SMS König (1913)
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SMS König was a large-line ship of the Imperial Navy that was used in the First World War .
Calls
The König was ordered in October 1911 under the household name Vermehrungsbau S and was launched on March 1, 1913 as a type ship of the König class named after her at the Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven . The commissioning took place on August 10, 1914.
The king was from August 12, 1914 to III. Assigned to squadrons. After several advances without touching the enemy, she took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31, 1916 as the flagship of Rear Admiral Paul Behncke . The ship drove at the head of the German battle fleet. With the exception of the battle cruisers , it was particularly exposed to enemy fire and survived the battle with ten heavy and five or six medium hits with 45 deaths due to its good construction. The ship was repaired in the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel and was ready for use again from July 26, 1916.
The ship was also used in operations against the British coast in August 1916, without any contact with the enemy. On October 11, 1917, the König ran out of the Putziger Wiek as part of the Albion company to support the operations to capture the three islands of Dagö , Ösel and Moon in the Baltic States . On October 12th, they shot at the land battery from Cape Kinast on Ösel .
On October 17, 1917, during the battle in Moon Sound between the island of Moon and the Estonian mainland coast , the king damaged the Russian liner Slawa so badly that it could no longer pass the shallow Moon Sound because of its too great draft and was blown up by the Russians had to become. During the home march, the König had a slight grounding on October 26th and was in Kiel for repairs until November 17th.
Sailors' revolt
The naval order of October 24, 1918 saw the König as the flagship of the III. Squadron before. On October 30th, the team felt increasing resistance to the upcoming mission. When the company was then given up and the III. Squadron was released to Kiel , the ship moored there in the Imperial Shipyard.
At the Kiel sailors' uprising on November 4th, while the III. Squadron temporarily left Kiel and relocated to the Bay of Lübeck , the König stayed in the shipyard in Kiel. When mutinous sailors and revolting shipyard workers tried to remove the Reich war flag on November 5, the officers defended it. The commander, Captain Carl Wilhelm Less, was wounded three times. A senior seaman was shot by the captain. The first officer , Corvette Captain Bruno Heinemann, and the adjutant , Lieutenant to the Sea, Wolfgang Zenker , perished. The Kriegsmarine named their destroyers Bruno Heinemann and Wolfgang Zenker , built in the mid-1930s, after them.
Internment and immersion
When the German fleet left for Scapa Flow after the armistice to be interned there, the König was not yet ready to sail. After successful repairs, she followed the fleet with the small cruiser Dresden in December and arrived in Scapa Flow on December 6, 1918. On June 21, 1919, under the command of Corvette Captain Ernst Junkermann, the crew sank the ship on the orders of Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter with the rest of the deep-sea fleet interned in Scapa Flow , in order to avoid final possession by the victorious powers.
memory
A memorial in memory of the king is located in the north cemetery in Kiel .
wreck
The wreck was sold to a Scottish company for scrapping in 1962. But only parts of the stern were blasted off and lifted. The hull is about 39 m deep and is the destination of many recreational divers .
Commanders
| August 9, 1914 to July 13, 1916 | Sea captain Franz Brüninghaus |
| July 14, 1916 to May 23, 1917 | Sea captain Hugo Meurer |
| May 24, 1917 to November 5, 1918 | Sea captain Carl Wilhelm Less |
| November 6, 1918 to December 4, 1918 | Sea captain Otto Breuer |
| December 5, 1918 to June 21, 1919 | Corvette Captain Ernst Junckermann |
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers. 1905-1970. License issue. Pawlak, Herrsching 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 1: Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats. Bernard & Graefe, Munich et al. 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Volume 5. Koehler, Herford 1982, ISBN 3-7822-0236-8 .
Web links
- Sonar image of the wreck as it is today
- Chronological lists of the commanders of German capital ships (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ What happened in Kiel in November 1918? City of Kiel, accessed on May 11, 2018 .
Coordinates: 58 ° 52 ′ 59 " N , 3 ° 9 ′ 47" W.