SMS Gneisenau (1906)
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SMS Gneisenau was a large cruiser ( armored cruiser ) of the Imperial Navy and was used in the First World War . The name was given after the Prussian field marshal August Neidhardt von Gneisenau , who, as von Blücher's chief of staff, played akey role in the victory at Waterloo over Napoleon Bonaparte in 1815.
history
The Gneisenau was the first ship of a new class of large cruisers in December of 1904 in the shipyard AG Weser in Bremen set to Kiel . Like her sister ship Scharnhorst, she was designed for use in the waters of the German colonies overseas. It was launched on June 14, 1906 and commissioned on March 6, 1908. She first acted as a modern escort cruiser for the Hohenzollern imperial yacht in Finnish waters. Your then commander Franz Hipper was later commander of the 1st reconnaissance group of the deep sea fleet in the Skagerrakschlacht . Then the Gneisenau was sent to East Asia , where her sister ship, the Scharnhorst , was already located. There is still a black and white film about her departure to East Asia. Like the Scharnhorst , the Gneisenau was completed in "Auslandsanstrich 98" with a white hull and yellow ocher superstructures, masts and chimneys. This color scheme was used in particular for Kaiser escort ships in European waters, which is why the Gneisenau received it. In accordance with the abolition of these colors in 1910, the cruiser was relocated to East Asia in the usual paintwork with a medium gray hull and light gray superstructures, masts and chimneys.
Cruiser squadrons in East Asia
The Gneisenau belonged, like the Scharnhorst from 1909 to the German cruiser squadron with base in Qingdao . At the beginning of the First World War, both ships were on an inspection voyage in the Pacific at Ponape . However, the return to the Tsingtau base had become impossible due to the expected Japanese entry into the war on the part of the Entente . Vice-Admiral Maximilian von Spee , commander of the cruiser squadron in East Asia, then collected his ships first off the island of Pagan, which was then part of the German Mariana Islands . At a commanders' meeting, Graf Spee decided to release the small cruiser SMS Emden for independent cruiser warfare in the Indian Ocean . The squadron, on the other hand, should try to get home via the Pacific and around Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America . The opponent should be damaged as much as possible. The squadron reached the west coast of South America via the Marshall Islands , Samoa , Tahiti and Easter Island , where some coal acquisitions took place. In the meantime, the small cruisers SMS Dresden and SMS Leipzig were added. The Panama Canal , which had just been opened at that time, had to be taken into account by the opponents as a means of passage (three warships were permitted).
Sea battle at Coronel
On November 1, 1914, at Coronel, there was a fight with the British squadron of Vice Admiral Christopher Cradock . The Germans quickly decided this naval battle in their favor, although very strong seas and strong winds made artillery fire very difficult. The British armored cruisers Good Hope and Monmouth were sunk, with the Gneisenau initially firing mainly at the Monmouth , but in between also at the Good Hope when the latter approached the German line in a desperate attempt to get within torpedo range. The Monmouth was so badly damaged by the fire of the Gneisenau that it was easy for the far inferior cruiser Nürnberg to sink the Monmouth in the dark . The light cruiser Glasgow managed to escape, slightly damaged. The auxiliary cruiser Otranto had already expired. The Germans left the battle undamaged, but in some cases had used half of their ammunition. This led to very determined countermeasures by the Royal Navy, which should ultimately initiate the end of the cruiser squadron.
After supplies were replenished in Valparaíso on November 4 , the squadron continued its journey south. It reached Cape Horn at the beginning of December.
Naval battle in the Falkland Islands
After a last takeover of coal, the admiral wanted to destroy the radio systems of the Falkland Islands on the morning of December 8, 1914 and seize the coal supplies there. It was also planned to take the British governor prisoner.
The British Admiralty - Lord John Arbuthnot Fisher had just taken over the post of First Sea Lord under Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty - but had now reacted to the defeat of Coronel and sent two battle cruisers to the South Atlantic. The British battle group, led by Admiral Frederik Doveton Sturdee , with its battle cruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible , the three armored cruisers HMS Kent , HMS Carnarvon and HMS Cornwall and the light cruisers HMS Bristol and HMS Glasgow were far superior to the German ships in terms of speed and armament. This association was supposed to be cruising on the east coast of South America to thwart a breakthrough attempt by the East Asia Squadron, but happened to be in the port of Port William on the Falkland Islands when the attack attempt was made. The Gneisenau played a special role when it was sent out to explore with the small cruiser Nuremberg . The British ships, which were in an unfavorable position because they were moored in the narrow harbor waters to take over coal, were nevertheless able to leave the port quickly enough to pursue the German ships, since the cruiser squadron - split up in terms of strength - did not take advantage of this unfavorable situation could. For pure exploration, the approach of a small cruiser, such as the fast, turbine-powered Dresden , would have made more sense. In a previous meeting under the direction of Graf Spee, it was above all the commandant of the Gneisenau , Captain Maerker, who expressed concerns about the Falkland Islands. Graf Spee sent still was when the battle already in full swing, a signal to the Gneisenau : "Admiral at Commander: You have been right" .
Sinking
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First Graf Spee tried to escape to the east with his squadron. The sea was calm and the weather clear. The British had caught up around noon. The three small cruisers were released by Graf Spee with the signal "Dismissed - try to escape!" And turned south, but were immediately pursued by the British armored cruisers, while Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , Invincible , Inflexible and Carnarvon attacked the little ones Tried to relieve cruisers. It was noticeable that the British ships, although far superior, did not expose themselves to any risks and only conducted the battle at great distances with correspondingly high ammunition consumption, so that the German armored cruisers could only respond with the two heavy towers at times. The Scharnhorst went down at 4:17 p.m. with Admiral Graf Spee and her entire crew of 860 men. The Gneisenau was at 6:02 p.m. after hours of bombardment by Invincible , Inflexible and Carnarvon , by its own crew at 52 ° 46 ′ 0 ″ S , 56 ° 3 ′ 30 ″ W sunk after all ammunition had been used. It rolled over and then sank over the stern. Only 187 crew members, including the senior officer Hans Pochhammer , survived the sinking. A son of Count von Spee was also among the fatalities. The official British naval warfare agency ( Corbett ) notes that the crews of the German ships have seldom been surpassed in terms of attitude. And Admiral Sir Sturdee wrote to Pochhammer: “... we all feel that the 'Gneisenau' fought very bravely to the end. We admire the good artillery performance of both ships and we regret ... the death of your admiral and so many officers and men ... ".
Of the small cruisers, only the fast Dresden escaped to the Chilean island world. After four months she was sunk by the crew off Robinson Island .
Commanders
| March 6 to September 30, 1908 | Sea captain Franz Hipper |
| October 1, 1908 to September 14, 1910 | Sea captain Konrad Trummler |
| September 15, 1910 to June 3, 1912 | Sea captain Ludolf von Uslar |
| June 1912 to June 1914 | Sea captain Franz Brüninghaus |
| June to December 1914 | Sea captain Gustav Otto Julius Maerker |
literature
- Hanson W. Baldwin: World War I: An Outline History. Harper and Row, New York, 1962.
- Geoffrey Bennett: The Sea Battles of Coronel and Falklands. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-453-01141-4 .
- 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. 76-78 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford,
- Hans Pochhammer: The last trip of Count Spee. Schöningh, Paderborn. (Schöningh's worksheet for total German teaching, volume 10) ( told by the highest-ranking survivor of the cruiser squadron, the first officer of Gneisenau )
Web links
- Technical data of the SMS Gneisenau (Engl.)
- Gallery of the German Federal Archives on the sea battle at Coronel
- Exhibition at the Google Cultural Institute on the sea battle at Coronel
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Scharnhorst , in the budget as Armored Cruiser D denotes ran Although earlier launched, but was only after the Gneisenau , in the budget as Armored Cruiser C given designated under construction.
- ↑ Excerpt from a letter from Kapitänleutnant Busch (1st artillery officer SMS Gneisenau ) with a description of the fire fighting of the artillery in the sea battle of Coronel in the Federal Archives, accessed on August 28, 2016. ( Memento of March 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Overview of the ammunition consumption of the cruiser squadron in the sea battle of Coronel in the Federal Archives, accessed on August 28, 2016 ( Memento from March 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ a b Antonella Astorri: The First World War: With over 1000 mostly never published photos. Neuer Kaiser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2000, p. 58.
- ↑ Letter from the city of Schildau (Torgau district) to the Reichsmarineamt expressing its sympathy for the sinking of the armored cruiser Gneisenau in the sea battle near the Falkland Islands in the Federal Archives, accessed on August 28, 2016. ( Memento of March 8, 2015 in the Internet Archive )