SMS Blücher (1877)
 SMS Blücher and torpedo boats in swell, lithograph by Willy Stöwer (1894)
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SMS Blücher was a covered corvette of the Bismarck class that was built for the Imperial Navy in the late 1870s . It was named after the royal Prussian field marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher . She was the second ship in the class, which included five other ships.
The Bismarck- class corvettes were ordered in the early 1870s as part of a large naval construction program. They were supposed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended missions in the overseas areas of interest of the German Empire . The keel of the Blücher was laid in March 1876, the launch took place in September 1877 and the commissioning followed at the end of 1878. As its main armament, the ship initially had a battery of sixteen 15 cm ring cannons and a complete sailing rig to supplement the steam engine that was also available on long missions overseas.
Unlike her sister ships which was Blücher but shortly after start-up into a torpedo training ship converted and largely rebuilt in order to experiment with this newly developed weapon with its own drive and explosives to train crews and to develop a German torpedo doctrine.
The ship was active in this function throughout her active service life. It was initially stationed in Kiel under the command of Alfred von Tirpitz . In the 1880s and early 1900s, most officers and crew members of the German fleet received their torpedo training on board the ship. In 1907 there was a boiler explosion on the Blücher that severely damaged the ship and killed sixteen men. Her condition was then judged to be too bad to be repaired and the ship was sold to a Dutch company that used her as a coal store. Her further fate is unknown.
Mission history
Construction and commissioning
SMS Blücher was laid on keel as a new ship under the contract name Gedeckte Korvette C in March 1876 , and it was launched on September 20, 1877. The chief of the naval station of the Baltic Sea , Rear Admiral Reinhold von Werner named the ship after Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The sea trials began at the end of 1878 and lasted until January 30, 1879. When it was put into service, the Blücher was commissioned with exercises with the still new torpedo weapon and the Navy planned to use the ship as an auxiliary ship for torpedo boats in the event of war . Until the beginning of 1880 the ship was converted for this purpose. Their original armament was removed and replaced with a variety of torpedo tubes . A number of torpedo tubes with a diameter of 35 cm and 45 cm were installed in the lower deck, so that their openings were partly above and partly below the waterline . Her sailing rig was also reduced. With a fuel supply of approx. 300 tons of coal, she had a range of 2,380 nm at 9 kn and 1,940 nm at 10 kn. On August 10, she finally entered the service of the torpedo school in Kiel and the later Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz became the first in command of the ship.
1881-1890
On May 1, 1881, crew training began on board the ship. The torpedo boat Ulan was used as Blücher's tender at the time . In the years of service of the Blücher , the majority of German naval officers and men received their torpedo training on board the ship. For this purpose, she was initially stationed in the Kiel Fjord . On September 17, 1881, the Blücher was part of an inspection by the Imperial Navy where Kaiser Wilhelm I was presented with the new torpedo weapon. To this end, the torpedo school carried out a series of demonstrations in front of Friedrichsort outside Kiel. After a demonstration in which four smaller boats let loose torpedoes on targets, the Blücher followed , which launched torpedoes at full speed on the anchored target ship Elbe and sank the ship amidships with a direct hit. On October 27, the Blücher was decommissioned after the end of the annual summer maneuvers.
From June 22 to July 15, the ship undertook a training voyage in the Baltic Sea, followed by the annual fleet maneuvers in August and September. In 1883 the ship was in service in the same way. In 1884, the Navy organized a torpedo boat department for the first time , which included the torpedo boats Kühn , Flink , Scharf , Safe , Brave , Forward and Jäger . During the exercises on August 4th, the old gunboat Wolf was sunk as a target. The Blücher was relocated to Wilhelmshaven in September to help bring in new torpedo boats that were being built there. In 1885 the ship carried out maneuvers with the torpedo boats in the training squadron . In 1886 the ship was assigned to the newly established inspection of the torpedo system .
On October 1st of that year the Blücher was taken out of service for a general overhaul. The Imperial Admiralty considered turning the ship back into a fully functional warship, with the corvette Elisabeth taking over her function in torpedo inspection . However, this plan was not implemented. In the course of the overhaul, the ship's training rooms were modernized and searchlights were installed on the deck to enable torpedo training at night. On April 30, 1887, the Blücher returned to work and took part in the celebrations to mark the start of work on the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in June. In 1888, the Blücher followed the normal maneuvering routine. In 1889 the ship took part in maneuvers off Kristiansand in which remote shooting was practiced.
1891-1909
Due to the increased demands on the development of torpedo tactics, the Admiralty used the new Aviso Greif in the torpedo attempt command from 1890 and the Blücher was used exclusively for training the crews.
After an uneventful 1891, the ship was overhauled again the following year. Her place as a torpedo training ship was temporarily taken by the old ironclad Sachsen , which held the role until December 1st. In early 1893, the Blücher returned to service. During the annual fleet maneuvers of the year, she was the flagship of the IVth Division of the Fotte. During the exercises, three members of their crew had an accident off Kiel on September 6, in which they overturned with a dinghy. From 1894, the Blücher worked together with the Greif . On September 18, she helped the protected cruiser Prinzess Wilhelm , which ran aground near Bornholm .
In 1895, the Blücher took part in the celebrations for the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and was again overtaken in September of that year. Her place in the torpedo school was taken by the armored ship Friedrich Carl . In the following year, the Blücher again served as the flagship of the torpedo division during the annual fleet exercises in August and September. At this point in time, work began on a new torpedo station in Flensburg - Mürwik , as the strong currents and increasing shipping traffic through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal made it difficult to continue operations in Kiel. The latest torpedo models with a significantly greater range could also be tested in Flensburg, as the training areas there allowed long runs. 1897 and 1898 ran the same routine for the Blücher as in previous years, with deployments as the flagship of the training squadron during fleet maneuvers.
In 1900 the Blücher was taken out of service for another general overhaul at the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel , where she was again represented by Friedrich Carl . She returned to service on April 2, 1901, but on the way out of the shipyard the ship lost a screw and had to be repaired again. On October 31, 1902, the new torpedo station was opened and Blücher moved to Flensburg along with four torpedo boats. The armored ship Württemberg was also assigned to the torpedo school to support Blücher and the torpedo boats. In 1906 it was determined that the condition of the ship could only serve as a stationary training and barracks ship.
On November 6, 1907, a severe boiler explosion occurred on the Blücher . The boiler, which had not been used by the crew for several weeks, had not been properly prepared by the crew, as a result of which the high-pressure steam line blew out the front wall of the boiler. The resulting explosion broke through parts of the deck in front of and behind the chimney and caused serious damage to the ship. Ten men were killed instantly and another twenty-four seriously injured, six more of whom died later. Since most of the crew was ashore at the time of the accident, the losses were not even greater. Blücher was towed to the port of Flensburg, where a thorough investigation into the accident took place. On February 29, 1908, it was deleted from the marine register. The Uranus (formerly Kaiser ) took over the function of the Blücher as a barracks and teaching ship at the torpedo school. The Blücher was sold for 142,000 marks to a private company from Rotterdam , which resold the ship to Vigo , where it was used up as a coal hulk. Her further fate is unknown. The ship's figurehead is exhibited at the Mürwik Naval School .
memories
In Kiel:
- Blücherbrücke: The original landing stage of the Blücher ; see keel line (Kiel) .
In Flensburg:
- Blucher Monument: On the mill cemetery in Flensburg was built to commemorate the 16 dead of a boiler explosion monument.
- Blücherstraße: The street is near Klosterholz , the old center of Mürwik (see there ).
- Blücherbrücke: The original Blücherbrücke ( Old Blücherbrücke ), where the Patria ship was at the end of the war in 1945 , is located in Sonwik . In addition to this, the new Blücherbrücke also exists today in the boat harbor of the Mürwik Naval School .
SMS Blücher in See.
The Blücher memorial on the mill cemetery in Flensburg .
The Gorch Fock at the Neue Blücherbrücke in the boat harbor in Mürwik .
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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, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 70 f .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 2 : Ship biographies from Baden to Eber . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 68–75 (Approved licensed edition Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ Writings of the Society for Flensburg City History (ed.): Flensburg in history and present . Flensburg 1972, page 196.
- ↑ Flensburg street names . Society for Flensburg City History, Flensburg 2005, ISBN 3-925856-50-1 , article: Blücherstraße