In protest, Raeder resigned; Hitler replaced him with Admiral Karl Dönitz, who persuaded Hitler to rescind the order to dismantle the Kriegmarine's surface ships. Entries are listed below in alphanumeric order (1-to-Z). [34] Lützow was then ordered to break off the attack on the convoy and reinforce Admiral Hipper. [7] Deutschland participated in fleet maneuvers in German waters in early 1936. In 1938, the 8.8 cm guns were removed, and six 10.5 cm (4.1 in) L/65 guns, four 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 guns, and ten 2 cm (0.79 in) C/30 guns were installed in their place. The ship carried a secondary battery of eight 15 cm (5.9 in) SK C/28 guns in single turrets grouped amidships. The ship was launched on 19 May 1931; at her launching, she was christened by German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. Hitler saw the battle of the surface raiders in the Barents Sea as the perfect mission for success. The ship's wounded men were also evacuated in Gibraltar for treatment. Her anti-aircraft battery originally consisted of three 8.8 cm (3.5 in) L/45 guns, though in 1935 these were replaced with six 8.8 cm L/78 guns. A LUCKY SHIP The Germans called her their “lucky ship”—the heavily gunned, heavily armoured Admiral Scheer, sister ship of the ill-fated Graf Spee and the Deutschland. Raised by the Soviet Navy in 1947, she was subsequently sunk as a target in the Baltic. Group 5 was tasked with capturing Oslo, the capital of Norway, and transported a force of 2,000 mountain troops from the Wehrmacht. [35] British naval intelligence worked to convince Langsdorff that vastly superior forces were concentrating to destroy his ship, if he attempted to break out of the harbor. As designed, her standard complement consisted of 33 officers and 586 enlisted men, though after 1935 this was significantly increased to 30 officers and 921–1,040 sailors. On 18 December, the ship, with only Langsdorff and 40 other men aboard, moved into the outer roadstead to be scuttled. [36] The water was shallow enough that her main deck was still 2 m (6 ft 7 in) above water, permitting her use as a stationary gun battery against advancing Soviet forces. [23], The damage Lützow sustained prompted the Kriegsmarine to order her to return to Germany for repairs. The class comprised Deutschland, Hannover, Pommern, Schlesien, and Schleswig-Holstein. The British cruisers turned toward Lützow and came under fire from both German cruisers. [17] In 1940, the ship underwent a major overhaul, during which a raked clipper bow was installed to improve the sea-keeping qualities of the ship. This ship served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. Admiral Graf Spee was 186 meters (610 ft) long overall and had a beam of 21.65 m (71 ft) and a maximum draft of 7.34 m (24 ft 1 in). The ship was partially broken up in situ, though part of the ship remained visible above the surface of the water. Deutschland was ordered by the Reichsmarine from the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel as Ersatz Preussen, as a replacement for the old battleship Preussen. Deutschland (later renamed Lützow), Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee were simply termed panzerschiffe (armored ships) by the Germans, but they were known to their opponents by the far more evocative term Pocket Battleships. Even before the outbreak of WW2, 21 U-boats and the pocket-battleships Admiral Graf Spee and Deutschland had sailed into the Atlantic Ocean to wait for a conflict with Great Britain and France in this large sea area. Aware that surprise had been lost, the Germans broke off the surface attack and turned the destruction of PQ-17 over to the U-boats and Luftwaffe. Admiral Scheer was the second of the three Deutschland class heavy cruisers ordered and funded by the Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic in 1926. The ship was equipped with two Arado Ar 196 seaplanes and one catapult. While en route, she was torpedoed and seriously damaged by a British submarine. Thats often cited as the reason and may or may no be true but theres also another, more practical reason for the name change. Her duties during the deployment included evacuating refugees fleeing from the fighting, protecting German ships carrying supplies for Francisco Franco's Nationalists, and gathering intelligence for the Nationalists. [29], On 30 December, Lützow, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, and six destroyers left Narvik for Operation Regenbogen, an attack on convoy JW 51B, which was reported by German intelligence to be lightly escorted. [19] In April, however, she was assigned to forces participating in the invasion of Norway. Lützow and the remaining three destroyers would then attack the undefended convoy from the south. On 8 October, the following day, she sank Newton Beech,[20] which Langsdorff had been using to house prisoners. Their top speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph) left only the few battlecruisers in the Anglo-French navies fast enough and powerful enough to sink them.[1]. She continued in this role until 4 May,[5] by which time she had expended her main battery ammunition. Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class "Panzerschiff" (armored ship), nicknamed a "pocket battleship" by the British, which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. [32] Both sides broke off the action, Admiral Graf Spee retreating into the River Plate estuary, while Harwood's battered cruisers remained outside to observe any possible breakout attempts. [14] On 26 September, the ship finally received orders authorizing attacks on Allied merchant shipping. Heavy fog and neutrality requirements, which required the Norwegians to fire warning shots, permitted the Germans to avoid damage. [15] In early November, the Naval High Command recalled Deutschland; she passed through the Denmark Strait on 15 November and anchored in Gotenhafen on the 17th. [9] Two bombs struck the ship; the first penetrated the upper deck near the bridge and exploded above the main armored deck while the second hit near the third starboard 15 cm gun, causing serious fires below decks. On 10 October, she captured the steamer Huntsman, the captain of which had not sent a distress signal until the last minute, as he had mistakenly identified Admiral Graf Spee as a French warship. [15] The cruiser then fired 30 rounds from her 28 cm and 15 cm guns and two torpedoes at the cargo ship, which broke up and sank. The German Navy worked around the Treaty of Versailles limitations to create this special group of steel warships. In 1938 Jane's Fighting Ships stated the Deutschland-class "[a]re officially rated as 'Armoured Ships' (Panzerschiffe) and popularly referred to as 'Pocket Battleships'. 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