In November 1913, the Germania shipyard in Kiel received the building contract for the third ship in the Bayern class . The total cost of the ship was estimated at around 49 million marks . On April 7, 1914, the shipyard stretched for the replacement under the household name of Kaiser Friedrich III. guided new building the Kiel . Compared to the first two ships, the replacement Kaiser Friedrich III. somewhat enlarged. The ship was 2.4 m longer and 300 t heavier. The biggest difference was in the propulsion system. Instead of the middle turbine set , a 12,000 HP two-stroke diesel engine with six cylinders was provided by the Germania shipyard for the cruise . Accordingly, the number of steam boilers was reduced to six coal-fired and three oil-fired boilers. The engine was still under scrutiny when the ship was built and was technically supervised by Wilhelm Laudahn as the building supervisor of the Reichsmarinamt .
Due to the war-related shortage of material and shipyard workers, construction progressed only slowly. The launch of the new building took place on November 21, 1916, where it was baptized in the name of the Kingdom of Saxony . The usual celebrations were, however, dispensed with. With the end of the First World War , work on the Sachsen had to be stopped nine months before its completion.
Whereabouts
The provisions of the Versailles Treaty prohibited the German Reich from building warships with a design displacement of more than 10,000 t. Since the Saxons far exceeded this level, completion was impossible. On November 3, 1919, the unfinished ship was therefore deleted from the list of warships. After being sold in 1920, it was scrapped at the Arsenalmole in Kiel in 1921 .
literature
Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p.300-302 .
Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p.52-54 .
Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape7 : Ship biographies from Prussian eagle to Ulan . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S.97 .