List of light cruisers of Germany
The authorization for a major construction program for light cruisers came in the 1898 Naval Law, which ordered the acquisition of thirty vessels of the type.
[3] Over the following two decades, the Germans built a further thirty-seven light cruisers; these vessels slowly grew in size, speed, armament, and armor.
Most of the survivors were either scuttled in Scapa Flow in June 1919 or seized by the various Allied governments as war prizes following Germany's defeat.
The Treaty of Versailles allowed Germany to replace these old cruisers, and the first such new vessel, Emden, was built in the early 1920s to a design based on the last wartime classes.
[2] According to the historian Eric Osborne, "[t]he light cruisers of the Gazelle-class established a trend for future ships of this general design ... [they] carried little or no armor, the chief asset being speed.
[14] One ship, Lübeck, was fitted with new Parsons steam turbines to evaluate their use in future designs; the other vessels retained proven triple-expansion engines.
Bremen and Leipzig served in the East Asia Squadron early in their careers; the other ships, save München, were assigned to the fleet scouting forces.
[17] München was moderately damaged at Jutland,[18] and Bremen, Lübeck, and Danzig engaged Russian forces at the Battle of the Gulf of Riga and during Operation Albion in 1915 and 1917, respectively.
[16] Hamburg was sunk by British bombers in 1944 during World War II,[21] and Berlin was loaded with chemical weapons and scuttled in the Skaggerak in 1947 to dispose of the munitions.
[16] The Königsberg class continued the general trend of slightly larger and faster German light cruiser designs.
[15][25] All four ships were employed with the High Seas Fleet after they were commissioned, though Nürnberg was deployed to Asia in 1910,[26] and Königsberg was sent to East African waters in 1914.
Königsberg, based in Dar es Salaam at the outbreak of war, began a short and unsuccessful commerce raiding career in the region,[28] though she did destroy the British cruiser HMS Pegasus.
Both vessels served on foreign stations for the majority of their careers; Emden was assigned to the East Asia Squadron after she entered service,[38] and Dresden spent much time off the North American Atlantic coast.
[39] Dresden initially operated as a commerce raider in the Atlantic after the outbreak of war in 1914, before steaming around South America to join von Spee's squadron as it approached the continent.
She had a successful career hunting Allied merchant ships in the area, and also sank the Russian protected cruiser Zhemchug in Penang harbor.
[45] The Kolberg class represented the first major improvement in combat power for German light cruisers, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
The Russians seized code books from the wreck and gave copies to the British; this was to have a major effect on the outcome of the naval war in the North Sea.
[56] Breslau was assigned to the Mediterranean Division along with the battlecruiser Goeben;[57] at the outbreak of war, they steamed to Constantinople where they were sold to the Ottoman Navy.
[53] The two Pillau-class ships were originally ordered by the Russian Navy under the names Maraviev Amurskyy and Admiral Nevelskoy; they were approaching completion when war broke out in August 1914.
They were the first completed German light cruisers armed with 15 cm (6 in) guns, which marked a significant increase in their combat power.
Elbing was accidentally rammed and disabled by the battleship Posen in the confused night fighting,[76] and her crew was ultimately forced to abandon the wreck.
Frankfurt survived the war and was interned at Scapa Flow; her crew was unsuccessful in their attempt to scuttle her,[87] and she was ultimately surrendered to the United States and expended as a target in 1921.
The German navy instructed AG Vulcan to divide the turbines in half and design a pair of cruiser-minelayers around the propulsion system.
They both participated in a fleet sortie into the northern North Sea that attempted to intercept a heavily escorted convoy from Britain to Norway.
The design, which emphasized the reconnaissance role and high speed over combat power, was based on the British C-class cruisers at the request of Kaiser Wilhelm II.
They were design studies only,[108] and Germany's deteriorating wartime situation in the final two years of the war forced the Navy to all but abandon construction of surface warships in favor of U-boats.
[113] During World War II, she was used to lay mines in the North Sea,[114] to provide gunfire support to ground troops, and as a convoy escort and training ship for cadets.
She was bombed and sunk by American heavy bombers in Wilhelmshaven in March 1945, though she sank in shallow water on an even keel, which allowed her guns to provide gunfire support to German troops until the end of the war.
[129][130] The British submarine HMS Salmon managed to torpedo both cruisers on 13 December 1939, though both ships made it back to port for repairs.
[132][133] In October 1944, Leipzig was rammed and badly damaged by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen; repairs were deemed to be uneconomical, and the crippled ship was used to provide gunfire support to retreating German forces around Gotenhafen (Gdynia) in March 1945.
