SMS Schleswig-Holstein
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The liner SMS Schleswig-Holstein was the fifth and last ship of the Germany- class of the Imperial Navy . It was launched on December 7, 1906 at the Germania shipyard in Kiel . It was put into service on July 6, 1908 and assigned to the II. Squadron, which also took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak . The obsolete battleship was after the First World War left the German Empire and served in the Navy and later in the Navy 1926-1936 as fleet flagship and then as a cadet training ship .
The bombardment of the Westerplatte , which she began on September 1, 1939 from the port canal in Danzig , is considered to be the beginning of the Second World War .
Peace time
The launch of the augmentation building "Linienschiff Q", hull number 113, which took place on December 7, 1906 under the supervision of August Müller , was a major social event at the Kiel Germania shipyard because Schleswig-Holstein was carried out by Empress Auguste Victoria, who came from Schleswig-Holstein was baptized and her brother Ernst Günther gave the baptismal address. Not only the emperor was present , but also Admiral Alfred Tirpitz and the owner of the Krupp company , to whose group of companies the Germania shipyard belonged, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach with his wife Bertha .
When the ship came into service on July 6, 1908, the two battleship squadrons required by the Fleet Act were filled for the first time. The last German standard liner also demonstrated that the inventory was out of date, as the British HMS Dreadnought had already been in service for 18 months and ships similar to the Nassau class were already under construction for the Imperial Navy.
The ship joined the 2nd Squadron on September 21, 1908 and took part in the second fleet voyage to the Atlantic in July 1909, visiting Ferrol from July 18 to 26 . In March 1910, Schleswig-Holstein set a new record in the takeover of coal for the Imperial Navy when it took over 700 tons in 85 minutes with an average output of 493.8 t / h. She took part in all maneuvers and naval voyages until 1914 and visited Norway in 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914. In 1912 the naval voyage was canceled due to the Moroccan crisis , the last naval voyage ended (shortened) just before the mobilization. The second squadron, which had still returned to Kiel, relocated through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal into the Elbe estuary during mobilization .
The ship was affectionately known as "Sophie X" among seafarers.
First World War
The squadron lying in the mouth of the Elbe was alerted too late to intervene during the sea battle near Heligoland (1914) . An independent deployment of the squadron in the Baltic Sea against Libau , which was planned for November, was prohibited by the Kaiser near Bornholm “because of the danger of submarines”.
The squadron was part of the cover forces in the various fleet operations, so on 15/16. December 1914, on 21./22. April ( battle on the Dogger Bank ), on 11/12. September 1915, March 5th to 7th and March 24th / 25th April 1916. During all advances the 2nd Squadron had no combat contact.
In April 1916, two 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns were installed on the Schleswig-Holstein . The use of the squadron in the deep sea fleet no longer seemed sensible to the fleet chief because of the low speed and the poor protection of the ships. On March 18, the Lorraine was the first ship of the squadron to be decommissioned in order to be converted for the " Sound Guard " with the expansion of the heavy artillery. Since then, the squadron has regularly deployed a ship for this task.
In the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31, 1916, after initial concerns, the Second Squadron was called in to advance the deep sea fleet at the urging of its commander Franz Mauve . It left at 1:45 pm, the Elbe estuary and took at 4:45 AM the place behind the United battleships one. The six ships of the squadron ( Germany , Pomerania , Silesia , Hanover , Hesse and Schleswig-Holstein ) were the only unit ships of the line on both sides. The ships struggled to maintain the speed of the high seas fleet and had fallen behind at the start of the battle. By Reinhard Scheer commanded the first battle-face , turned round 180 ° almost simultaneously in all vessels should also make sure that the old ships are not left behind. In fact, as the battle progressed, they got more into the middle of the German battle line. The Schleswig-Holstein was initially one of the last ships in the keel line of the battle fleet and only occasionally came into contact with British units. At around 9:25 p.m. the squadron came under fire from the British battlecruisers without sighting the enemy. Only Hesse , Hanover and Germany answered fire with 20, 8 and 4 rounds. The Schleswig-Holstein , which did not fire itself, received a severe hit from a 34.3 cm shell from the Princess Royal or a 30.5 cm shell from the New Zealand in the sixth 17 cm casemate on the port side . Three men were killed and eight more wounded. From 0:50 a.m., Silesia and Schleswig-Holstein were the last ships further astern, as they had to avoid the torpedoed small cruiser Rostock . In the morning hours there were attacks by British destroyers who sank the sister ship Pommern , which was ahead, with torpedoes, which was lost with her entire crew of 839 men. The Schleswig-Holstein verfeuerte after 4pm 20 rounds of artillery means four recognized destroyers and met a number of times. Their heavy artillery was not used at all due to the lack of identifiable targets.
After the battle, the Schleswig-Holstein and their sisters are only used for subordinate tasks, they continued to secure the mouth of the Elbe and regularly deployed a unit in the Baltic Sea to secure the Sund ( Prussia during the Skagerrak Battle). At the beginning of May 1917, Schleswig-Holstein was decommissioned and disarmed.
She was used as a residential ship by the V U-boat flotilla in Bremerhaven and moved to Kiel in 1918.
Interwar years
Since the ship was long out of date as a unitary ship of the line, it was left as one of the few larger ships in the German Reich after the First World War and taken over into the Reichsmarine and later into the Kriegsmarine. In 1925 and 1926, Schleswig-Holstein was modernized for use in the Reichsmarine. The front massive tower mast with its combat marshes was removed and replaced by a slim tubular mast with modern distance measuring devices and artillery guidance devices.
Fleet flagship
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On February 1, 1926, she was put back into service as a fleet flagship of the Reichsmarine. On May 14, 1926, she left Wilhelmshaven with all the large ships of the Fleet Command for an “Atlantic and Spain voyage” that lasted until June 17. In addition to her, the liner Hannover and the cruiser Amazone of the North Sea station, as well as the liner ships Alsace and Hessen and the cruiser Nymphe of the Baltic station took part in the trip. The Schleswig-Holstein visited from 22 to 30 May Palma de Mallorca with Hesse and Amazone , from 1 to 6 June Barcelona with Alsace and from 12 to 14 June Vigo , where the entire squadron coals for March back were taken. It was the first big trip of an association of the Reichsmarine. In 1927 another trip followed in the Alsace and Hesse association , the cruisers Amazone , Nymphe and Berlin from March 29th via Ferrol (April 2nd to 7th) to Porto da Praia , Cape Verde, (16th to 24th), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (April 26th to May 2nd), La Luz near Las Palmas (2nd to 9th), Funchal , Madeira (10th to 12th), Horta , Fayal (17th to 20th), Angra do Heroísmo , Tercaira (21st to 23rd) and Ponta Delgada , Sao Miguel (23rd to 30th May). From there the general association ran back to Wilhelmshaven until June 16, 1927, with a stay from June 4 to 10 in Lisbon and a parade in front of the Portuguese President .
Another renovation took place in 1927/28. The two front of the (originally three) chimneys have been combined into one. The command systems at the front tubular mast were expanded, which now carried the artillery control station with an optical range finder on a platform . The fleet voyage in 1928 led to Norway with a total of four ships of the line, two cruisers, a tender, fourteen torpedo boats and six minesweepers . The Schleswig-Holstein ran the ports of Trondheim , Mundal and Fretheim to. In the winter of 1929, the Flottenflaggschiff, like many other ships of the Reichsmarine, performed icebreaking services in the western Baltic Sea and was damaged by an ore steamer. The fleet voyage of the year went to northern Spain with a total of four ships of the line, five new and four old torpedo boats. The Schleswig-Holstein ran the ports of A Pobra do Caramiñal at the Arosa Bay and Portugalete in Bilbao on. In late summer there was another trip to the Baltic Sea with the Hessen , eighteen torpedo boats, six minesweepers and tenders, on which the two liners visited Stockholm with five torpedo boats from August 30 to September 5.
The organizational change of the Reichsmarine on January 1, 1930 meant relocation of the Flottenflaggschiff Schleswig-Holstein to Kiel, where the four ships of the line in service Silesia , Alsace and Hesse were now united under one “Commander of the ships of the line”, while the new “Commander of the Reconnaissance Ships ”in Wilhelmshaven had two modern light cruisers in Wilhelmshaven from January 15, 1930 . From April 2 to June 18, the fleet voyage to Spain and the Mediterranean was carried out with four ships of the line, a light cruiser and ten torpedo boats. The Schleswig-Holstein visited with all ships Vigo, with the Hanover Valencia and with the Hessen Palermo , whereby the fleet chief, Vice Admiral Oldekop , and the BdA, Rear Admiral Gladisch , from the Italian King Viktor Emanuel III. were received in Catania , as well as Syracuse . With Hanover and the torpedo boat Wolf she ran to Piraeus , together with Silesia and Hesse Corfu and with the three other ships of the line then Palma de Mallorca and Cádiz .
In the summer of 1931 the next fleet trip took place back to Norway. In 1932, Schleswig-Holstein and Hessen made only one short trip abroad from July 6th to 12th to Oslo , where the chief of the naval command, Admiral Erich Raeder, was received by the Norwegian King Haakon VII . The foreign trip to Spain planned for 1933 was canceled for the fleet.
In 1934 there was another summer trip to Oslo and the Hardangerfjord .
On May 2, 1935, the Schleswig-Holstein became the first fleet flagship of the Kriegsmarine, which was renamed the Reichsmarine. On August 19, 1935, Adolf Hitler , Werner von Blomberg , Hermann Göring and the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Erich Raeder, watched the artillery fire from her. On September 22nd, her time as a fleet flagship ended and she was relocated to Wilhelmshaven. She was to serve as a cadet training ship with her already converted sister ship Schlesien .
Cadet training ship
The conversion took place in two stages. First the swallow nests were removed and living and classrooms were created for the new task. For this purpose, the armament, the fire control systems, the radio systems and the means of navigation were modernized. These measures were completed by March 7, 1936, the day of the Rhineland occupation. The conversion of the boiler system for predominantly oil firing (eight of the twelve boilers) and the installation of additional fuel bunkers did not take place until May 1936 after the conversion to a cadet training ship. With 1,130 m³ of oil and 436 t of coal, she could now cover 5,500 nm at 12 knots cruising speed . The crew now consisted of 31 officers, 563 NCOs and men. Then there were 175 cadets.
On September 21, 1936, Schleswig-Holstein received its first cadets, with whom they carried out their first training trip to the Canary Islands on October 12, with visits to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Cape Verde with Porto de Praia, Brazil with visits to Pernambuco from November 25th to December 4th and Para , Bridgetown from December 22nd to 28th, Puerto Cabello from December 31st to January 7th, 1937, Porto Columbia , other ports in Central America and the West Indies such as Puerto Limón , Cap-Haïtien and Havana and then back over the Hamilton , Horta and Dún Laoghaire . On April 22, 1937, she was back at her berth in Wilhelmshaven and had covered a distance of 14,712 nautical miles.
In July 1937 she made a short trip to Norway and started on October 13, 1937 on her second big training trip together with the Schlesien and the school cruiser Emden . The Emden left the liners behind and ran through the Mediterranean to the Dutch East Indies . The ships of the line also parted. Silesia circled the South American continent, and this time Schleswig-Holstein led the route around Africa via Arrecife , Porto de Praia, Takoradi , Lagos , Luanda , Mossamedes (December 22 to 18) to Cape Town (January 4 to 12, 1938 ) and then back via Port Elizabeth , Zanzibar , Aden , Messina and Falmouth . The voyage ended on April 21, 1938 after a distance of 17,200 nautical miles.
The third training trip began on October 29, 1938 in Kiel and led back to Cape Verde , the West Indies and across the Azores .
Second World War
On September 1, 1939 at 4:47 a.m., Schleswig-Holstein , which had officially been on a friendship visit in the Bay of Danzig since August 25, opened fire from the port canal on the Polish position on the Westerplatte, which is part of the Free City Danzig belonged. With these shots (Adolf Hitler: "They have been firing back since 5:45 am! ") And German troops marched into Poland , the Second World War began in Europe . In addition, a naval strike force of 225 men was landed through Schleswig-Holstein to defeat the guards at the ammunition depot on the peninsula, but this did not succeed. It was only on September 7th that the attackers succeeded in forcing the positions to give up after the water supply had been destroyed by further fire and Stuka attacks.
In 1940 she took part in the Weser Exercise Company , where she and other naval forces occupied the Danish port cities of Nyborg on Funen and Korsör on Zealand , thereby breaking the connection between the two main Danish islands. However, she ran aground near Langeland and was only released after more than ten hours after her sister ship Silesia had taken over part of her supplies.
She then undertook various smaller voyages as a training ship, covering a total of around 6,000 nautical miles between 1941 and 1944. During this time she was used as an auxiliary icebreaker in the Baltic Sea during the winter months because of her reinforced ram bow. From October 29, 1944 to December 18, 1944, extensive renovations were carried out in the Gotenhafen branch of Deutsche Werke Kiel AG in order to prepare the old liner for future service as a convoy escort ship. The following changes were made:
- new pipes 28 cm L / 40
- Overhaul of the machinery
- new electrically driven leak water pumps
- new FT converters
- new turbo e-machines
- new gyrocompass system
- z. T. new fire control devices
- new 3 m and 5 m basic devices (distance measuring devices)
- new radio measuring device
- new magnetic self-protection
- Cleaning of the ship's bottom and the outer skin
The ship was badly damaged by three aerial bombs off Gotenhafen on December 18, 1944 and sank on a level keel in 12 m water depth. The three bombs killed 28 men and wounded 53. Three pumps steamer should then the ship turmoil , but did not succeed. The leak, caused by a bomb that penetrated the entire ship and then exploded under the keel, was too big.
On December 20, a fire broke out that raged for twelve hours and almost completely destroyed the superstructure.
The flag and pennant were brought down for the last time on January 25, 1945. The majority of the crew was then used to defend the Marienburg .
On March 21, 1945, the Schleswig-Holstein was blown up when Gotenhafen finally gave up.
Whereabouts
After the Wehrmacht surrendered in May 1945, the Soviet Union demanded the old ship as spoils of war. The sealing work began in 1946 and the ship was made buoyant. It was towed to Tallinn , renamed Borodino and was intended as a training ship until 1948. However, it was converted into a target ship there and anchored off the island of Osmussaar (Odensholm) as a training object. Until 1966 it was approached as a target and fired at. Today the remains are still lying aground in the former training area of the Soviet Navy near the Estonian island.
The ship's bell of Schleswig-Holstein is now in the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr in Dresden .
Commanders
| July 6, 1908 to September 1910 | Sea captain Franz von Holleben |
| September 15, 1910 to September 30, 1913 | Sea captain Friedrich Boedicker |
| October 1, 1913 to January 1916 | Sea captain Hans Uthemann |
| January 1916 to May 2, 1917 | Sea captain Eduard Varrentrapp |
| February 1 to September 30, 1926 | Sea captain Gottfried Hansen |
| October 1, 1926 to September 28, 1928 | Sea captain Wilhelm Rümann |
| September 29, 1928 to February 25, 1930 | Sea captain Siegfried Maßmann |
| February 26, 1930 to September 29, 1931 | Captain Reinhold Knobloch |
| October 5, 1931 to September 26, 1933 | Sea captain Friedrich Götting |
| September 27, 1933 to February 28, 1935 | Sea captain Karlgeorg Schuster |
| February 28 to October 6, 1935 | Sea captain Conrad Patzig |
| October 7, 1935 to May 2, 1937 | Sea captain Günther Krause |
| May 15, 1937 to June 7, 1938 | Sea captain Hans Feldbausch |
| June 8, 1938 to April 25, 1939 | Sea captain Gustav Kieseritzky |
| April 26, 1939 to August 28, 1940 | Sea captain Gustav Kleikamp |
| August 29 to September 20, 1940 | Corvette Captain Guido Zaubzer (watch command) |
| January 20 to April 1941 | Frigate Captain Alfred Roegglen |
| April to May 1941 | Corvette Captain Guido Zaubzer (watch command) |
| May 1941 | Corvette Captain Hanns Rigauer |
| May to October 1941 | Sea captain Walter Hennecke |
| October to November 1941 | Corvette Captain Hanns Rigauer |
| November 1941 to May 1942 | Corvette Captain Helmut von Oechelhaeuser |
| May 1942 | Frigate Captain Joachim Asmus |
| November May 1942 to March 31, 1943 | Corvette Captain Helmut von Oechelhaeuser |
| February 1944 | Corvette Captain Walter Bach |
| February 1944 to January 25, 1945 | Frigate Captain Reinhold Bürklen |
Known crew members
- Christoph Aschmoneit (1901–1984), shipbuilding engineer, leading submarine builder
- Gert Jeschonnek (1912–1999), third inspector of the Navy
- Gerhard Kienbaum (1919–1998), FDP member and minister in North Rhine-Westphalia, Member of the Bundestag, founder of the Kienbaum management consultancy
- Günter Luther (1922–1997), fifth inspector of the Navy
- Günter Poser (1916–2003), Head of Department at NATO's International Military Staff
- Rolf Thomsen (1915–2003), commander of the North Sea Marine Division
literature
- Erich Gröner / 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. 44-46 .
- Willi Schultz: Liner Schleswig-Holstein - fleet service in three navies. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0502-2 .
- Liner Schleswig-Holstein - A ship in two world wars. In: Ships - People - Fates. 4th year volume 31.
- Hildebrand, Röhr, Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, pp. 130 ff.
- Karl-Friedrich Merten : ACCORDING TO COMPASS. Memoirs of a naval officer. Mittler, Berlin / Bonn / Herford 1994, ISBN 3-8132-0414-6 , pages 81-92 and 165-185.
- The Second World War began on Westerplatte. German-language edition, 25th edition, Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Gdańsk 1980.
Web links
- Information about Germany class (Engl.)
- Information on the ships that have carried the name "Schleswig-Holstein" and still carry it on the website of the Marinekameradschaft der Schiff "Schleswig-Holstein" e. V.
- The destroyer Schleswig-Holstein
Individual evidence
- ^ Chronicle of the naval war
- ^ Willi Schultz: Ship of the line Schleswig-Holstein. Koehler-Verlag, Herford 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0502-2 .
- ↑ "L / 40" "( caliber length 40) means that the tube length was 40 times the caliber (here 11.2 meters)