List of cruisers of Germany
They were built to fill a variety of roles, including scouts for the main battle fleet and colonial cruisers for Germany's overseas empire.
Their service ranged from commerce raiding patrols on the open ocean to the fleet engagements in the North Sea such as the Battle of Jutland.
Plan Z, a more ambitious reconstruction program that called for twelve P-class cruisers, was approved in early 1939 but was cancelled before the end of the year following the outbreak of World War II.
One, Prinz Eugen, was sunk following nuclear weapons tests during Operation Crossroads in 1946; the other, Nürnberg, saw service in the Soviet Navy until she was scrapped around 1960.
[a] Starting in the mid-1880s, the German Navy began to modernize its cruising force, which at that time relied on a mixed collection of sail and steam frigates and corvettes.
Prinzess Wilhelm participated in the seizure of the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in November 1897, which was used as the primary base for the East Asia Squadron.
[7] Irene, Prinzess Wilhelm, and Kaiserin Augusta were relegated to secondary duties in the 1910s, while the Victoria Louise class was used to train naval cadets in the 1900s.
After the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, she was seized and commissioned into American service as USS Schurz, though she was accidentally sunk in a collision in June 1918.
Fürst Bismarck was an improved version of the earlier type, with heavier armament, more extensive armor protection, and a significantly greater size.
[31] Germany's armored cruisers served in a variety of roles, including overseas as flagships of the East Asia Squadron,[32][33] and in the fleet reconnaissance forces.
[56] Emden and Köln were destroyed by Allied bombers in the closing months of the war, and Leipzig was discarded after being badly damaged in a collision with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.
[96] The Reichsmarine responded by designing the Deutschland class; these heavy cruisers armed with 28 cm (11 in) guns were intended to break the naval clauses of Versailles by significantly outgunning the new treaty cruisers being built by Britain and France under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, which were limited to 20.3 cm (8.0 in) guns.
France rejected the proposal, and so the three Deutschlands were built,[97] and a further two of the D-class were planned, though these were cancelled in favor of a larger derivative, the Scharnhorst class of fast battleships.
When Germany signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in 1935, the Reichsmarine was permitted to build five new heavy cruisers—the Admiral Hipper class.
[98] Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled following the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, and Blücher was sunk during the invasion of Norway.
[99] Deutschland, renamed Lützow, and Prinz Eugen both survived the war; the former was sunk in Soviet weapons tests in 1947 and the latter sank after enduring two nuclear detonations in Operation Crossroads in 1946.
