Seydlitz (ship, 1939)

Seydlitz

The sister ship Blücher

Ship data flag  German Empire Ship type Heavy cruiser class Admiral Hipper class Shipyard AG "Weser" ( Deschimag ), Bremen Build number 940 building-costs 84,090,000 marks Launch January 19, 1939 Whereabouts Blown up on April 10, 1945

Ship dimensions and crew length 210.0 m ( Lüa ) width 21.8 m Draft Max. 7.9 m displacement Standard : 14,240 tn.l. Construction: 17,600 t Maximum: 19,800 tn.l.   crew 1,382 to 1,599 men

Machine system machine 12 steam boilers 3 sets of geared turbines Machine performance 132,000 PS (97,086 kW) Top speed 32.0 kn (59 km / h) propeller 3 three-leaf 4.1 m

Armament 8 × 20.3 cm SK C / 34 (L / 60) (1,280 shots) 12 × 10.5 cm SK C / 33 (L / 65) (4,800 shots) 12 × 3.7 cm SK C / 30 (L / 83) (4,000 shots) 28 × 2 cm Flak 38 (L / 65) (56,000 rounds) 12 × torpedo tube ⌀ 53.3 cm (on deck, sets of three, 24 rounds) 3 Ar 196 aircraft Armor Belt: 70-80 mm Upper deck: 12-30 mm Armored deck : 20–50 mm Torpedo bulkhead : 20 mm Tower : 70-105 mm Front command tower: 50–150 mm aft command tower: 20–30 mm Mars : 20 mm

The Seydlitz was an unfinished heavy cruiser of the German Navy . She was the fourth ship of the Admiral Hipper class (construction contract for cruiser K ). The ship was named after Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz .

history

On June 8, 1936, the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Erich Raeder, decided to have two 10,000-ton cruisers built. The cruisers K and L, the later Seydlitz and the Lützow . The main armament was twelve 15 cm guns, which would have made the ships light cruisers . The same turrets were provided as on the cruisers of the Königsberg and Leipzig classes . Otherwise, all requirements were similar to the previous Admiral Hipper class.

The order for the cruiser K went to Bremer Werft AG "Weser" ( Deschimag ), which placed it on December 29, 1936 on Kiel. On December 30, 1938, the German Reich informed the United Kingdom that they wanted to build two more heavy cruisers. From then on, 20.3 cm guns were planned for the new building, which was possible without major problems thanks to the construction corresponding to the Admiral Hipper class. The launch of the Seydlitz took place on January 19, 1939, with the former artillery officer of the battle cruiser Seydlitz , Admiral Richard Foerster , holding the baptismal address. At the beginning of the war, the cruiser was two-thirds ready, but with the now accelerated construction program for submarines , its further construction was delayed. The Soviet Union wanted to buy the Seydlitz as well as the sister ship Lützow , but this was refused.

The Seydlitz and three destroyers still under construction in Bremen, May 8, 1942

In August 1942 it was decided to convert the ship into an aircraft carrier. The ship was already more than 90% completed, and commissioning was scheduled for around the turn of the year 1942/43. The ship would have been completed shortly before Hitler's order of January 26, 1943 to decommission all large surface units. The naval command did not consider the conversion to be desirable due to the nearing completion, but agreed to the conversion and dismantling "in accordance with the need". The project was given the code name "Weser-1", but the ship itself was not renamed. About two years were estimated for the conversion. The dismantling required the removal of all armament and the dismantling of the superstructure. The four gun turrets, each with two 20.3 cm cannons, were installed as coastal artillery in France: The turrets "Anton" and "Dora" were installed in the "Karola" battery on the Île de Ré (4th / Marine Artillery Division 282 ), the towers "Bruno" and "Caesar" were used in the battery "Seydlitz" on the Île de Groix (5th / Marine Artillery Division 264).

With Hitler's decommissioning order, work on the ship was stopped. When construction stopped on the Seydlitz , the chimney and some other superstructures were still on the upper deck.

At the end of March 1944, the ship was towed from Bremen via Kiel to Königsberg , where it arrived on April 2 and was used as a barge from December 1944 . Because of the advance of the Red Army , the ship was blown up on April 10, 1945 at its berth in the port of Königsberg. The wreck was lifted by the Soviet Navy in 1946 and towed to Leningrad , as it could possibly serve as a spare parts store for the former Lützow . In fact, it was entered in the list of ships on March 10, 1947, but then again deleted and scrapped on April 9, 1947.

literature

• Hans H. Hildebrand, 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 (licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).

Web links

• J. Asmussen, " Seydlitz - Ship design " (Eng.), Admiral Hipper & Blücher & Prinz Eugen, accessed December 15, 2008 (very detailed page about the design of the Seydlitz, also as an aircraft carrier).
• L. Bashkirov, G. Heimann, D. Martim, D. Zhukov, “ Seydlitz Schwerer Kreuzer 1939–1945 Admiral Hipper Class ”, German Naval History, accessed December 15, 2008

Footnotes

1. ^ Siegfrid Breyer: The heavy cruisers of the Seydlitz class. Marine Arsenal, Volume 22
2. ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 7, p. 166.
3. ↑ http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/zplan/carrier/seydlitzcvl/history.html
4. ^ Siegfrid Breyer: The heavy cruisers of the Seydlitz class. Marine Arsenal, Volume 22
5. ^ Siegfried Breyer / Gerhard Koop: From the Emden to the Tirpitz. Volume 2: Small cruisers, light cruisers, heavy cruisers and reconnaissance cruisers. Verlag Wehr & Wissen, Koblenz / Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-8033-0316-8 , pp. 108-111.