenerife), Cape Town, Trinconmali, Cochin (Indochina), Suez Canal, Alexandria, Cartagena, Santa Cruz, Ponta Delgada, Lisbon, Vigo
  • 6th trip --- October 23, 1935 to June 12, 1936
Azores, Caribbean, Venezuela, Panama Canal, Portland / Oregon, Honolulu, Panama Canal, Baltimore, Montreal, Pontevedra (Spain)
  • 7th trip --- October 10, 1936 to April 23, 1937
Cagliari (Sardinia), Varna (Bulgaria), Suez Canal, Ceylon, Thailand, Japan, China, Suez Canal, Falmouth (Great Britain)
  • 8th trip --- October 11, 1937 to April 23, 1938
Spain, Suez Canal, Colombo, Surabaja / Balawan, Massaua (East Africa), Atlantic
  • 9th trip --- July 26th to December 15th 1938
Norway, Reykjavík (Iceland), Vigo, Azores, Bermuda, Madeira, Wilhelmshaven, from there on October 10th to Constanta (Romania), Varna ( Bulgaria ), Istanbul, Rhodes, Vigo

From March 29 to April 15, 1939 the ship was active in the fishery protection service.

World War II and fall

On September 4, 1939, the Emden in Wilhelmshaven was damaged on the forecastle by a shot down British Bristol Blenheim bomber. There were nine dead and twenty wounded. In 1940, the Emden belonged to the warship association that entered the Oslofjord on April 8 with army troops on board at the Weser Exercise Company , and the heavy cruiser Blücher was shot at and sunk by the Oscarsborg fortress . On April 10, she moored in Oslo, where she served as the news center for all three branches of the armed forces until June 7. Then she was moved to Swinoujscie to be used again in the training service.

A conversion planned for 1940 to eight 15 cm L / 50 in twin turrets of the destroyers in 1936 with simultaneous reinforcement of the anti-aircraft armament by one 8.8 cm and two 3.7 cm anti-aircraft guns was not carried out due to the war situation.

Since a war mission was still out of the question, followed more years of service as a training ship. After being in the shipyard from November 1940 to February 15, 1941 she was ready for use again. On September 26 and 27, 1941, she supported the landing companies on the Baltic Islands, where she and the light cruiser Cologne fired around 600 15 cm shells at the Soviet coastal batteries at Cape Ristna on Ösel . Then she served again as a school cruiser and was in the shipyard in Wilhelmshaven from June to November 1942. From September 19 to 21, October 1 to 2 and October 5 to 6, 1944, she took part in mining operations in the Skagerrak. On December 9, 1944, she moored briefly in the Oslofjord. On December 25, 1944, she entered Königsberg , where she was to be overhauled in the Schichau shipyard.

On January 23, 1945, the order to leave was issued because of the approach of the Red Army. With the coffins brought from the Tannenberg memorial by Hindenburg and his wife on board, she was towed to Pillau by icebreakers . After the coffins had been loaded onto the Pretoria and the turbine operation was possible, she left Pillau on February 1, 1945 and arrived in Kiel on February 6 with around a thousand refugees to continue the shipyard layover. There she was on 9/10. April badly damaged by bombs. On April 14, she was towed into the Heikendorfer Bay with a 15 degree port side and set aground. The decommissioning followed on April 26th. On May 3, 1945, the Emden was blown up in Heikendorfer Bay under the command of Kapitänleutnant Helmut Kummer; its remains were demolished in 1948.

Commanders

Known crew members

Trivia

  • The first discovery of a water depth of over 10,000 m. When crossing the Philippines Trench (1926), a corrected depth of 10,400 m was found. The place is called Emdentief .
  • At the tip of the bow she carried the Iron Cross , which, except for the U 9 ​​submarine , was only allowed to sail the Emden . This regulation was based on an instruction from Kaiser Wilhelm II in World War I and relates to the award of the first "Emden" .
  • Robert Witthoeft-Emden served as a watch officer on the first Emden from May 30, 1913 until it was stranded after the battle near the Cocos Islands on November 9, 1914. Like the other crew members, Witthoeft received an award for surviving the last battle , the right to use the inheritable suffix “-Emden”, which explains his unusual surname.

literature

  • Siegfried Breyer: Schulkreuzer Emden , Marinearsenal Volume 31, Podzun-Pallas-Verlag, Wölfersheim-Berstadt (1995) ISBN 3-7909-0534-8
  • Gerhard Koop: Emden. One name - five ships , Bernard & Graefe Verlag 2002, ISBN 978-3-7637-5406-9

See also

Web links

Commons : Emden  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Arming upon commissioning.
  2. ↑ a b Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats, vol. 1. 1914 to 1939. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9 , page 80
  3. ↑ a b Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats, vol. 1. 1914 to 1939. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9 , page 82
  4. ↑ 6. Foreign trip cruiser Emden 1935/36 - report by August Rittweger
  5. ^ With the cruiser "Emden" to America - recorded by Kurt Jürgen Voigt
  6. ↑ Erich Gröner : The German Warships 1815-1945 , Volume 1, p. 145
  7. ↑ On-board community of Emden drivers: The name suffix Emden .