SMS Swabia
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SMS Schwaben was the fourth ship of the Wittelsbach class , a class of five ships of the line of the Imperial Navy .
construction
For the new building G , the Kiel was stretched as the last ship of its class on November 14, 1900 at the Kaiserliche Werft in Wilhelmshaven . The ship of the line was ready for launch on August 19, 1901, and thus before the newbuilding F , which later became Mecklenburg , which had started earlier . It was named after the Swabian region in honor of the Württemberg rulers . The baptismal address was given by King Wilhelm II of Württemberg and his wife, Queen Charlotte , gave the baptism . The further expansion of the ship proceeded at a moderate speed.
Peace time
The Swabian could not be put into service for the first time until April 13, 1904 . Contrary to the intention of the fleet chief, Admiral Hans von Koester , to include the new ship of the line in the active battle fleet , it was designated as a torpedo test ship according to the request of the State Secretary of the Reichsmarinamt , Admiral Alfred Tirpitz . The inspection of the torpedo system , which until then only had large and small cruisers as well as old ships incapable of combat, was given a modern ship of the line for training and testing purposes, which replaced the Neptune in this task. The command of the ship was held by the President of the Experimental Command.
On May 18, 1904, the test drives began, which initially led from Wilhelmshaven around Cape Skagen to Kiel , from where the drives were continued. During this, the Swabians north of Fehmarn came to a previously unknown shoal . The bottom of the ship was dented over a length of 30 m and partly torn open. After the repairs had become necessary, the test drives were continued until the end of 1904.
After only a short use as a torpedo training ship , the Swabia was assigned to the inspection of ship artillery on January 11, 1905 and replaced the Mars as an artillery training ship . In the following years, the liner performed this task, but was also used several times for other missions, especially for the autumn maneuvers.
In October 1905, the Swabians carried out deep- sea shooting exercises in the North Sea together with the Ulan . In April and May 1906 exercises followed with the Association of School and Test Ships off Swinoujscie , in July 1907 exercises together with the Frithjof and the Tender Fuchs off the coast of Western Pomerania . In August 1907, the Swabians sailed as the flagship , under Vice Admiral Hugo Zeye , a maneuver squadron formed for the autumn maneuvers, to which the coastal armored ships Frithjof and Aegir , the great cruisers Prinz Adalbert and Vineta , the small cruisers Undine , Nymphe and Zieten and the mine ships Nautilus and Pelikan belonged to.
After the Swabians were not involved in the autumn maneuvers in 1908, they went again the following year as the flagship of a squadron formed from older warships. Mid-December 1909 had to ship in Flensburg Fjord accrued Wuerttemberg help at the escape. From August 19 to September 11, 1910, the Swabia was the III. Squadrons of the deep sea fleet assigned to replace the Elector Friedrich Wilhelm and Weißenburg , which were sold to Turkey, during the autumn maneuvers. On October 14th, the ship collided with the Alsace and had to be repaired by the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel . On January 4, 1911, it was operational again.
During the autumn maneuvers of 1911, the Swabian was again the III. Assigned to squadrons. On November 30 of the same year, the ship was decommissioned and replaced by the Wettin . It initially belonged to the North Sea Reserve Division, but was relocated to the Baltic Sea in early May 1912 and temporarily put into service for this purpose. Another final activation in peacetime took place from August 14 to September 28, 1912 for the autumn maneuvers. During this time the Swabian served as the flagship of the second admiral of the squadron, Rear Admiral Maximilian Graf von Spee .
Use in the First World War
After the outbreak of World War I , the Swabian was put back into service on August 8, 1914 and assigned to the newly formed IV. Squadron, where it served several times temporarily as the flagship of the 2nd Admiral of the squadron. The squadron was initially mainly used in security and outpost service, especially in the Elbe estuary , but was also temporarily involved in missions in the Baltic Sea, for example in September 1914 and May 1915.
In early July 1915, the IV. Wing was the commander of the Baltic Sea, Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia , permanently subordinated to in the proposed company against the Gulf of Riga participate that the advance of the army in Riga should support. After the end of this venture, the Swabian was from September 24, 1915 as a guard ship in Libau .
The outdated underwater protection system of the old liners and armored ships did not offer sufficient protection against mine and torpedo hits, as the sinking of the Prince Adalbert on October 23, 1915 showed. Since they were also far inferior to the new Russian large-line ships of the Gangut class by artillery, they were withdrawn from fleet service. The Swabians ran out of Libau on November 10, 1915 together with the Wettin , the Wittelsbach and the great cruiser Prince Heinrich . The Zähringen joined the association from Danzig , which reached Kiel on November 11th. While the other ships were combined to form the Baltic Sea readiness division, the Swabians continued to Wilhelmshaven, where on November 20, the Emperor Charlemagne was replaced as a drill and machine training ship. In this function, the ship remained in service until the end of the war. In the spring of 1916, the 24 cm guns were initially dismantled, later the 15 cm guns were reduced to six and the 8.8 cm guns to four.
Whereabouts
After the end of the war, the Swabian was initially decommissioned on December 16, 1918. It was converted into a mother ship for shallow minesweepers (FM boats) and was used as such in the Baltic Sea from August 1, 1919 to June 19, 1920. Their final decommissioning followed on March 8, 1921, the deletion from the list of warships. The Swabian was sold in the same year for 3,090,000 marks and scrapped in Kiel.
Commanders
| April 13, 1904 to January 1905 | Frigate Captain Ernst Schäfer |
| January to December 1905 | Sea Captain William Kutter |
| December 1905 to August 1908 | Sea captain Wilhelm Schack |
| August to September 1908 | Corvette Captain Carl Kopp (deputy) |
| October 1908 to August 1910 | Captain Richard Eckermann |
| August to September 1910 | Corvette Captain Hans Meidinger |
| September 1910 to November 30, 1911 | Sea captain Georg Hebbinghaus |
| May 9-12, 1912 | Sea captain Karl Thorbecke |
| August 14th to September 28th, 1912 | Sea captain Karl Thorbecke |
| August 8, 1914 to October 1915 | Sea captain Friedrich von Kameke |
| October to November 1915 | Sea captain Johann von Lessel |
| November 1915 to March 1917 | Frigate Captain Max Leonhardi |
| March to April 1917 | Frigate Captain Waldemar Krah |
| April to May 1917 | Corvette Captain Robert Köhler (deputy) |
| May 1917 to October 1918 | Frigate Captain Louis Dombrowski |
| October to December 16, 1918 | Sea captain Joachim Darmer |
| August 1, 1919 to March 1920 | unknown |
| March to June 19, 1920 | Chief Petty Officer / lieutenant Bartels |
literature
- 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. 39-41 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 7 : Ship biographies from Prussian eagle to Ulan . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 139-142 .