SMS Siegfried
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SMS Siegfried was the type ship of the class of eight coastal armored ships of the German Imperial Navy named after her. The ship, which was classified as an armored ship IV class until 1899, was used several times between 1890 and 1909 and during World War I in coastal defense.
construction
The first ship of the class was included in the budget of 1887/88 as the “Neubau Panzerfahrzeug O ”. The Germania shipyard in Kiel , which was the first to build a larger warship, began work on the ironclad in spring 1888. On August 10, 1889, the new building was ready to be launched . He was baptized by the chief of the naval station of the Baltic Sea , Vice Admiral Eduard Knorr , after Siegfried the dragon slayer , the hero of several Germanic sagas, in the name of Siegfried . The further expansion and the shipyard test drives dragged on for another eight months.
commitment
Peace time
The first commissioning of the Siegfried took place on April 29, 1890. First of all, the ship was subjected to intensive testing. This was interrupted by the decommissioning on October 3rd. After the new commissioning on April 16, 1891, the test drives were continued until the beginning of June. On June 10, the Siegfried joined the maneuver squadron and replaced the armored ship Württemberg in this association . After a short time, however, she was used as a watch ship in Wilhelmshaven . On March 18, 1892, the main steam pipe in the aft smoke chamber burst and several crew members were severely scalded, which resulted in five deaths. The ship had to go to the shipyard and was replaced by the Beowulf in the maneuver squadron. The repairs dragged on until mid-June.
From June 29th, Siegfried accompanied Kaiser Wilhelm II on his trip to Norway with the Imperial Eagle . During the autumn maneuvers carried out from the end of August to the end of September, the Siegfried and the mine ship Pelikan formed a reconnaissance group. After the maneuvers, the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven carried out overhaul work on the Siegfried , which then replaced the Crown Prince in the 2nd Division. On February 23, 1893, the Siegfried was decommissioned again.
The Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven subsequently carried out further repairs. Since experiments with pure oil firing on torpedo boats had positive results, the Siegfried boilers were converted accordingly. It was the first larger German warship to be fired only with oil and remained so until the light cruiser Königsberg was commissioned in 1929.
In the spring of 1895, the Siegfried was assigned to the Reserve Division of the North Sea and came back into service on July 9th as the 2nd parent ship. From August 1 to September 24, the association took part in the maneuvers of the fleet and was then back in Wilhelmshaven. In the summer of 1896, commanders' courses for officers who were deployed in higher land positions or in special posts were held for the first time on the main ships. In addition, the Siegfried took part in various exercises and the autumn maneuvers of 1896 and 1897. On September 27, 1897, the ship was finally decommissioned. At the end of the year, the torpedo protection nets that had been in place until then were removed. In the years 1899, 1900 and 1901 the Siegfried was activated for the fleet maneuvers each summer. Since autumn 1900 she belonged to the reserve division of the Baltic Sea and Danzig became her new berth.
In the summer of 1902, the Danzig Imperial Shipyard began converting the Siegfried , as was done with the other units in the class. The ship was cut up and extended by an approximately 8 m long middle section. The boiler system was completely replaced and the pure oil firing of Siegfried was given up. Although this had proven itself, it caused about 2.5 times the fuel costs in comparison with the coal-fired sister ships. The ship was fired again with coal, but kept an additional oil firing system. In addition, changes were made to the armament and a second chimney was installed. The renovation cost around 2.3 million marks and was completed in autumn 1903.
The modernized ship, however, remained in reserve status. Only in 1909 was the Siegfried activated again in times of peace. The ship came into service on July 22nd and belonged to the temporarily formed III during the autumn maneuvers. Squadron under the command of Hugo Pohl , who was promoted to Vice Admiral on September 5 . In the III. Squadron, whose flagship was the Hildebrand , all coastal armored ships were combined. After completing the maneuvers, the Siegfried was decommissioned on September 15.
First World War
After the outbreak of the First World War, the Siegfried was reactivated on August 12, 1914. The ships of the Siegfried class were built in the VI. Squadron under Rear Admiral Richard Eckermann and deployed in coastal protection in the North Sea from September after individual and association exercises in the Baltic Sea. The Siegfried mostly served in the outpost service on the Jade and Weser estuaries . After the dissolution of VI. Geschwader on August 31, 1915, the Siegfried flotilla ship of the port flotilla of the Jade and Weser. Since the ship was completely out of date and because of the shortage of personnel in the Imperial Navy, the Siegfried was withdrawn from the outpost service on December 30, 1915. On January 5, 1916, the ship withdrew from the port flotilla and was decommissioned nine days later in Wilhelmshaven.
Whereabouts
Initially in the material reserve , the Siegfried served the 2nd Sailor Division as a barge from January 1, 1917. In November the ship was relocated to Emden , where it initially served as a reserve ship for the Heimdall , which was used as a ship for the IV submarine flotilla. From February 11, 1918 until the end of the war, the Siegfried was part of the Ems outpost flotilla.
On June 17, 1919, the coastal armored ship was removed from the list of warships. Originally existing intentions to convert to a lifting ship were dropped and the Siegfried was scrapped in Kiel in 1920.
According to the the second Navy Law of 1900 stipulated life of 20 years for ships of the line , which in this context, the coastal defense ships included, was in 1909 the United battleship Helgoland to replace the Siegfried been launched.
Commanders
| April 29 to October 3, 1890 | Sea captain Paul Hoffmann |
| April 16 to October 1891 | Sea captain Alfred Herz |
| October 1891 to March 1892 | Corvette Captain Louis Riedel |
| March 1892 to February 23, 1893 | Corvette Captain August Gruner |
| July 1895 | Corvette Captain Karl Ascher |
| July to September 1895 | Corvette Captain Louis Fischer |
| September 1895 to March 1896 | Captain Leopold Schliebner (reduced crew) |
| April 1896 | Corvette Captain Eugen Kalau from the court |
| May 1896 | Corvette Captain Carl Derzewski |
| June 1896 | Corvette Captain August von Dassel |
| July 1896 | Captain Leopold Schliebner (reduced crew) |
| August to September 1896 | Corvette Captain Eugen Kalau from the court |
| September to October 1896 | Captain Leopold Schliebner (reduced crew) |
| October 1896 to May 1897 | Corvette Captain Carl Derzewski |
| May to July 1897 | Corvette captain with the rank of lieutenant colonel Alfred Brinkmann |
| July to September 29, 1897 | Corvette Captain Carl Derzewski |
| July 26th to September 22nd, 1899 | Frigate Captain August von Heeringen |
| July 24th to September 22nd 1900 | Frigate Captain Oskar Wentzel |
| July 31 to September 18, 1901 | Corvette Captain Job von Witzleben |
| July 22nd to September 22nd, 1909 | Frigate Captain Maximilian Rogge |
| August 12, 1914 to January 14, 1916 | Sea captain Hans Bene |
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. 34-36 .
- 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. 167–170 (Approved licensed edition Koehler's publishing company, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, p. 168.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, p. 169.
- ↑ a b c d e Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, p. 170.
- ↑ a b Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 1, pp. 34f.
- ↑ a b Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships . tape 4 : Ship biographies from Greif to Kaiser . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 161 (Approved licensed edition by Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
- ↑ Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warship. Volume 1, p. 48.