It was during the interwar period that Nazi Germany threw its daring naval strategy into what was known as the “Pocket Battleships.” These were rather strange warships and a direct reaction to stringent limitations introduced by the Treaty of Versailles, which aimed to constrain potential military power within Germany at the end of World War I.
Before the First World War, the Imperial German Navy, with the will of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, established the goal of being on par with the Royal Navy. However, the ambitions of Kaiser Wilhelm II ended up unwittingly bringing the UK close to France and Russia, which would create the environment in which those alliances would blow up into the Great War. However despite all the grandiose plans that the Germans formulated, the German High Seas Fleet and the Grand Fleet of the Royal Navy came to battle only once: the Battle of Jutland, a battle where both sides claimed victory.
But post-war, that dream of a mighty German navy had taken a rather severe blow. By the terms of the November 1918 Armistice, Germany was compelled to surrender its fleet to the victors. Interned at Scapa, Flow in Scotland, the fleet would be blown up after fears that Britain might seize them if Germany rejected the Treaty of Versailles. In the process, 52 out of 74 vessels were sunk.
For Germany, this led to the basis for rearmament during the Weimar Republic and, indeed, laid the burden for an attempt to bypass the restrictions of Versailles. One such step along this path was the Deutschland-class cruisers. These warships were relatively small but were very heavily armed, and their armor was thick. The guns they were built around were considered of a size that was only rivaled by battleships. This construction took place from the years 1929 to 1936. They displaced between 10,600 to 12,340 long tons—well beyond the 10,000 long tons that the Washington Treaty provided for. Saving weight was accomplished in a variety of measures—from innovative construction techniques, welding for example, to the use of diesel-centric propulsion, which weighed less than steam plants and was more fuel efficient.
The Reichsmarine was the name for the navy portion of the Weimar Republic and early times of the Nazi state. Officially, it was part of the defensively oriented Reichswehr. However, clandestine efforts to rearm began in the early 1920s, well before the Nazis openly defied the treaties.
In all, they were more powerfully armed than most cruisers of their contemporaries; except they carried six 11′′ guns. Hence, the British observers called them “Pocket Battleships.” With a cruiser’s speed—up to 28 knots—and capital ship firepower, such vessels were ideally suited to commerce raiding.
Of them, the first two, Deutschland and Admiral Scheer inked their name in the annals of history during the Spanish Civil War. Spanish Republican aircraft attacked Deutschland, for which Hitler ordered the bombardment of the port of Almería by the escort cruiser Admiral Scheer. However, the real test was awaiting these ships in World War II.
All three pocket battleships were committed as commerce raiders at the start of the Second World War. Deutschland participated in the German invasion of Norway in 1940, later Lützow participated in the same invasion, and merchant shipping and convoys were attacked. Inflicted with damage at the war’s end, she served as a gun battery against the Soviet advance.
Although on a smaller scale than Graf Spee’s campaign, the most successful surface raider capital ship of the war was Admiral Scheer. She spent much of her career disrupting Allied shipping and had sunk 113,223 GRT of shipping before supporting ground operations against the Soviets. Hit by mobile bombs during a British air raid on Kiel in April 1945, she was capsized in port; her wreck is now buried near the city’s port facilities.
The most famous of the pocket battleships was Admiral Graf Spee. Serving in the South Atlantic as a commerce raider, she sunk nine ships totaling 50,089 GRT between September and December 1939. However, after she was sent a task force by the British and French navies, the result of this engagement is collectively known as:. We inflicted much damage on the British ships, but the Graf Spee herself was damaged and had to go to the port of Montevideo for repairs. Unable to break through the British naval blockade, and not wishing to surrender, Captain Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff ordered his ship to be scuttled. He shot himself three days later in Buenos Aires.
The remains of the Graf Spee have lain there for years. Indeed, it is only within the last few years, what with the status headache, that pulling her up was worked on. Earlier this year, a court of appeals in Uruguay decided that an 880-pound bronze eagle from the vessel’s stern could be sold, while noting worries it might be used to support the movements of neo-Nazis. An Argentine millionaire who plans to buy it has said it will be “pulverized.”
The narrative of Nazi Germany’s pocket battleships, however, is only one of innumerable stories of how far nations throughout the ages are willing to go to escape limitations and the enduring impact of naval warfare on history.