SMS Helgoland (ship, 1909)
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The SMS Helgoland was the type ship of the class of four large-line ships of the Imperial Navy named after her . It was the first German capital ship whose main armament had a caliber of 30.5 cm. The Helgoland belonged to the 1st squadron of the deep sea fleet and took part with this in the operations during the First World War. In 1920 the ship was delivered to Great Britain and broken up in 1924.
construction
The Howaldtswerke in Kiel began building the replacement Siegfried in autumn 1908 . The ship was launched on September 25, 1909. Duke Ernst Günther , the brother of Empress Auguste Viktoria , gave the baptismal address. His wife christened the new building in the name of the island of Helgoland . The acceptance test drive took place at the beginning of August 1911.
Peace time
The Helgoland was first put into service on August 23, 1911. This could happen prematurely, but was initially kept secret so as not to aggravate the Moroccan crisis . The liner initially carried out the usual test drives and joined the 1st Squadron as a replacement for the SMS Hannover on December 20 in Wilhelmshaven . In March 1912, the Helgoland took part in fleet maneuvers in the North Sea, as well as a trip along the German Baltic coast. In November, exercises were carried out in the North Sea, Skagerrak and Kattegat .
The Helgoland took a memorial stone for the victims of the May 23, 1913 the unveiling torpedo boats SMS G 171 and SMS S 178 , the lifting ship Lower Elbe and the airship L 1 in part on Helgoland. In addition to the usual maneuvers, a trip to Norwegian waters was carried out in the summer of 1913.
Use in the First World War
After the outbreak of the First World War , the Helgoland took part in the various operations of the fleet together with the 1st Squadron . In August 1915, the ship was one of the cover forces during the company against the Gulf of Riga . Further advances by the fleet followed in September, October and December 1915, and also in March and April 1916.
On May 31, 1916, there was a sea battle off the Skagerrak . During this, the Helgoland received a 34.3 cm hit in the forecastle, which, however, did not claim any victims. In the night battle, the ship was involved in the defense and sinking of British destroyers. The damage sustained in the battle was repaired by the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven from June 3rd to 16th . Then the Helgoland was used in the outpost and security service in the North Sea. From 18 to 20 August and from 18 to 20 October further naval advances took place in which the ship was involved.
After another stay in the shipyard in April 1917, the Helgoland rammed the SMS Hindenburg, which was in the equipment, when undocking . The big cruiser was slightly damaged. In October, together with Oldenburg, an advance to Amrumbank followed in order to pick up the SMS Brummer and SMS Bremse returning from a mining company . At the end of October, the Helgoland was to be deployed in the eastern Baltic Sea as part of Operation Albion . Due to the rapid progress of the company, however, the liner was no longer needed and returned from the Putziger Wiek to the North Sea via Kiel.
In 1918, the Helgoland was mainly used to secure minesweeping flotillas. From April 23rd to 25th, the ship took part in the last major advance of the fleet, which had to be canceled due to a serious machine breakdown on the SMS Moltke . At the scheduled end of October 1918 fleet operation which stood Helgoland ready. Before the departure planned for October 30th, however, there were mutinies of sailors and stokers on the Thuringia and Heligoland . These could be put down, but the operation was waived and the squadrons released to their home ports. This formed the cause of the Kiel sailors' uprising and the November revolution that resulted from it .
Two sailors from Helgoland, Richard Stumpf and Carl Richard Linke, kept diaries of their lives on board during the war, which have been preserved. The German Naval Museum in Wilhelmshaven organized an exhibition in 2014, for which an extensive volume was published. Richard Stumpf was later appointed by the Reichstag committee of inquiry into the causes of the German collapse in 1918 on the initiative of the center member Dr. Joseph Joos appointed special expert and published his diary in print.
Since the Helgoland was already considered obsolete as a ship with a piston steam engine, like her sister ships, she was not one of the Imperial Navy units to be interned under the terms of the armistice . On November 21st and 22nd, the ship made a trip to Harwich - Roadstead , in order to bring the crews of submarines back home from there. On December 16, the Helgoland was finally decommissioned.
Whereabouts
After the conclusion of the Versailles Treaty , the German Reich also had to hand over the remaining capital ships as reparations . The Helgoland was deleted from the list of warships on November 5, 1919 and handed over to Great Britain as Ship K on August 5, 1920 . The Royal Navy carried out various tests on the ship and had it scrapped in Morecambe from 1924 .
Commanders
| August 23 to September 1911 | Sea captain Friedrich Gädeke |
| September 1911 to September 1913 | Sea captain Gottfried Freiherr von Dalwigk zu Lichtenfels |
| October 1913 to October 1915 | Sea captain Ulrich Lübbert |
| October 1915 to August 1918 | Sea captain Friedrich von Kameke |
| August to September 1918 | Sea captain Eberhard Heydel |
| September 16 to December 16, 1918 | Sea captain Gustav Luppe |
literature
- Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 287 f .
- 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. 48 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 4 : Ship biographies from Greif to Kaiser . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 111-113 .
- Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 . Conway Maritime Press Ltd, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 , pp. 146 (English).
- Huck, Stephan / Gorch Pieken / Matthias Rogg (eds.): The fleet falls asleep in the port . Everyday life in the war 1914-1918 in sailors' diaries. 1st edition. Forum MHM. Series of publications of the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr, vol. 6. Sandstein Verlag, Dresden, ISBN 978-3-95498-095-6 (accompanying volume to the exhibition of the same name by the German Naval Museum Wilhelmshaven 2014).
