was a light cruiser built for the German Navy () in the early 1920s. She was the only ship of her class and was the first large warship built in Germany after the end of World War I. She was built at the in Wilhelmshaven; her keel was laid down in December 1921 and her completed hull was launched in January 1925. was commissioned into the fleet in October 1925. Her design was heavily informed by the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and the dictates of the Allied disarmament commission. Displacement was capped at , though like all German warships built in the period, exceeded the size limitations. She was armed with a main battery of surplus guns left over from World War I, mounted in single gun turrets, as mandated by the Allied powers. She had a top speed of .
spent the majority of her career as a training ship; in the inter-war period, she conducted several world cruises to train naval cadets, frequently visiting East Asia, the Americas, and the Indian Ocean region. In 1937 and 1938, she briefly participated in the non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War. At the outbreak of war, she laid minefields off the German coast and was damaged by a British bomber that crashed into her. She participated in the invasion of Norway in April 1940 as part of the force that captured the Norwegian capital at Oslo.
The ship thereafter resumed training duties in the Baltic Sea. These lasted with minor interruptions until September 1941, when she was assigned to the Baltic Fleet and tasked with supporting German operations during the invasion of the Soviet Union. Training duties resumed in 1942 and lasted until late 1944, when she took part in minelaying operations in the Skagerrak. Damaged in a grounding accident in December 1944, she went to Königsberg for repairs. In January 1945, she participated in the evacuation of East Prussia to escape the advancing Soviet Army. While undergoing repairs in Kiel, was repeatedly damaged by British bombers and later run aground outside the harbor to prevent her from sinking. In the final days of the war, she was blown up to prevent her capture. The wreck was ultimately broken up in place by 1950.
Design
According to Article 181 of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended World War I, the German Navy was permitted only six light cruisers. Article 190 limited new cruiser designs to and prohibited new construction until the vessel to be replaced was at least twenty years old.Treaty of Versailles Part V, Section II: Naval Clauses, Articles 181 and 190 Since the six cruisers that Germany retained had been launched between 1899 and 1902, the oldest ships—, , , , and —could be replaced immediately. Design work on the first new light cruiser, ordered as "", began in 1921.
The Navy hoped to finish the ship as quickly as possible and to keep costs to a minimum, and so requested permission from the Naval Inter-Allied Commission of Control to use steam turbines, boilers, and conning towers from scrapped vessels to complete . The NIACC rejected the request. The Navy also hoped to use an armament of four twin-gun turrets for the new ship. The NIACC rejected the twin-turret design, but allowed the use of guns from existing stocks of spare barrels. Nominally within the 6,000-ton limit of the Versailles Treaty, in fact exceeded the restriction by almost fully loaded. In 1923, after work on had already begun, the Germans proposed using the definition for standard displacement adopted in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, which was significantly less than full-load displacement. The Allied powers approved the change, and thus , which had a standard displacement of just under the 6,000-ton limit, was retroactively made legal.
The ship was based on the blueprints from the late-war cruiser , primarily due to personnel shortages in the design staff and the closure of the Navy's Ship Testing Institute, and the blueprints for were still available. Completed to a dated design, she proved to be something of a disappointment in service, primarily owing to her weak broadside of just six 15 cm guns. Nevertheless, the ship incorporated major advances over the earlier designs, including large-scale use of welding in her construction and a significantly more efficient propulsion system that gave her a cruising radius fifty percent larger than that of the older ships, which proved to be quite useful on the extended training cruises of the 1920s and 1930s.
General characteristics
was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a designed draft of ; at standard load, the draft was , and at combat load the draft increased to . Her designed displacement was , with standard and combat displacements. Her hull was constructed with longitudinal steel frames and incorporated seventeen watertight compartments and a double bottom that extended for 56 percent of the length of the keel. She had a waterline armored belt that was thick; her armored deck was thick, and her conning tower had thick sides.
The ship had a standard crew of nineteen officers and 464 enlisted men. While serving on cadet training cruises, her crew numbered twenty-nine officers and 445 enlisted, with 162 cadets. After 1940, her standard crew was increased to twenty-six officers and 556 enlisted, and after being reduced to a training ship, her crew numbered thirty officers and 653 enlisted men. carried six boats. The German Navy regarded the ship as a good sea boat, with slight lee helm and gentle motion in a swell. The cruiser was manoeuvrable, but was slow going into a turn. Steering was controlled by a single large rudder. She lost speed only slightly in a head sea, but lost up to sixty percent in hard turns. She had a metacentric height of .
Machinery
was powered by two sets of Brown, Boveri & Co. geared steam turbines; they drove a pair of three-bladed screws that were in diameter. Steam was provided by four coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers and six oil-fired Marine water-tube boilers divided into four boiler rooms. The engines were rated at and a top speed of . On speed trials, her engines reached and a maximum of . The ship was designed to carry of coal, though additional space could accommodate up to . Oil capacity was as designed, and up to in additional fuel bunkers. This gave the ship a cruising radius of at . At , her range fell to . Electrical power was supplied by two systems of three generators each, with a total combined output of at 220 Volts.
Armament The ship's main battery was to have been eight 15 cm SK L/55 guns in twin turrets, but the Allied disarmament authority refused to permit this armament. Instead, she was equipped with existing stocks of 15 cm SK L/45 guns in single turrets. The guns were C/16 models; they fired a shell at a muzzle velocity of . They could elevate to 40 degrees and had a maximum range of . The eight guns were supplied with a total of 960 rounds of ammunition. was also equipped with two 8.8 cm SK L/45 anti-aircraft guns, and a third was later added. These guns had between 900 and 1,200 rounds of ammunition in total. As designed, she was to have carried eight deck-mounted torpedo tubes in dual launchers, but only four tubes were fitted as built. In 1934, these were replaced with more powerful tubes. The ship carried twelve torpedoes.
In 1938, the ship's anti-aircraft battery was strengthened. She received two and later four 3.7 cm SK C/30 guns and up to eighteen 2 cm Flak guns. The capacity to carry 120 mines was also added. In 1942, two of the four torpedo launchers were removed, and she was rearmed with a new model of 15 cm gun. This gun was the Tbts KC/36 model, and was designed for use on destroyers. It fired a slightly smaller shell at a higher muzzle velocity—. The gun could elevate to 47 degrees for a maximum range of . By 1945, the ship's anti-aircraft battery consisted of nine 3.7 cm guns and six 2 cm guns.
Service history Construction – 1931
was laid down at the shipyard in Wilhelmshaven on 8 December 1921. Political instability and Germany's financial weakness in the early 1920s delayed construction of the ship, and she was launched on 7 January 1925. Admiral Hans Zenker gave a speech at her launching, and the ship was christened by the widow of Karl von Müller, who had commanded the original during World War I. The new cruiser was commissioned into the fleet nine months later, on 15 October 1925. Intended for use as a training ship for naval cadets, was assigned to the (North Sea Naval Station); she began sea trials after entering service, and these were interrupted with alterations in the that included a reconstruction of the battle mast. After these were completed in 1926, she conducted individual training and made numerous visits to foreign ports in northern European waters. In August and September 1926, she took part in annual fleet manoeuvres, and in October she returned to the shipyard again to have her aft funnel increased in height to match the forward one. was at that time allocated to the Training Inspectorate of the Navy.
embarked on her first long-range training cruise on 14 November 1926 from Wilhelmshaven. The ship traveled to south around Africa and across the Indian Ocean, where she stopped in the Cocos Islands, where the wreck of the original was still present. The crew held a memorial service there on 15 March 1927 before continuing on to East Asian waters. She visited ports in Japan before crossing the northern Pacific Ocean to Alaska and then steamed down the western coast of North America, calling in various harbors along the way. continued south through Central and South American waters, crossing into the Atlantic Ocean and turning north; the ship was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 25 December. She returned to Germany by way of the Azores and Vilagarcía, Spain, arriving in Wilhelmhaven on 14 March 1928.
The ship spent much of the rest of the year preparing for the next major cruise, which began on 5 December. By this time, the ship had come under the command of (Corvette Captain) Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, who had come aboard in September. The ship steamed down to the Mediterranean Sea and stopped in Istanbul, Turkey, before traveling south through the Suez Canal, across the Indian Ocean to the Dutch East Indies, and then to Australia. then crossed the Pacific to Hawaii before proceeding to the west coast of the United States. She then steamed south to the Panama Canal, which she transited to the Caribbean Sea. The ship then crossed to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands before returning to Wilhelmshaven, which she reached on 13 December 1929.
On 13 January 1930, left Wilhelmshaven on her third voyage abroad. She steamed into the Atlantic and stopped in Madeira before crossing over to tour several ports in the Caribbean, including Saint Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, New Orleans and Charleston in the US, Kingston, Jamaica, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ship recrossed the Atlantic, stopping in Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife on the way, before arriving back in Wilhelmshaven on 13 May 1930. There, she went into the shipyard for an extensive overhaul. In October, (FK—Frigate Captain) Robert Witthoeft-Emden took command of the ship.