SMS Szczecin
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SMS Stettin was a small cruiser of the Imperial Navy and their second turbine-powered cruiser. Although she was the last ship of the Königsberg class to be launched, it was completed before the sister ships Nuremberg and Stuttgart . As with the Nürnberg and Stuttgart , the eighth chimney was also "detached" in the Stettin , ie it had a greater distance to the middle chimney than this to the front chimney.
Peace operations
After completion of their trials, the Stettin was assigned to the Association of Reconnaissance Ships on January 20, 1908. She replaced the small cruiser Frauenlob there . Between June 17 and August 8, 1908, the Stettin accompanied the imperial yacht Hohenzollern on regattas, to Norway and on a visit to Stockholm . In April / May 1910 she took on the same function in the Mediterranean , as the originally planned Hamburg was sent to southern Anatolia to protect Christians. She ran together with the Lübeck , which was supposed to support Hamburg , from Kiel on April 19 and took over the service as an escort cruiser on May 1 off Corfu . She was released on May 15th in Pula and was back in Kiel on the 26th. From July 7th to 30th, 1910, the Stettin accompanied the imperial yacht again on the usual summer trip to Norway.
From May 11 to June 29, 1912, the ship made a North American voyage with the battle cruiser Moltke . They ran from Kiel via Ponta Delgada to Cape Henry , where they met the station cruiser Bremen . The cruisers entered the Hampton Roads together , where they were received on June 3rd by the American Atlantic fleet in the presence of US President Taft . On 8./9. June moved the small squadron , under the command of Rear Admiral Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz , to New York , from where the Moltke and the Stettin began their march back to Germany on June 13th to the 29th via Vigo .
This was followed by normal fleet service. In early 1914 the crew on the Stettin was reduced. The detached people switched to the small cruiser Rostock, which had now been completed . In July 1914 a complete crew was again on board. The Stettin became the master ship of the II. Submarine Flotilla. The base was Heligoland .
War missions
On August 28, 1914, the Stettin was involved in the naval battle near Heligoland . In the early morning she was sent, together with Frauenlob , to support the beleaguered German torpedo boats . The Stettin came into action with the British cruiser Fearless . She received several hits and had two dead and nine wounded.
From November 27, 1914, the Stettin belonged to the IV reconnaissance group and was henceforth the flagship of the II torpedo boat leader. Various advances and participation in the trade war in the North Sea followed . In May 1915, the ship was in the Baltic Sea with the Libau company.
With the IV reconnaissance group under Commodore Ludwig von Reuter , the Stettin took part in the Battle of the Skagerrak . She received two hits, which resulted in eight dead and 28 wounded. The combat damage was repaired in Wilhelmshaven and Hamburg . The ship remained in the North Sea until mid-1917, where it took part in several forays and mine-laying operations . In July 1917, the Stettin resigned from the IV reconnaissance group, and from July to November 1917 she was used as a target ship for submarines in the Baltic Sea. In December 1917 there was a longer layover in Wilhelmshaven . From February 1918, the Stettin served again as a target ship in the Baltic Sea.
Plans, the cruiser like its sister ship Stuttgart for aircraft carrier rebuild were abandoned in October 1918 after being in the design office of Reichsmarineamt instead had decided that in 1914 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg set to Kiel, on 15 April 1915 from the stack The Italian turbine passenger ship Ausonia, which has been running and has since been unfinished there, was converted into an aircraft carrier and then put into service as the aircraft steamer I.
post war period
On 19./20. December 1918 the Stettin was decommissioned in Kiel. Removed from the list of warships on November 5, 1919, then handed over to Great Britain as Ship T on September 15, 1920 . Between 1921 and 1923, the small cruiser Stettin was finally scrapped in Copenhagen .
Commanders
| October 1907 to January 1908 | Frigate Captain Georg Schur |
| January 20 to September 30, 1908 | Frigate Captain Friedrich Boedicker |
| October 1908 to September 1909 | Frigate captain / sea captain Curt von Rössing |
| October 1909 to September 1910 | Frigate Captain Wilhelm Höpfner |
| September 1910 to September 1911 | Frigate captain / sea captain Johannes Hartog |
| October 1911 to October 1913 | Frigate Captain / Sea Captain Wilhelm von Krosigk |
| October 1913 to February 1914 | Corvette captain / frigate captain Thilo von Trotha |
| February to April 1914 | Captain Herbert Hinrichs (reduced crew) |
| April to June 1914 | Kapitänleutnant Rudolf vd Hagen (reduced crew) |
| July 1914 to March 1916 | Corvette Captain Karl August Nerger |
| March to November 1916 | Frigate captain Friedrich Rebensburg |
| November 1916 to April 1918 | Frigate Captain Hermann Bendemann |
| April to July 1918 | Captain Max Gréus (deputy) |
| July to December 1918 | Frigate Captain Eduard Bartels |
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982. ( The German warships 1815–1945 , Vol. 1) ISBN 3-7637-4800-8
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford, 7 volumes
- Gerhard Koop / Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Small cruisers 1903–1918, Bremen to Cologne class . Volume 12 classes and types of ships in the German Navy . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7637-6252-3 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ In the literature, the Königsberg is sometimes viewed as a single ship, while the three other ships are referred to as belonging to the Nuremberg class. Both Gröner and Koop / Schmolke count the ships to the Königsberg class. The British naval pocket book Jane's 1914 referred to them as Stettin class .