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SMS Posen was the last ship of the Nassau class , a class of four large-line ships of the Imperial Navy .
construction
The replacement Baden was on June 11, 1907 as the second ship of her class put on Kiel . Since the new building at the Kiel Germania shipyard progressed somewhat more slowly than with the other ships in the class, the Ersatz Baden was only ready for launch on December 12, 1908, as the last ship in her class. After a naming ceremony speech of the Provincial President of the Province of Posen , Wilhelm von Waldow , the new building by Joan of Radolin whose husband was Hugo von Radolin was then German ambassador in Paris, in the name of Posen baptized. At the end of April 1910, the ship was accepted by the Imperial Navy and transferred to the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel for final equipment.
Peace time
The Poznan entered service on May 31, 1910. Test drives were carried out until August 27th. The crew was temporarily reduced on September 7th until, after the Wittelsbach was decommissioned on September 20, it was replenished to the required strength by the crew. On the same day the Posen was assigned to the 1st Squadron. In November, the liner took part in the association and fleet exercises for the first time.
After the Hanover switched to the 2nd Squadron, the Posen became the flagship of the Second Admiral of the 1st Squadron, Rear Admiral Karl Zimmermann, on October 3, 1911 . This post was taken over by Rear Admiral Konrad Trummler on October 1, 1912 , who was appointed head of the Mediterranean Division on November 5 and was replaced by Carl Schaumann on December 10 . Another change took place on October 1, 1913, when Friedrich Gädeke became the new Second Admiral. From October 1912 to June 1917, Captain Richard Lange was in command of the Posen .
Use in the First World War
The poses adopted at the beginning of the First World War, part of the High Seas Fleet at any job. Only during the naval advance on May 17 and 18, 1915, the ship was not operational in the shipyard. On August 4, the I. squadron in the Baltic Sea was moved to the coverage of the planned company against the Gulf of Riga to ensure. Since the first advance showed that the Wittelsbach- class ships used were insufficiently protected against torpedoes and mines, Vice Admiral Ehrhard Schmidt made the Posen and her sister ship Nassau available for the continuation of the company .
Vice Admiral Schmidt embarked on August 15th on the Posen , which became the flagship for the second part of the enterprise. The next day the advance into the Gulf of Riga began, with a brief battle with the Russian ship of the line Slawa and the gunboat Chrabry in the afternoon . Another brief collision with the Slava occurred on the morning of August 17, when it tried to disrupt the ongoing demining work. After the breakthrough into the bay on August 19, Posen and Nassau first made an advance to Moon-Sund and then steamed towards Dünamünde , where they intervened in the battle between the Augsburg and Russian ships and sank the Siwutsch . At around 7 p.m. the following day, the German ships left the Gulf of Riga through the Irbenstrasse . Vice-Admiral Schmidt took down his flag on the Posen on August 21 and released the ship back into the North Sea, where it arrived on August 27 and subsequently took part in operations with the deep-sea fleet.
Together with Nassau and Westphalia and the battle cruiser Von der Tann , an advance to the Amrumbank was carried out on March 4, 1916 under the leadership of the Second Admiral on board the Posen to pick up the auxiliary cruiser Möve .
The Posen participated on May 31 at a push of the deep-sea fleet that eventually the Battle of Jutland led. During the night battle, there was a collision with the small cruiser Elbing when it tried to avoid a torpedo attack by British destroyers and break through the keel line of the German capital ships. The Posen turned with hard rudder to starboard , but could no longer prevent the collision. The Elbing was rammed by the Posen at an acute angle at around 00:30 and suffered severe damage, which ultimately led to the cruiser's abandonment. The poses remained undamaged. In another attack by British destroyers, the Posen was able to outmaneuver two torpedoes, sank two of the destroyers and set another on fire. The ship suffered no damage or loss. Nevertheless, it went to the shipyard for overhaul from June 26th to July 17th.
After a few more naval advances and the usual outpost and security service, the Posen ran out of Heligoland on November 17 in support of the Second Reconnaissance Group during the second naval battle . However, there was no intervention in the fighting.
In March 1918, the Posen was assigned to the special unit formed under Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer for use in Finland. She became the flagship of the second admiral of the special unit, Rear Admiral Johannes Hartog . On April 3, the Posen was together with the Westphalia before Russarö , where the signal station was occupied. The ship's landing corps participated in the occupation of Helsinki on April 13-14, killing four sailors and wounding twelve. The attempt made between April 18 and 20 to bring the Rhineland , which had accrued in front of Lagskär , had to be aborted without result. The Poznan encountered wreckage while anchoring in Helsinki on April 22, with one propeller wing damaged. After the release from the special association on April 30th, the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel repaired the wing from May 3rd to 5th.
To accommodate the from Flanders returning submarines standing poses on October 2 ready. Also in the planned end of October, but because of mutinies on board the Helgoland and Thüringen discontinued company the ship should attend. After the 1st Squadron entered the Elbe estuary on November 3rd and left Brunsbüttel six days later , Posen reached Wilhelmshaven on November 10th , where it was moored at berth 10. From November 22, the ship served as a ship, but was decommissioned on December 16.
Whereabouts
The Posen was due to their reciprocating steam engine at the end of World War I as outdated and therefore not one of those under the ceasefire to inter alternating units of the High Seas Fleet. On December 16, 1918, the ship was decommissioned in Wilhelmshaven. Due to additional demands by the Allies , the Posen was deleted from the list of warships on November 5, 1919 and handed over to Great Britain on May 13, 1920 as the reparation ship G. The ship was sold to the Netherlands by the British Admiralty and scrapped in Dordrecht in 1922 .
Commanders
| Rank | Surname | Command time |
|---|---|---|
| Sea captain | Otto Back | May 31, 1910 - September 1912 |
| Sea captain / rear admiral | Richard Lange | October 1912 - June 1917 |
| Sea captain | Wilhelm von Krosigk | June 1917 - November 1918 |
| Corvette Captain | Otto Zirzow | November 1918 |
| ––– | unoccupied | November 16th - December 16, 1918 |
literature
- Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 283-287 .
- 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. 46 f .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 6 : Ship biographies from Lützow to Prussia . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 239-242 .
- 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. 145 .
