SMS () was the last of the five pre-dreadnought s built by the German Kaiserliche Marine. The ship, named for the province of Schleswig-Holstein, was laid down in the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel in August 1905 and commissioned into the fleet nearly three years later. The ships of her class were already outdated by the time they entered service, being inferior in size, armor, firepower and speed to the new generation of dreadnought battleships.
fought in both World Wars. During World War I, she saw front-line service in II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet, culminating in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916. saw action during the engagement, and was hit by one large-caliber shell. After the battle, was relegated to guard duty in the mouth of the Elbe River before being decommissioned in late 1917. As one of the few battleships permitted for Germany by the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, was again pressed into fleet service in the 1920s. In 1935, the old battleship was converted into a training ship for naval cadets.
fired the first cannon shots of World War II when she bombarded the Polish base at Gdańsk's Westerplatte in the early morning hours of 1 September 1939. The ship was used as a training vessel for the majority of the war, and was sunk by British bombers in Gotenhafen in December 1944. was subsequently salvaged and then beached for use by the Soviet Navy as a target. As of 1990, the ship's bell was on display in the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden.
Design
The passage of the Second Naval Law in 1900 under the direction of (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz secured funding for the construction of twenty new battleships over the next seventeen years. The first group, the five s, were laid down in the early 1900s, and shortly thereafter design work began on a follow-on design, which became the . The -class ships were broadly similar to the s, featuring incremental improvements in armor protection. They also abandoned the gun turrets for the secondary battery guns, moving them back to traditional casemates to save weight. The British battleship —armed with ten 12-inch (30.5 cm) guns—was commissioned in December 1906. Dreadnoughts revolutionary design rendered every capital ship of the German navy obsolete, including the class.
had a length of , a beam of , and a draft of . She displaced normally and up to at combat loading. She was equipped with three triple expansion engines and twelve coal-fired water-tube boilers that produced a rated and a top speed of . In addition to being the second-fastest ship of her class, was the second-most fuel efficient. At a cruising speed of , she could steam for . She had a standard crew of 35 officers and 708 enlisted men.
The ship's primary armament consisted of four 28 cm SK L/40 guns in two twin turrets; one turret was placed forward and the other aft. Her offensive armament was rounded out with a secondary battery of fourteen SK L/40 guns mounted individually in casemates. A battery of twenty SK L/45 guns in single mounts provided defense against torpedo boats. The ship was also armed with six torpedo tubes, all below the waterline. One was in the bow, one in the stern, and four on the broadside. Her armored belt was thick amidships in the citadel, and she had a thick armored deck. The main battery turrets had thick sides.
Service history was laid down on 18 August 1905 at the dockyard in Kiel, under the provisional name "Q". She was launched on 17 December 1906, the last pre-dreadnought battleship of the German navy. At s launching ceremony, she was christened by Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, the German Empress; Wilhelm II was also in attendance. Ernst Gunther, the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, gave the commissioning speech.
Upon completion, was commissioned for sea trials on 6 July 1908. Her crew largely came from her sister ship . On 21 September the ship was assigned to II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet, alongside her sister ships. In November, fleet and unit exercises were conducted in the Baltic Sea. The training regimen in which participated followed a similar pattern over the next five years. Fleet maneuvers were conducted in the spring, followed by a summer cruise to Norway, and additional fleet training in the fall. This included another cruise into the Atlantic, from 7 July to 1 August 1909.
Starting in September 1910, Friedrich Boedicker took command of the ship, a position he held for the next three years. On 3 October 1911, the ship was transferred back to II Squadron. Due to the Agadir Crisis in July, the summer cruise only went into the Baltic. In 1913, she won the Kaiser's (Gunnery Award). On 14 July 1914, the annual summer cruise to Norway began, but the threat of war in Europe cut the excursion short; within two weeks and the rest of II Squadron had returned to Wilhelmshaven.
World War I At the outbreak of war in July 1914, was assigned to guard duty in the mouth of the Elbe River while the rest of the fleet mobilized. In late October, she and her sisters were sent to Kiel to have improvements made to their underwater protection system to make them more resistant to torpedoes and mines, after which II Battle Squadron rejoined the fleet. The squadron covered Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper's battlecruisers of the I Scouting Group while they bombarded Scarborough, Hartlepool, and Whitby on 15–16 December 1914. During the operation, the German battle fleet of some 12 dreadnoughts and 8 pre-dreadnoughts came to within of an isolated squadron of six British battleships. However, skirmishes between the rival destroyer screens convinced the German commander, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, that he was confronted with the entire Grand Fleet, and so he broke off the engagement and turned the fleet for home. In April 1916, the ship had two of her 8.8 cm guns removed and replaced with 8.8 cm Flak guns.
then participated in a fleet advance to the Dogger Bank on 21–22 April 1915. On 11–12 September II Reconnaissance Group conducted a minelaying operation off the Swarte Bank with II Squadron in support. This was followed by another sweep by the fleet on 23–24 October that ended without result. II and III Battle Squadron dreadnoughts conducted an advance into the North Sea on 5–7 March 1916; and the rest of II Squadron remained in the German Bight, ready to sail in support. They then rejoined the fleet during the operation to bombard Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April. During this operation, the battlecruiser was damaged by a British mine and had to return to port prematurely. Visibility was poor, so the operation was quickly called off before the British fleet could intervene.
Battle of Jutland
The commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Reinhard Scheer, immediately planned another advance into the North Sea, but the damage to delayed the operation until the end of May. As the last ship assigned to IV Division of II Battle Squadron, the rearmost German formation, was the last battleship in the line. II Battle Squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral . During the "Run to the North", Scheer ordered the fleet to pursue the retreating battleships of the British 5th Battle Squadron at top speed. and her sisters were significantly slower than the dreadnoughts and quickly fell behind. During this period, Admiral Scheer directed to place herself behind so he would have a flagship on either end of the formation. By 19:30, the Grand Fleet had arrived on the scene and confronted Admiral Scheer with significant numerical superiority. The German fleet was severely hampered by the presence of the slower -class ships; if Scheer had ordered an immediate turn towards Germany, he would have had to sacrifice the slower ships to make his escape.
Admiral Scheer decided to reverse the course of the fleet with the , a maneuver that required every unit in the German line to turn 180° simultaneously. Having fallen behind, the ships of II Battle Squadron could not conform to the new course following the turn, and fell to the disengaged side of the German line. Admiral Mauve considered moving his ships to the rear of the line, astern of III Battle Squadron dreadnoughts, but decided against it when he realized the movement would interfere with the maneuvering of Hipper's battlecruisers. Instead, he attempted to place his ships at the head of the line. But by the time II Squadron reached its position at the head of the line, Scheer had ordered another , which placed them at the rear of the German fleet. By 21:00, Scheer had turned the fleet around a third time, but the slow speed of and her squadron mates caused them to fall out of position, to the disengaged side of the fleet.
Later on the first day of the battle, Hipper's badly damaged battlecruisers were being engaged by their British rivals. and the other so-called "five-minute ships" came to their aid by steaming in between the opposing battlecruiser squadrons. These ships were very briefly engaged, owing in large part to the poor visibility. The visibility was so bad, the gunners aboard could not make out a target, and she did not fire her main guns. At 21:35 a heavy caliber shell struck the ship on the port-side, punching a hole approximately 40 cm (16 in) wide before exploding against the inner casemate armor. It tore apart of the superstructure deck and disabled one of the port side casemate guns. Three men were killed and nine were wounded. Admiral Mauve halted the fight against the much more powerful battlecruisers and ordered an 8-point turn to starboard.
Late on the 31st, the fleet re-formed for the night voyage back to Germany, with towards the rear of the line, ahead of , , and the battlecruisers and . Around 03:00, British destroyers conducted a series of attacks against the fleet, some of which were directed towards . Shortly thereafter, was struck by at least one torpedo from the destroyer ; the hit detonated an ammunition magazine, destroying the ship in a tremendous explosion. During the attack, was forced to turn away to avoid the destroyers' torpedoes. Shortly after 05:00, and several other ships fired repeatedly at what they falsely believed to be British submarines.
Despite the ferocity of the night fighting, the High Seas Fleet punched through the British destroyer forces and reached Horns Reef by 4:00 on 1 June. The German fleet reached Wilhelmshaven a few hours later, where the undamaged dreadnoughts of the and es took up defensive positions. Over the course of the battle, had fired only twenty 17 cm rounds.
Later actions was put into dock for repairs 10–25 June 1916. The Navy then decided to withdraw the four remaining -class ships, owing to their obsolescence and vulnerability to underwater attacks, as demonstrated by the loss of . Thereafter, the ship was used as a target for U-boats, except during 12–23 February 1917 when she was used as a guard ship. In April was sent to Altenbruch at the mouth of the Elbe; here she was decommissioned on 2 May. was then disarmed and assigned to the 5th U-boat Flotilla to be used as a barracks ship in Bremerhaven. In 1918 the ship was moved to Kiel, where she remained for the rest of the war.
Inter-war years