Z 2 Georg Thiele

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Z 2 Georg Thiele
The sister boat Richard Beitzen
The sister boat Richard Beitzen
Ship data
flag German EmpireGerman Empire (Reichskriegsflagge) German Empire
Ship type destroyer
class Destroyer 1934
Shipyard German works , Kiel
Build number 243
Launch August 18, 1935
Commissioning February 27, 1937
Whereabouts Sunk April 13, 1940
Ship dimensions and crew
length
119.3 m ( Lüa )
114 m ( KWL )
width 11.3 m
Draft Max. 4.23 m
displacement 2,232 ts
Maximum: 3,156 ts
 
crew 325 men
Machine system
machine 6 Wagner- Deschimag steam boiler ; 2 Wagner steam turbines
Machine
performance 		63,000 PS (46,336 kW)
Top
speed 		38.2 kn (71 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

Z 2 Georg Thiele was a German destroyer of the 1934 class in World War II , which was lost near Narvik in April 1940 .

The boat was named after the commander of the VII torpedo boat semi-flotilla of the Imperial Navy , Corvette Captain Georg Thiele , who died on October 17, 1914 in a battle with British forces when his torpedo boat S 119 went down.

history

The Georg Thiele was the second destroyer of the 1934 class. She had a length of 119 m over all (114 m in the waterline), a width of 11.3 m and a maximum draft of 4.23 m. The standard displacement of the boat was 2,223 ts and with full equipment up to 3,156 ts. Officially, however, only a displacement of 1,625 t was given. The boat was powered by Wagner geared turbines with a maximum output of 70,000 hp, which enabled a top speed of over 36 knots. The steam for the turbines was produced in six Wagner type high-pressure boilers. Like its sister boats, the Georg Thiele was able to take up to 752 t of fuel on board, which should enable a theoretical range of 3300 nm at a cruising speed of 19 kn . However, the poor weight distribution of the boats forced that 30% of the fuel supply had to remain on board as ballast in order to maintain seaworthiness; this reduced the usable range of the boats to 1,530 nm.

Like the sister boats, the Georg Thiele was armed with five 12.7 cm rapid loading cannons, model 34, in stand-alone installation with protective shields. Two each stood on the forecastle and one on top of the other on the stern, the fifth gun was on the aft deckhouse. The anti-aircraft armament consisted of two 3.7 cm twin guns model 30 next to the rear funnel and six individual 2 cm automatic cannons model 30. The torpedo armament consisted of two pivoting 53.3 cm quadruple sets on the main deck. There were four depth charges next to the rear deckhouse , and more could be deployed from the stern. In addition, rails for up to 60 mines could be installed quickly.

The crew of the boat consisted of ten officers and 315 men. When used as a flotilla leader, four officers and 19 specialists were added.

The keel of the destroyer ordered on July 7, 1934 with the three sister boats was laid on October 25, 1934 in the building dock of Deutsche Werke in Kiel with building number 243. All four boats of the 1934 class were built there and were built in pairs in a building dock. On August 18, 1935, the first two new buildings were floated and were given the names Leberecht Maass and Georg Thiele . The latter was delivered on February 27, 1937 as the second boat just seven weeks after the sister boat. The other two boats were built in a different building dock since January 1935, floated on November 30, 1935 and were delivered by mid-May 1937.

Mission history

The Georg Thiele was assigned to the 1st Destroyer Division of the Navy and took part in 1937 for the first time the autumn maneuvers. In April 1938 she made her first trip abroad with the sister boats Max Schultz and Richard Beitzen with a visit to Ulvik in Norway . Then she went to the shipyard to modify the bow in order to reduce the takeover of water at sea from the front. This made the boat about 30 cm longer and raised the foredeck. On August 22nd, Georg Thiele took part in the naval parade in front of Hitler and the Hungarian head of state Miklós Horthy on the occasion of the christening of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen . After the autumn maneuvers of the fleet and the celebrations for the launch of the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin , the Georg Thiele went into the waters around Iceland with the sister boats Leberecht Maass , Max Schultz and Richard Beitzen to test her seaworthiness and the suitability of the modified bow in the wintery North Atlantic .

On 23/24 March 1939, the Georg Thiele was one of the destroyers who accompanied Hitler on the ironclad Germany during the occupation of the Memel area . She then took part with the destroyers of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the fleet's voyage with the three armored ships Admiral Graf Spee , Admiral Scheer and Deutschland as well as the light cruisers Cologne and Leipzig into the western Mediterranean from April 18 to May 16 and visited including different ports in Spain and Morocco .

In the early morning of August 27, 1939, while the traffic through the Øresund was being monitored due to the increased political tension, the Max Schultz collided with the torpedo boat Tiger near Bornholm , which sank immediately. Because of the severe damage to her bow, the Georg Thiele had to tow the sister boat over the stern until two salvage tugs arrived and were able to bring the damaged vessel to Świnoujście .

War effort

At the beginning of the World War , the Georg Thiele belonged to the units of the Kriegsmarine deployed in the Baltic Sea against Poland, but was relocated to the North Sea after a few days, where it took part in the laying of the defensive Siegfried Line mine barriers. At the end of 1939, the Georg Thiele then went to the shipyard for a major overhaul, which was completed in early April 1940.

The end in Narvik

At the Weser Exercise company in April 1940, the boat belonged to Kampfgruppe 1, the ten destroyers that occupied the ore port of Narvik under the command of the FdZ , Commodore Friedrich Bonte . On April 9, 1940, the destroyer deployed its 200 mountain troops at the ore pier in Port of Narvik after he had participated in the sinking of the Norwegian coastal armored ship Norge through artillery fire , which had previously been torpedoed by Bernd von Arnim and sank quickly.

The ten destroyers of the German association were initially attacked surprisingly in very bad weather on the morning of April 10, 1940 by the British 2nd Destroyer Flotilla with five H-class destroyers under Commodore Bernard Warburton-Lee in the port of Narvik. The German flagship Wilhelm Heidkamp and the destroyer Anton Schmitt were sunk with torpedoes. Commodore Bonte fell. Diether von Roeder , who had just arrived and who had left her post as a guard boat too early and thus missed a timely warning, received five 12 cm artillery hits, caught fire and the steering gear failed. The two boats Hermann Künne and Hans Lüdemann taking fuel from the tanker Jan Wellem were slightly damaged.

The Bernd von Arnim and the Georg Thiele , coming from Ballangen Fjord, attacked the expiring British Association; The three destroyers Wolfgang Zenker , Erich Koellner and Erich Giese of the 4th destroyer flotilla under frigate captain Erich Bey came to support from the Herjangsfjord at the same time . The British destroyers Hardy and Hunter were put out of action. The Hardy was burned aground by her crew on the fjord bank, while the Hunter sank after a torpedo hit. The remaining three British boats withdrew, but caused the Georg Thiele considerable damage with seven artillery hits when it ran down, which led to fires. These could only be deleted with the support of Bernd von Arnim . The boats of the 4th Flotilla could not follow the British because the Erich Giese and the Erich Koellner had hardly any fuel and all three had very little ammunition.

On the march back, the British managed to sink the Rauenfels , which mainly had heavy equipment on board for the army troops that had landed. Other British units had in the meantime provided the Alster transporter and the Kattegat tanker . The transporter Bärenfels , which was also planned for Narvik , only reached the German-occupied Bergen on April 10 and remained there. The destroyers who remained in Narvik received no further support. For the planned march back to Germany on the evening of April 10, only Erich Giese and Wolfgang Zenker , who had meanwhile refueled, were clear, but they broke off the eruption after less than two hours near the island of Barö because enemy naval forces were discovered in front of them, probably the cruiser Penelope with two destroyers.

The badly damaged Eskimo

The final battle took place on April 13, 1940, when a unit of the British Royal Navy , consisting of nine destroyers and the battleship Warspite , appeared off Narvik. The remaining German destroyers used their ammunition and were forced to sink themselves in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy. While the Wolfgang Zenker , the Bernd von Arnim and the Hans Lüdemann broke away from the enemy for this purpose, the Georg Thiele covered their retreat. With the last torpedo she scored a hit on the British destroyer Eskimo , which tore down the forecastle. The Eskimo was later towed by a British ship and repaired.

The Georg Thiele was after she had fired all the munitions, on the south bank of the Rombaksbotn set on a rock; At the same time, the blast was initiated at 68 ° 24 '29 "  N , 17 ° 48' 43"  O coordinates: 68 ° 24 '29 "  N , 17 ° 48' 43"  E. Fires broke out along the entire length of the ship, also due to the continued shelling of British units. After the landing, the crew received the order to gather on a railway embankment about 300 meters above the fjord. During the ascent there were further losses from British fire. During the fighting from April 10th to 13th, 1940, a total of 27 crew members of Georg Thiele were killed. The remaining crew took part in the later battles for Narvik on land.

The Georg Thiele is still lying on the bank with the forecastle half over water and the stern at a depth of approx. 45 m on the starboard side and can be dived. The ship's bell and the destroyer's nameplate are in the Narvik War Museum .

Wreck of the Z2 "Georg Thiele"

Commanders

Surname Period
Frigate Captain Hans Hartmann (Admiral) February 27, 1937 to August 7, 1938
Frigate Captain Rudolf von Pufendorf August 8, 1938 to October 27, 1938
Corvette Captain Max-Eckart Wolff October 30, 1938 to April 13, 1940

Known crew members

literature

  • Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung [arr.]: The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2000 (9th, revised and expanded edition), ISBN 978-3763762156 .
  • Geirr H. Haarr: The German Invasion of Norway, April 1940 , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2009, ISBN 978-1-59114-310-9
  • Wolfgang Harnack: Destroyer under the German flag: 1934 to 1945 . 2. revised and exp. Edition, Herford: Koehler, 1994, ISBN 3-7822-0616-9
  • 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,
  • Gerhard Koop, Klaus-Peter Schmolke: German Destroyers of World War II - Warships of the Kriegsmarine . Seaforth Publishing, 2014, pp. 78 + 79.
  • Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
  • Mike J. Whitley: Destroyers in World War II: Technique - Class - Types. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 978-3613014268 .

Web links

Commons : Destroyer 1934  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Kriegsmarine referred to all their watercraft up to and including destroyer size as boats, regardless of the fact that they were mostly ships; see: boat / ship
  2. ^ Whitley, p. 18
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Hildebrand: Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe , Vol. 2, S. 140f.
  4. ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg 1939-1945, p. 12f.
  5. ↑ Rohwer, p. 35.