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The Deutschland (later re-named Lützow), was the lead ship of her class that served in the German Kriegsmarine before and during World War II. The ship was originally classified as an armored ship (Panzerschiff) by Germany, and referred to as a pocket battleship by the British.

Description

Its size and characteristics were severely limited by the Treaty of Versailles, which limited Germany to ships of no more than 10,000 tons displacement. A number of technical innovations (including large scale use of welding to make the hull lighter) used to build a formidable warship within this restricted weight. Even so, the Deutschland was 600 tons overweight, although for political reasons its announced displacement was always given as the 10,000 tons of the treaty limit.

Two other very similar (but not identical) ships were built in its class, the Admiral Graf Spee and the Admiral Scheer. The class was termed Panzerschiff ("armoured ship"); they were designated "pocket battleships" by the British because of their characteristics: their guns (6 x 28 cm in two turrets) were substantially bigger than those of the heavy cruisers of her time, but they were much smaller (and much less armoured), but faster than the standard battleships.

History

Its keel was laid down in February 1929, at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel, and launched in May 1931. It completed fitting out in late 1931 and took its maiden voyage in May 1932.

During the Spanish Civil War the Deutschland was deployed to the Spanish coast in support of Franco's Nationalists in a total of seven operations between 1936 and 1939. During one of these deployments, on May 29 1937, the Deutschland was attacked by two Republican bombers and as a result 31 German sailors were killed and 101 were wounded. As retaliation the sister ship Admiral Scheer bombarded Almería killing 19 civilians and destroying 35 buildings (). The dead were first brought to Gibraltar and buried there but the bodies were exhumed on Hitler's orders and accompanied the Deutschland back to Germany for a large military funeral with Hitler attending ().

After the start of World War II, she was renamed Lützow in November 1939 because Adolf Hitler feared that the loss a ship with the name Deutschland (Germany) would have a significant negative psychological and propaganda effect.

In February 1940 she and her sisterships were re-classified as heavy cruisers, and in April of that year she participated in the invasion of Norway, where she followed the ill-fated Blücher into the Oslo fjord, but turned back when the lead ship was sunk by a Norwegian coastal defense battery. Lützow was then to return to Germany to refit for an extended raiding cruise into the Atlantic, but was torpedoed by the British submarine Spearfish in the Skagerrak north of Jutland. The hit nearly tore off the entire stern of the ship and repairs were not finished until the spring of 1941. Later that year in June, the Lützow was again torpedoed - this time by an RAF Bristol Beaufort Torpedo Bomber from 42 Squadron. The ship returned to Kiel and underwent repairs until January 1942.

She participated in various minor events during the next years, but her only other significant service came starting in September 1944 in the Baltic Sea where she fired on land targets in support of the retreating German army, a service she would continue to provide in the subsequent months.

The ship was badly damaged by three 6-ton Tallboy bombs dropped by the Royal Air Force in April 1945 as it lay off Swinemünde, and it came to rest on the bottom. It was repaired, and then continued to provide artillery support of the army. It was finally scuttled by its crew on 4 May 1945.

After the war, the Soviet navy raised her and used her as a target ship for artillery practice. She finally sank in the Baltic Sea in 1949.

Further reading

• Siegfried Breyer, Gerhard Koop, (translated Edward Force), The German Navy At War 1939-1945: Volume 1 - The Battleships (Schiffer, West Chester, 1989)
• Bernard Ireland, Tony Gibbons, Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century (HarperCollins, New York, 1996) pp. 42-43

See also

• List of World War II ships
• List of Kriegsmarine ships
• List of naval ships of Germany
• List of ship launches in 1931
• List of ship commissionings in 1933
• List of shipwrecks in 1945 and list of shipwrecks in 1949
• Other ships of the Deutschland class
  • German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer
  • German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee

External links

• Maritimequest Deutschland / Lützow photo gallery
• German Naval History - pocket battleship Deutschland

• Deutschland class cruisers
• World War II battleships of Germany
• World War II cruisers of Germany
• Shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea