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German surface raiders

The Oxford Companion to World War II | 2001 | | © The Oxford Companion to World War II 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

German surface raiders (see Map 42). Under the Anglo-German naval agreement of June 1935 the German naval C-in-C, Grand Admiral Raeder, could have built up to a tonnage equalling 35% of British surface warship strength, which could have been achieved by 1940. But because Hitler assured him there would be no war before the mid-1940s, Raeder adopted a longer-term strategy which would have enabled him to out build the British fleet (see Germany, Table11). Consequently, the German Navy, although modern and well equipped, was below the strength permitted by the 1935 agreement when war started.

German surface raiders, 1939–41

Name

Description

Launched

Standard displacement tons

Armament excluding light A-A guns

Aircraft carried

Horsepower 000

Duration of sortie sailing/termination date

Shipping sunk or captured

Operating areas

Speed knots

Endurance nautical miles

Damage incurred in action, ultimate fate

No.

G.R. tons

Sources: Roskill, S. W., The War at Sea, Vol. 1 (London, 1954) and Ruge, F., Sea War fare (London, 1957).

Deutschland

Pocket

May 1931

12,000

6 x 279 mm

2

57

Aug 1939

2

7,000

N.W. Atlantic

28

21,000

11.4.40 (torpedo),

Renamed

battleship

(11 in)

15 Nov 1939

13.6.41 (torpedo-

Lützow 1940

8 x 150mm

bomber), 3.5.45

(5.9 in)

(bombs) and blown

6 x 100 mm

up in Swinemünde

(4.1 in) HA

8 T. tubes

Admiral Graf

Pocket

June 1934

12,000

6 x 279 mm

2

57

Aug 1939

9

50,000

S. Atlantic and

28

19,000

13.12.39 (gunfire),

Spee

battleship

8 x 150 mm

17 Dec 1939

Indian Ocean

17.12.39 blown up and

6 x 100 mm HA

sunk in the River Plate

8 T. tubes

Admiral

Pocket

April 1933

12,000

6 x 279 mm

2

57

23 Oct 1940

16

99,059

N. Atlantic,

28

19,000

9.4.45 bombed

Scheer

battleship

8 x 150 mm

1 April 1941

S. Atlantic and

and sunk in Kiel

6 x 100 mm

Indian Oceans

8 T. tubes

Admiral

Heavy

Feb 1937

12,000

8 x 203 mm

3

132

30 Nov 1940

1

6,078

N.Atlantic

32.5

6,000

8.4.40 damaged when

Hipper

cruiser

(8 in)

27 Dec 1940

rammed by Glowworm,

12 x 100 mm

31.11.42 (gunfire),

12 T. tubes

3.5.45 bombed

and sunk in Kiel

1 Feb 1941

7

34,000

West of

8.6.40 hit by

13 Feb 1941

Biscay

torpedo, 24.7.41

by bomb,

12.2.42 by two mines,

26.12.43 sunk by

guns and torpedoes

in the Arctic

Scharnhorst

Battle

Dec 1936

31,000

9 x 279 mm

4

165

23 Jan 1941

22

115,622

N. and

31.5

10,000

9.4.40 (gunfire), May

Gneisenau

cruisers

Oct 1936

12 x 150 mm

(each)

22 Mar 1941

Central Atlantic

1940 (mine),

14 x 100 mm HA

26.6.40 (torpedo),

6.4.41 (torpedo-

bomber), 11.4.41

(bomb), 12.2.42

(mine), 26/27.2.42

(bomb), 1.7.42

paid off

Bismarck

Battleship

April 1939

42,000

8 x 381 mm

4

138

21 May 1941

0

0

N. Atlantic

30

8,100

27.5.41 sunk by

(15 in)

27 May 1941

guns and torpedo-

12 x 150 mm

bombers in the Atlantic

16 x 100 mm HA

Prinz Eugen

Heavy

Aug 1937

14,600

8 x 203 mm

3

132

21 May 1941

0

0

N. Atlantic

32.5

6,000

23.4.41 (mine),

cruiser

12 x 100 mm

1 June 1941

2.7.41 (bomb),

12 T. tubes

23.2.42 (torpedo),

handed over to Allies

and sunk after

atomic tests



Because of this disparity, Raeder's policy was to avoid confrontation. Instead he planned to attack British merchant shipping routes, not only with his three pocket battleships, which were designed for just this task, but with his other heavy surface units, too (see Table). By this means he hoped to disperse the Royal Navy's superior strength and, with the help of Dönitz's U-boat fleet and the German auxiliary cruisers, cut the supply lines upon which the British depended to wage war effectively.

The campaign of the German surface raiders suffered an early blow when one of the pocket battleships was tracked down in December 1939 and forced to scuttle herself (see River Plate). But in November 1940 another pocket battleship, Admiral Scheer, successfully attacked an Atlantic convoy (see Jervis Bay), and subsequently sank a number of ships in the North and South Atlantic, and in the Indian Ocean; and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, after being driven off when she attacked a convoy on Christmas Day 1940, sank seven ships in an unescorted convoy during a second sortie in February 1941. Both warships were then able to return to port safely under cover of the raiding operations then being mounted by the two German battle-cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. These had already made several sorties (see Rawalpindi, for example) without sinking any merchant ships, but from 23 January to 22 March 1941 they sank or captured 22 merchantmen totalling 115,622 tons and managed to dislocate completely the British convoy cycle before returning to port. This was the peak of the surface raiders' success. After the battleship Bismarck was sunk in May 1941 while trying to implement Raeder's strategy, Hitler ordered the other surface raiders to be concentrated in Norwegian waters (see CERBERUS) where their purpose was to threaten the Arctic convoys and to guard the coastline against invasion. See also Tirpitz.

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I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "German surface raiders." The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 2 Dec. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "German surface raiders." The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (December 2, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Germansurfaceraiders.html

I. C. B. DEAR and M. R. D. FOOT. "German surface raiders." The Oxford Companion to World War II. Oxford University Press. 2001. Retrieved December 02, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O129-Germansurfaceraiders.html

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