Following the end of World War I Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles, which put strict limits both on the size and displacement of warships that she could possess.
During the Interbellum, the period between the first and second world wars, the average size of Allied ships and their armaments in almost all warship categories grew substantially.
[1][2] The displacements of all German ships at the time were purposefully understated to have their official sizes comply with the treaty.
[1] Due to the comparatively small number of German shipyards, compared to the British or French, Germany adopted a policy of over-arming her destroyers to compensate for their low numbers, so that they bore similar armament to French and Polish light cruisers.
[3] Although German heavy destroyers matched British light cruisers in armament, they were much less seaworthy and had far worse facilities for control and use of their guns.
[4] Plan Z was a German naval rearmament plan that started in 1939, and involved building ten battleships, four aircraft carriers, twelve battlecruisers, three pocket battleships, five heavy cruisers, forty-four light cruisers, sixty-eight destroyers, and 249 submarines.
[7] World War II began in 1939, meaning that very few of Germany's heavy ships would be finished at that point.
Due to the clear advantage her enemies had, Raeder remarked that the Kriegsmarine could not hope to win, and thus the only course for them was to "die valiantly".
[8] The function of the destroyer was defined by its evolution: around the 1870s, nations that could not directly threaten Great Britain's navy began to invest in torpedo boats, small and agile ships which used their torpedoes to deliver enough damage to pose a tactical issue to enemy fleets.
[9] During World War II, destroyers served essentially the three basic functions they had in World War I: to act as screening ships to defend their fleets from those of an enemy, to attack an enemy's screening ships, and to defend their fleet from submarines.
British destroyers were built for escorting fleets, defending them from enemy planes and sinking submarines.
[18][19] These gave the ship a rated power of 70,000 PS (51,000 kW; 69,000 shp), and a top speed of 38.5 knots (71.3 km/h; 44.3 mph).
[24] In August 1943 Z38 served as a practice torpedo retrieval boat for the training cruisers Nürnberg and Emden.
[25] On 24 September Z38 travelled from Sassnitz to Trelleborg, to escort Lützow during Operation Hermelin, alongside German destroyers Z5 Paul Jacobi, Z14 Friedrich Ihn, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck, and Z27.
[24] After ordering the destroyers back to base, Scharnhorst was located by British cruisers, who opened fire upon her.
[25][34] On 28 January while off the Sognefjord the three destroyers were intercepted by a squadron of British ships, including the light cruisers Diadem, and Mauritius.
On 18 and 19 February Z38, alongside German cruiser Admiral Scheer, destroyer Z43, and minelayers T28 and T35, bombarded Soviet 39th Army positions, near Peyse and Gross-Heydekrug, on the south coast of Samland.
[37][39] On 9 May Z38 arrived at Kiel, after delivering her War Diary to the commanding officer's house off of Flensburg Förde.
In October 1946 it was decided that Z38 was to be commissioned for extensive machinery trials, at the same time as being used as an air target ship under the Commander-in-Chief, Rosyth.
In January 1947 Z38 was at full complement, and expected to enter service in June of the same year, in order to relieve HMS Fernie as an air target ship.
[41] In December of that year, it was decided that Z38 would be scrapped, after showing off her auxiliary machinery to British shipbuilders, and removing certain equipment.