SMS Aegir
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Aegir in 1895
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SMS Ägir was the last coastal ironclad the Siegfried class . The eight ships servedin the Imperial Navy before and during the First World War . Like the Odin , the Aegir was built according to slightly different plans and was slightly larger than the other six coastal armored ships of the class.
construction
Construction of the armored ship IV. Class T began on November 28, 1892 at the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel . In contrast to the other ships of the Siegfried class, the ship received two funnels and two boat davits as well as a high front battle mast, which the Odin also had. The electric drive for the auxiliary machine of the steering gear, which was installed for the first time in a ship of the Imperial Navy, was a new feature. On April 3, 1895, the new building was ready to be launched . In addition, water tube boilers (Thornycroft type) were installed for the first time instead of the previously common locomotive boilers. The christening of the ship in the name of the sea giant Aegir from Nordic mythology was personally undertaken by Kaiser Wilhelm II . The construction of the ship was finished in the autumn of 1896.
commitment
Peace time
The Aegir was first put into service on October 15, 1896. The usual test drives were carried out until April 1897, after which the ship was temporarily taken out of service. From July 1, 1897, the Aegir belonged to the Reserve Division of the Baltic Sea, initially until September 29 with a reduced crew. In November the first training trip to Wilhelmshaven was undertaken.
In 1898 target practice took place several times. During the autumn maneuvers of the fleet, the Aegir served as the flagship of the temporarily formed II Squadron. This consisted of the 3rd Division, formed by the Ägir , Odin and Hagen , the 4th Division ( Frithjof , Beowulf and Heimdall ), the II Scouting Group (. Lightning , arrow and D 3 ) and II. Torpedo Boat - Flotilla . Rear Admiral Paul Hoffmann became chief of the squadron and the 3rd division . In December, the Aegir went on a training trip to Copenhagen with the Odin .
From the end of April to May 31, 1899, the Aegir, now classified as a coastal armored ship, belonged to the 1st Squadron, as the Oldenburg had temporarily failed. The ship also took part in the squadron trip to England and Portugal as well as in the fleet inspection for Queen Victoria's 80th birthday . In June, made Ägir of the Kattegat accrued Empress Maria Theresa and the the Great Belt geratenen due Hansa help. During the autumn maneuvers, the Aegir was in the 2nd Squadron as the flagship of the 4th Division. The squadron chief was Rear Admiral Conrad von Bodenhausen . During the maneuvers, the ironclad was rammed by the British steamer Aberfoyle near Darßer Ort on August 28 . The repair of the resulting leak , which reached below the waterline, was carried out by the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel. After a short time in the shipyard, the Aegir was able to participate in the maneuvers again.
In 1900 the Aegir , still regularly part of the Reserve Division of the Baltic Sea, was used for the autumn maneuvers. This was interrupted by the joint assistance with Odin for the HAPAG steamer Germany which ran aground on September 2nd in the Stettiner Haff . After the end of the autumn maneuvers, the Aegir was decommissioned in Danzig .
On July 31, 1901, the Aegir was put back into service and used as the flagship of the newly formed active reserve division. The unit was in command of Rear Admiral Hugo von Schuckmann . On August 6, five stokers were seriously injured when a deflagration occurred on one of the port boilers during association exercises . The Second Squadron was formed from the Reserve Division under Vice Admiral Volkmar von Arnim in Wilhelmshaven . The flagship of the squadron was the Baden . The Aegir was late to take part in the autumn maneuvers due to an engine failure. After its completion, the ironclad was assigned to the Reserve Division of the Baltic Sea in mid-September. In October a training drive took place along the coast of East Prussia .
In April 1902, the Aegir and the Hagen carried out torpedo shooting exercises in the Bay of Kiel . In May, several practice trips were undertaken in the Baltic Sea, followed by a trip to Larvik in June . On June 30, the ship was decommissioned in Gdansk. The local Imperial Shipyard underwent Ägir from February 1903 a reconstruction, which was carried out on all ships of the class. The ship was lengthened by an 8.4 m long middle section, which mainly should increase the coal capacity and thus the range.
At the end of September 1904, the Imperial Shipyard Danzig completed the renovation work. The Aegir was put back into service on October 10 and assigned to the reserve squadron formed in Kiel. This squadron consisted of the eight Siegfried- class coastal armored vehicles. The second active ship of the squadron at that time was the Frithjof . Both ships were also used by the ship artillery inspection department for firing and torpedo exercises. After the completion of the test drives in March 1905, the Aegir first carried out a training run in the central Baltic Sea. In Gdansk, the crew was called in on April 4 to provide assistance in the event of a fire at the JW Klawitter shipyard . Further training trips took place in the spring in the association of training and test ships. At the beginning of July, various devices for the scientific investigation of weather and air currents were tested on board the Aegir . This was followed by training trips to Sweden and Norway, during which the coastal armored ship was in front of Copenhagen together with the active battle fleet from July 20 to 24. The coastal armored ship was also involved again in the autumn maneuvers.
In 1906, training trips took place again in the association of training and test ships. Also maneuvers of the fleet which was Ägir used. As in the previous year, weather observations were carried out in July. In mid-December, the Dapolin tanker Geestemünde hit a shoal in the mouth of the Vistula and was towed through the Aegir . The mineral oil company then donated 2,000 marks to the women's donation marine foundation in Elberfeld .
The Aegir continued to be used for various maneuvers and training trips in the following years. During the autumn maneuvers the ship belonged to the III. Squadron. On September 15, 1909, the coastal armored ship was decommissioned in Danzig and transferred to the reserve. No further use took place until the outbreak of the First World War .
First World War
After the outbreak of war in 1914, the Aegir was reactivated and put back into service on August 12th. The eight ships of the Siegfried class formed the VI. Squadron, whose command was Rear Admiral Richard Eckermann until August 31 . He was then replaced by Herwarth Schmidt von Schwind , who commanded the squadron until it was disbanded. Only from January 30th to March 17th, 1915, was Captain Georg von Ammon representing the sick squadron chief. Shortly after its commissioning, the Aegir was the flagship of the second admiral of the squadron, Rear Admiral Ehler Behring , until he was posted to the eastern Baltic Sea as a "detached admiral". The position of Second Admiral was not filled again.
The Aegir spent the first weeks after reactivation with individual and group exercises in the Baltic Sea. On September 14, 1914, the squadron was relocated to the North Sea, where it took up the outpost and security service in the German Bight . The Aegir performed this service mostly on the Jade and Weser estuaries . From December 13th, the ship took over the function of the squadron flagship after the previous flagship Hildebrand got stuck while towing the aircraft mother ship Answald and had to go to the shipyard for repairs. From January 16 to February 25, 1915, the ships of the line Wörth and Brandenburg were temporarily part of the association as reinforcements. A break-in by British forces into the German Bight and a tight blockade of the German North Sea ports appeared increasingly unlikely in the course of 1915. The VI. Squadron was therefore disbanded on August 31, 1915. The Ägir belonged from 1 September to Hafenflottille Jade and Weser in Wilhelmshaven. Since its military value was very low, the shortage of personnel in the Imperial Navy, on the other hand, all the greater, the ship was decommissioned on January 14, 1916.
Further use and whereabouts
The Aegir was completely disarmed after it was decommissioned and served as a residential hulk for shipyard workers until the end of the war . On June 17, 1919, the ship was removed from the list of warships. The hull was bought by Arnold Bernstein and converted into a cargo ship for the transport of locomotives and wood in 1922. In the following years, the ship transported locomotives , railroad cars and passenger cars , mainly to the Soviet Union and Scandinavia . In 1924 the Aegir and her sister ship Odin were converted into a car transporter again and new Ford Model T cars were brought from Copenhagen to Malmö, Oslo and Helsinki. On one of these voyages, the Aegir stranded off Gotland ( Sweden ) on December 8, 1929 and was abandoned.
According to the the second Navy Law of 1900 stipulated life of 20 years for ships of the line , which in this context, the coastal defense ships included, in 1912, that was big battleship King Albert to replace the Ägir been launched.
Commanders
| October 1896 to April 1897 | Corvette Captain Johannes Wallmann |
| July to August 1897 | Corvette Captain Oskar Truppel |
| August to September 1897 | Captain Benno Paech (reduced crew) |
| September 1897 to May 1898 | Corvette Captain Max Rollmann |
| May 1898 | Corvette Captain Eduard Gercke |
| May to October 1898 | Corvette Captain Max Rollmann |
| October 1898 to July 1899 | Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Hugo Pohl |
| July 1899 to September 1900 | Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Max Bachem |
| July to September 1901 | Corvette Captain Gerhard Gerdes |
| September 1901 to May 1902 | Corvette Captain Job von Witzleben |
| May to June 1902 | Corvette Captain Hartwig von Dassel |
| June 1902 | Corvette Captain Job von Witzleben |
| October 1904 to September 1905 | Frigate captain / sea captain Konrad Henkel |
| September 1905 to September 1906 | Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Hugo Louran |
| September 1906 to February 1907 | Corvette Captain Maximilian Rogge |
| February to March 1907 | Sea captain Ludwig Glatzel |
| March to September 1907 | Corvette Captain Maximilian Rogge |
| September 1907 to March 1909 | Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Walter Engelhardt |
| March to September 1909 | Frigate Captain Friedrich Kloebe |
| August 1914 to May 1915 | Frigate Captain Ernst Schulze |
| June to July 1915 | Lieutenant Paul Möller (deputy) |
| July to October 1915 | Frigate Captain Felix Mersmann |
| October 1915 | Lieutenant Paul Möller (deputy) |
| October 1915 to January 1916 | Frigate Captain Felix Mersmann |
literature
- 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. 35 f .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 1 : Historical overview, ship biographies from Adler to Augusta . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen 1999, p. 199-202 .
- NN: Trials SMS “Aegir” , in: Marine-Rundschau , 9th year, 1898, pp. 396–411.
Web links
- Photo of the cargo ship "Aegir" or "Odin" on the Kiel Canal , accessed on May 5, 2019
Individual evidence
- ^ German Motor Ship for Carrying Locomotives. In: The Motor Ship . Vol. 3, No. 31 . Temple Press, London October 1922, pp. 240 .