SMS Germany (ship, 1904)
 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The SMS Deutschland was the first of five ships of the line of the Deutschland class , the last ship class of the Imperial Navy , which are referred to as unit ships of the line. From 1906 to 1917 the ship was in naval service, in 1920 it was removed from the list of warships and was scrapped until 1922.
Building history
The Germany was on the Germania shipyard in Kiel as lead ship of a new class under the supervision of August Müller built where their keel was laid on 20 July 1903 as Vermehrungsbau N took place. On November 19, 1904 was launched instead, where Kaiser Wilhelm II. The ship after the naming ceremony speech of the German Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow was baptizing. She was the sixth ship of the line built at the Germania shipyard for the Imperial Navy.
The Deutschland was 127.6 m long, 22.2 m wide and had a draft of 8.23 m. Fully equipped, it displaced 14,218 t. Driven by triple expansion steam engines that generated 16,990 PSi , it reached a top speed of 18.6 knots. At a cruising speed of 10 kn, she was able to cover 4,800 nm . After the SMS Undine, she was the second ship of the Imperial Navy with a gyrocompass from the company Anschütz-Kaempfe , but it was still a development model.
Its main armament consisted of four Krupp - rapid-fire guns of caliber 28.0 cm L / 40 in two twin towers at the ends of superstructures. It also had fourteen 17-cm guns, all of which were set up in casemates , and twenty 8.8-cm guns. It also had six 45 cm torpedo tubes, all below the water level.
On August 3, 1906, the Deutschland came into service shortly before the HMS Dreadnought . The Deutschland and the following ships in their class were no longer up to date, as they were inferior to the new dreadnought line ship in terms of size, armor, firepower and speed . The question as to why these five German ships of the line and also the armored cruiser SMS Blücher were completed unchanged was probably due to costs. A change and enlargement would have resulted in higher costs, the financing of which was not secured. In addition, the realized size represented the largest dimension for the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and the locks in Wilhelmshaven . Even these ships had to retract their lower casemate guns as far as possible for the canal passage.
Fleet flagship
On September 26, the Deutschland became the flagship of Prince Heinrich , the new chief of the active battle fleet. Since then she has participated in the many exercises of the battle fleet in the North and Baltic Seas, but also in the Atlantic. Tactically, it was part of the 2nd Squadron, where it replaced the SMS Weißenburg , which was leaving the fleet . When they joined the Second Squadron, they consisted of five ships of the very similar Braunschweig class and two ships of the line of the old Brandenburg class . In August 1907, after the summer maneuvers of the deep sea fleet , as the battle fleet was called since February 16, 1907, she ran with the Kaiser to Swinoujscie to receive the Tsar Nicholas II, who was arriving with the yacht Standart . In winter, a more powerful radio system was installed on the Deutschland . In 1908, Prince Heinrich was finally able to implement his wish for the fleet to travel to the Atlantic. The fleet ran out on July 13th and returned on August 13th, 1908. The Germany ran in the practice breaks in Funchal and Santa Cruz de Tenerife . During the second Atlantic voyage in 1909, she then visited Bilbao . Since the end of 1908 there have been considerable differences between the head of the fleet and the state secretary in the Reichsmarineamt, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz . The emperor decided for Tirpitz and against his brother, whom he promoted to Grand Admiral and appointed Inspector General of the Navy .
On October 2, 1909, the previous chief of the 1st Squadron continued; Vice Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff , his flag as the new fleet chief on the Germany . In winter the Deutschland received new headlights and was the first ship in the fleet to have an X-ray machine. In November 1911 it was supposed to bring the Kaiser of Kiel to the inauguration of the naval school in Flensburg - Mürwik . Because of the low water level, the ship could not enter Mürwik and the emperor had to switch to the dispatch boat SMS Sleipner . In March 1911 the Kaiser drove to Heligoland on the Deutschland . In October 1911, the Deutschland withdrew from the squadron service because the Reichstag had approved the additional service of a fleet flagship as the 17th ship of the line in service.
At the emperor's request, the fleet chief was replaced in January. His successor, Vice Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl , took command of Germany on January 29, but switched to the SMS Friedrich der Große the following day .
The Germany came back to II. Squadrons to the place of the eliminated SMS Braunschweig . In February she was briefly the flagship of the Second Admiral, Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, and in the autumn she was again briefly the fleet flagship.
War effort
Germany and her four sister ships were assigned to the high seas fleet in the 2nd Squadron. When the First World War broke out , the squadron relocated to the Elbe estuary, but retained the option of being able to relocate quickly to the Baltic Sea if necessary. This unit took part in all naval operations up to the Battle of the Skagerrak . On April 2, 1916, after a stay in the shipyard in Hamburg, the former fleet flagship became the flagship of the II Squadron under the command of Rear Admiral Franz Mauve .
Before the Skagerrak, the Deutschland was the top ship of the 3rd Division of the 2nd Squadron. These weakest ships of the line present drove behind in the battle line. During the so-called "Run to the North", the fleet chief, Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, ordered the retreating units of the British 5th Battle Squadron to follow at full speed. The Germany and its sister ships were significantly slower and fell behind. When the Grand Fleet appeared, Scheer was well outnumbered. The maneuvers of his fleet were also clearly determined by the intention not to sacrifice the ships of his old squadron by a hasty retreat. Scheer decided to fight U-turn 180 degrees to the positions reached. The fallen back ships of the 2nd Squadron did not run the same course as the main body. But the Deutschland and the other five ships in the squadron were on the non-combat side. Admiral Mauve only intended his ships back to the end of the line behind the ships of the III. Squadron to lead. Realizing that this would hinder the movements of Vice Admiral Franz von Hippers battlecruisers , he tried to get to the front end of the line. As a result, his ships briefly came into action with some battlecruisers on the first day, but could hardly see them themselves. The Germany fired at this stage only a volley that struck itself Schleswig-Holstein lack of visibility of a target a single shot. During the night march, the ships fell behind the large ships of the line and were behind the SMS König and in front of the badly battered battlecruisers. They were attacked by British destroyers in the morning hours of the following day. While Germany , King and others could turn away from the torpedo, which was behind the Germany -propelled Pomerania obviously hit by at least one torpedo in a magazine and destroyed in a massive explosion. Parts of the ship fell on the Deutschland .
After the battle, the Deutschland and its three surviving sister ships were made available for coastal protection. In 1917 they were no longer used for combat tasks and only fulfilled support roles. The operation of the old ships in relation to their usefulness turned out to be far too labor intensive. On August 15, therefore, the II. Squadron was disbanded and on September 10, the Deutschland was decommissioned in Kiel. There their heavy weapons were also removed before the Deutschland moved to Wilhelmshaven as a barge until the end of the war .
It was removed from the list of warships on January 25, 1920 and sold for demolition during the year, which was completed in 1922. Her bow ornament is preserved in the underwater weapons school in Eckernförde and her ship's bell is exhibited in Prince Heinrich's mausoleum in Gut Hemmelmark .
Commanders
| August 3 to September 1906 | Sea captain Wilhelm Becker |
| September 1906 to March 31, 1909 | Sea captain Günther von Krosigk |
| April 1, 1909 to October 1912 | Sea captain Ehler Behring |
| October 1912 to July 1916 | Sea captain Hugo Meurer |
| July 1916 to August 1916 | Sea captain Rudolph Bartels |
| August 1916 to September 10, 1917 | Captain Reinhold Schmidt |
Known crew members
- Ernst von Weizsäcker (1882–1951), naval officer and diplomat , State Secretary of the Foreign Office and brigade leader of the General SS
Individual evidence
literature
- Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- 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. 42-46 .
- 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 (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
- Liner Schleswig-Holstein - A ship in two world wars. In: Ships - People - Fates. 4th year volume 31.
- Merten, Karl-Friedrich: According to compass. Memoirs of a naval officer. Mittler, Berlin / Bonn / Herford 1994, ISBN 3-8132-0414-6 , pages 81-92 and 165-185.
- Schultz, Willi: Schleswig-Holstein liner - fleet service in three navies. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0502-2 .
Web links
- Model construction report with many detailed drawings
- The SMS Germany on deutsche-schutzgebiete.de
- Item to class on cityofart.net (Engl.)