SMS Koenigsberg (1915)
 The Metz , 1920
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The second SMS Königsberg was a small cruiser of the Imperial Navy . She was the first ship of the Königsberg class named after her . It got its name from its predecessor of the same name, the small cruiser Königsberg , which was lost in East Africa.
As Metz , the cruiser was still in active service in the French Navy from 1922 to 1929 .
Building history
The Königsberg was the type ship of the official draft of 1913 and differed only marginally from the previous Wiesbaden class . It was also a cruiser with three funnels and a main armament of eight six-inch guns. It had two 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns and four 50 cm torpedo tubes. With the option of taking 200 mines with you, this range of use was increased considerably.
The Königsberg was 145.8 m long in the waterline and measured 151.4 m over everything. The hull was up to 14.3 m wide and she had a normal draft of 6.14 m. Under normal load it displaced 5,440 tons, with a maximum of 7,125 tons. The ship had a turbine drive on two shafts of 31,000 hp and reached a top speed of 27.5 knots. The normal manning should be 475 men.
The keel of the replacement Gazelle building took place on August 22, 1914 at AG Weser . This was the eleventh construction contract to the shipyard for a small cruiser of the Imperial Navy. She also completed the sister ship Emden and with it a quarter of all small cruisers. But she also built three large-line ships and a variety of other ships. The Königsberg was launched on December 18, 1915 without any special celebrations and put into service on August 12, 1916. The sister ships Karlsruhe , Emden and Nuremberg were completed by the end of the war .
Calls
On October 20, 1916, the trials were over. Ten days later the Königsberg became the flagship of the 2nd reconnaissance group of the Commodore Ludwig von Reuter . Like most other small cruisers, she was assigned to outpost and security service in the North Sea, laid mines, made advances to the British coast and took on escort duties.
In September 1917 the Königsberg was moved to the Baltic Sea for association exercises. The II. Reconnaissance group took over the security of the troop transports during the occupation of the Baltic Islands (Oesel company) and the Königsberg was at the same time the leader ship of the IV. Transport group with Bahia Castillo , Gießen , Schleswig , Badenia and the hospital ship Imperator , which the 42nd Infantry Division under Lieutenant General Ludwig von Estorff transported to the Tagga Bay . She then returned to the North Sea at the end of October.
On November 17, 1917 there was a battle with British cruisers in the German Bight , the second naval battle near Heligoland in this war. German minesweepers were intercepted by the cruisers Calypso and Caledon of the Royal Navy while trying to clear a path through a British minefield in the Heligoland Bay . On the German side, the minesweepers had been given the second reconnaissance group under Rear Admiral von Reuter with the small cruisers Königsberg , Pillau , Nuremberg and Frankfurt as local security. In the developing battle, the two British cruisers Courageous and Glorious of the First Cruiser Squadron intervened and fought the small cruisers, which were retreating to the remote security called for from Heligoland , the two large-line ships Kaiser and Kaiserin . In addition, the British battle cruisers Tiger , Lion , Princess Royal , Repulse and New Zealand of the First Battlecruiser Squadron under Admiral Sir Charles John Napier tried to intervene in the battle. The Königsberg received a 38 cm hit from the Repulse at 10:58 a.m. , which damaged all three chimneys. Rear Admiral Reuter switched to the Pillau because his flagship was completely covered in smoke by a bunker fire. The fire could only be extinguished after 30 minutes. There were eight killed and 15 wounded among the crew. The Königsberg was able to catch up with the reconnaissance group again. Neither side achieved decisive advantages in the battle, which was carried out in mine-contaminated waters, at high speeds (26–27 kn ), changing courses and additionally made more difficult by artificial fog and smoke. The Courageous fired more than 400 15- inch rounds without getting a hit. On the German side, only the auxiliary minesweeper Kehdingen was lost. The second reconnaissance group had a total of 21 fallen, 13 seriously and 30 slightly wounded. When the British light cruisers met the two German battleships, a heavy hit was scored on the Calypso . All persons on the Calypso bridge , including the commander, were killed by a 30.5 cm projectile. The battlecruisers Hindenburg and Moltke arriving at around 1.30 p.m. , as well as Frederick the Great and King Albert under Vice Admiral Wilhelm Souchon , arriving at around 2 p.m., could no longer intervene because the British broke off the battle. At around 3 p.m., the German ships began their march back. Four hours later they reached Schillig-Reede .
After the repair, the Königsberg went back to the usual missions in the North Sea.
post war period
On November 13, 1918, the ship, with Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer on board, went to Great Britain to accept the terms of the armistice for the imperial high seas fleet. The representatives of the Workers 'and Soldiers' Council were also on board, but they were completely ignored by the British. On November 18, 1918, it returned to Wilhelmshaven .
The Königsberg was the only ship in her class that did not have to be interned at Scapa Flow . On November 29, 1918, she took over the escort for eight German submarines that had to be transferred from Helgoland to Harwich . From December, the Königsberg acted several times as a mail ship for the German crews of the ships interned in Scapa Flow. On November 5, 1919, the ship was removed from the list of warships and finally decommissioned on May 31, 1920.
In French service
In July 1920 the French Navy took over the ship in Cherbourg and put it back into service under the name Metz (since October 6, 1920) in November 1921 for the Volante de l'Atlantique division . In April 1922 she was assigned to the 3rd division of light cruisers of the Mediterranean Fleet, which in addition to the Metz consisted of two other cruisers of German origin, the Strasbourg (ex Regensburg ) and the Mulhouse (ex Stralsund ). The cruiser Thionville , the formerly Austrian Novara , also belonged to this division for a short time .
In July 1922, the cruiser represented France at the funeral of Prince Albert of Monaco. At the end of September he then ran to Smyrna to protect French nationals in the city that was recaptured from the Turks . She also called at Constantinople and other ports in the war zone and returned to Toulon on May 31, 1923 . In 1925 she was then used together with the Strasbourg to blockade the Moroccan coast in order to withdraw supplies from the uprising of the Rifkabylen . The 3rd Division was renamed the 2nd Division in December 1926 and transferred to the Atlantic Fleet in Brest in August 1928. The Metz was transferred to the reserve in December 1929.
In 1934 the former Königsberg was deleted from the list of warships and in 1936 it was scrapped in Brest.
Commanders
| Sea captain Carl Wilhelm Less | August 12, 1916 to May 21, 1917 change to König | |
| Frigate captain / sea captain Karl Carl Feldmann | May 22, 1917 to July 9, 1918 | |
| Frigate Captain Alfred Lassen | July to August 1918 | |
| Corvette Captain Georg-Günther Freiherr von Forstner (deputy) | August to September 1918 | |
| Corvette Captain Walther Franz | September 3, 1918 to March 5, 1919 | |
| Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Curt Hermann | March to October 1919 | |
| Corvette Captain Oskar Heinecke | October 3, 1919 to March 10, 1920 | |
| unoccupied | March to May 1920 | |
literature
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies. A mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present day. 7 volumes. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1983.
- Gerhard Koop / Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Small cruisers 1903-1918, Bremen to Cöln class , Volume 12 ship classes and ship types of the German Navy, Bernard & Graefe Verlag Munich, 2004, ISBN 3-7637-6252-3
Web links
- Königsberg class on battleships-cruisers.co.uk
- Königsberg class on worldwar1.co.uk
- Königsberg class on historyofwar.org
- Cruiser Metz