SMS Friedrich the Great (1911)
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The SMS Friedrich der Große was a large-line ship ( battleship ) of the Kaiser class of the German Imperial Navy .
history
The ship was the first newbuilding of the Werft AG Vulcan Hamburg , a subsidiary of Stettiner Maschinenbau AG Vulcan, which opened in 1909 . It was launched on June 10, 1911 and entered service on October 15, 1912.
The Frederick the Great became the flagship of the high seas fleet for more than four years and took part in the Skagerrak Battle , which she survived undamaged. On March 14, 1917, SMS Baden became the new flagship.
In early August 1917, came on the in Wilhelmshaven ships lying Frederick the Great and the sister ship SMS Prince Regent Luitpold due to inactivity, inadequate supply of enlisted personnel as well as bad and sometimes oppressive leadership by the officer corps to insubordination and mutiny . After the crackdown, five people involved were sentenced to death and two of them - Max Reichpietsch and Albin Köbis - were finally executed , while the others - Hans Beckers , Willy Sachse and Wilhelm Weber - were pardoned .
During the conquest of the Baltic Islands in 1917 ( Operation Albion ), Frederick the Great was deployed from October 12, 1917 in the association of the IV Squadron, which had been newly formed since December 1916, among other things to bombard the Russian Zerel battery (actually Särel v. Finn. saari = island) with its four 30.5 cm cannons, the concrete foundations of which can be seen in the vicinity of the lighthouse, which was renewed after 1945 (the old one was damaged at the end of the Second World War ).
After the end of the war, the Frederick the Great was interned in Scapa Flow together with most of the imperial ocean-going fleet . Parts of the remaining crew, reduced to 120 men after the crossing, behaved so rude to the German Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter who was on board - among other things, they were trampled on the upper deck above his cabin in order to deprive him of sleep - that he was forced to to switch to SMS Emden II as the new flagship of the internment association. When it was finally certain that the victorious powers would not surrender the interned ships again, Rear Admiral von Reuter gave the order on June 21, 1919 for the Imperial Ocean Fleet to scuttle in Scapa Flow . At 12:16 p.m. Frederick the Great sank first of the ships. The wreck was lifted and scrapped in 1937, recovering around 20,000 tons of scrap worth £ 130,000.
The four other Kaiser- class ships , which were also sunk by their crews in Scapa Flow, were scrapped in Rosyth between 1929 and 1937 . The ship's bell was handed over to the German Navy in the 1960s.
Commanders
| Rank | Surname | date |
|---|---|---|
| Sea captain | Theodor Fuchs | October 15, 1912 to June 10, 1917 |
| Sea captain | Theodor Fuchs | July 25 to August 16, 1917 |
| Sea captain | Johann von Lessel | August 17, 1917 to December 15, 1918 |
| Corvette Captain | Ottmar von Wachter | December 16, 1918 to June 21, 1919 |
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
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 293 f .
- Erich Gröner , 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, Bonn 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 49 f .
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 3 : Ship biographies from the Elbe to Graudenz . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 125-148 .
- Gerhard Koop, Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Ship classes and ship types of the German Navy . tape 9 : Ships of the line: From the Nassau to the König class . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-7637-5994-8 .
