SMS Kolberg
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SMS Kolberg was a small cruiser of the Imperial Navy . She was the type ship of the Kolberg class named after her . She was delivered to France after the end of the First World War in 1920 and then served as Colmar in the French Navy from 1922 to 1927 .
Prewar years
The Kolberg class was, after three ships in the previous classes, the first series with turbine propulsion only , but the four sister ships were equipped with turbines from different manufacturers. The three predecessors were all from Parsons turbines being driven, which is now only on the in the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel built Augsburg came for installation. The Mainz built by AG Vulcan in Stettin received AEG Curtis turbines, the Cöln Germania turbines built in Kiel at the Germania shipyard .
The type ship Kolberg built near Schichau was equipped with “ Melms & Pfenninger ” turbines. The keel of the replacement building for the Aviso Greif launched in 1886 took place on January 15, 1908 at the F. Schichau shipyard in Danzig , which was the first time since the Gefion in 1893 to build a small cruiser for the Imperial Navy. Launching and christening of the ship took place on November 14th, 1908. On November 21st, 1910, the test drives began , but were interrupted twice due to a lack of personnel. The eponymous city of Kolberg was visited twice during the test drives . On 14 June 1911, then came to the commissioning of Kolberg , which in Gdansk from Konigsberg crew and the commander, Commander Paul Heinrich , took over and took their place in the reconnaissance forces, which they then until the beginning of World War I belonged.
There were a few interruptions in normal service operations. In 1911, for example, the Kolberg became the escort cruiser of the Hohenzollern imperial yacht on the Nordland trip with visits to Bergen and Balestrand . In 1912 she was again an escort cruiser and ran on March 5th from Kiel via Gibraltar to Venice , where she took up her service on March 17th and accompanied the imperial yacht on its Mediterranean voyage. On April 11th she ran from Corfu to Brindisi to pick up Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to visit the emperor , and after Easter she brought him back to Brindisi. On May 12th, she started her return journey from Genoa via Vigo , before joining the fleet again on May 23rd off Heligoland . From June 23 to July 9, she served the commander of the reconnaissance ships temporarily as the flagship . Then she accompanied the Kaiser in July 1913 on a trip on the Fatherland through the North Sea and in August on his trip to the North.
First World War
II. Awareness Group
When the First World War broke out, the small cruiser Kolberg belonged to the 2nd reconnaissance group of the deep sea fleet in the North Sea. When the naval battle broke out at Heligoland on August 28, 1914 , he had just returned from the outpost service in front of the mouth of the Ems zur Jade and was immediately sent after the small cruisers Danzig and Stralsund to support the German units fighting near Heligoland , which found the burning Ariadne and still disguised most of the crew from the sinking cruiser. The Kolberg came too late to help and to intervene in the battle, as the British had meanwhile withdrawn. In this battle, the two sister ships Cöln and Mainz were lost. The loss of the Kolberg was also feared for a while, as it did not enter Wilhelmshaven from the Ems as planned , but ran directly to Heligoland.
In the following years she secured mining companies . On October 16, she accompanied the mine cruiser Nautilus in an attempt to lay a mine barrier off the Firth of Forth . The plan was canceled 60 nm off the British coast because the strong British radio traffic made an unobserved and safe relocation no longer seem possible.
On November 2 to 4, she took part in the advance of the I and II reconnaissance groups to Great Yarmouth with the battle cruisers Seydlitz , Von der Tann , Moltke , the armored cruiser Blücher and the small cruisers Strasbourg , Graudenz and Stralsund and secured the Stralsund when laying out a mine barrier. On December 15/16, 1914, the two reconnaissance groups made a further advance for the first time with the Derfflinger and eighteen destroyers against Hartlepool , Scarborough and Whitby , in which the Kolberg carried 100 mines and put a mine barrier in front of Flamborough Head . Despite the heavy weather, she was the only small cruiser with the battle cruisers to run to the British coast because of the mine load. Because of the weather damage she had to return to the shipyard.
On January 16, 1915, the Kolberg took over the role of flagship of the second leader of the torpedo boats until February 11, 1916 for the period of her stay in the deep sea fleet.
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During the battle on the Dogger Bank on January 24, 1915, the Kolberg belonged to the II Reconnaissance Group and was the first ship to encounter the enemy. In one short skirmish, she was able to score three hits on the British cruiser Aurora . She herself received two hits and had two casualties.
Baltic Sea
In the summer, the Kolberg moved with other parts of the deep sea fleet (1st Squadron, 1st / 2nd Reconnaissance Group) to the Baltic Sea to support the German land offensive in the Baltic States . On August 10, during the bombardment of Utö off Hanko , she got into a battle with Russian destroyers , in which the battle cruiser Von der Tann also intervened. On 13./14. she came back into combat with Russian destroyers in the bombardment of land positions off the Irbenstrasse and was unsuccessfully attacked by a submarine . On August 21, the Kolberg was released into the North Sea.
In February 1916 the Kolberg was finally relocated to the Baltic Sea. There she took over the small cruiser Elbing as the VI's master ship. Recon group. From December 16, 1916 to April 26, 1917, the ship was rebuilt in the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel. The 10.5-cm-guns were replaced by 15-cm-guns, on deck is built a two 50-cm torpedo tubes, and the bridge was rebuilt.
In the autumn of 1917, the Kolberg took part in the occupation of the Baltic Islands as the flagship of the commander of the reconnaissance forces in the eastern Baltic Sea, Rear Admiral Albert Hopman , and the VI. Awareness group. Hopman broke the Lesser Sound on October 17th. The Kolberg fired at the batteries at Woi for ten minutes. The Russian battery crews did not return fire, however, and most of the soldiers fled. Around 2:30 p.m. the Strasbourg and Kolberg anchored at the southern end of the Lesser Sound, and Hopman put a landing party ashore to take the batteries. On the following day, too, Kolberg supported the army troops deployed on Ösel and Moon . On October 19, she went through the Moon Sound, past the wreck of the Slawa liner , to Schildau .
After a lengthy lay in the yard at the beginning of 1918 with the installation of two 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns , the participation in the preparation and implementation of the Finland intervention followed from mid-March . First deployed in Hanko, it then supported the 14th Jäger Battalion and then replaced the Rhineland in Mariehamn ( Aaland Islands ), which ran aground when marching on April 11, was only released on July 8, 1918 and was no longer operational during the war. The Kolberg was replaced on May 19th by the Stralsund . She went back to Kiel, but was again in the Baltic States from mid-June. The Kolberg was in use in Finland and the Baltic States from July 23rd until autumn . On September 29, 1918, she returned to Kiel, since the crew was scheduled for a mission in the Crimea ; Parts of it were sent there in early October.
Commanders
| June to September 1910 | Sea captain Hans von Abeken |
| September to October 1910 | Captain Paul Möller (reduced crew) |
| October to December 1910 | Frigate captain / sea captain Max Hahn |
| April to June 1911 | Corvette Captain Alexander Erdmann |
| June 1911 to August 1912 | Frigate Captain / Sea Captain Paul Heinrich |
| September 1912 to February 1915 | Frigate captain / sea captain Wilhelm Widenmann |
| March to May 1915 | Sea captain Ernst Ewers |
| May 15, 1915 to February 6, 1916 | Frigate captain / sea captain Max Kühne |
| August to September 1915 | Kapitänleutnant Erich Dolberg (deputy) |
| February 1916 to December 1918 | Frigate Captain / Sea Captain Kurt Frank |
| October 1918 | Kapitänleutnant Joachim-Eberhard Piernay ( md W. d. G. b. ) |
| October to November 1918 | Lieutenant Captain Kurt Hoffmann (md W. d. G. b.) |
French Navy
On December 17, 1918, the Kolberg in Kiel was decommissioned. She was removed from the list of warships on November 5, 1919 and delivered to France on April 20, 1920. Under the name Colmar , the then overhauled ship was used in the French Navy from 1922 to July 21, 1927.
In July 1922, the cruiser was sent across the Suez Canal to the Far East , where it became the flagship of the French ships stationed there. During the Tokyo earthquake in 1923, the cruiser from Vladivostok immediately ran to Yokohama to provide assistance. It was finally scrapped in 1929.
literature
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Koehler's publishing company. Herford.
- Gerhard Koop, Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Small cruisers 1903-1908, Bremen to Cologne class. Bernard & Graefe Publishing House. 2004.
Web links
- Kolberg class on worldwar1.co.uk (Engl.)
- Kolberg class on historyofwar.org (Engl.)
- Kolberg class on battleships-cruisers.co.uk (Engl.)
- Pictures of the former German cruisers in French service
- Cruiser Colmar