Schlesien

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES OF SCHESIEN

Schlesien was built as one of five Deutschland Class battleships, known as "die fünf Schwestern" (the five sisters). The final incarnation of the German pre-dreadnought, they were fine ships, powerfully armed and carrying better protection than their predecessors. They had a double bottom that stretched over 84% of the hull, were good sea boats, and would have been regarded as powerful units had they not been completed after HMS Dreadnought.

Many foreign battleships mounted intermediate batteries, but Germany recognized that fire control for three different caliber guns was too complicated to be effective, and thus mounted only large caliber main guns and small caliber secondary guns. The secondary guns were larger than in foreign navies, at 6.7 inches, to make up for the lack of an intermediate battery.

Obsolete by design, but too new and powerful to be relegated to secondary roles, the five sisters served with the High Seas Fleet until after the Battle of Jutland in 1916. After the loss of one of their numbers to a single British torpedo, the other four were withdrawn from active duty. Schlesien had been converted to supplementary oil firing in 1915.

Schlesien operated as a drillship and accommodation vessel at Kiel in 1917, and became a cadet training ship in 1918. Selected as one of six obsolete battleship retained by the German Navy after the war, she was refitted in 1926-27. Her two forward funnels were trunked together, and 8 of her 12 coal-fired boilers were replaced with new oil fired ones. She was refitted again in 1935, being outfitted with full oil firing at last in 1938. At this time the two trunked together funnels were replaced with a single funnel. During the inter-war years, she made many overseas visits, taking her cadets into the Med, Atlantic, and thru the Panama Canal to the Pacific.

During the war, she participated in the invasion of Norway, provided fire support for German Army units, escorted Baltic convoys, was used as an icebreaker at Kiel, and again served as a cadet training ship. She supported the retreating German Army in Poland until she ran out of ammunition, then sailed to take on about 1000 wounded for transport back to Germany, where she would pick up more ammo. But she struck a mine on May 3, 1945, near Greifswalder Olie, and was towed to Swinemunde. Badly damaged, she was beached there, and compartments flooded to make her settle on the bottom on an even keel. Her main guns remained in service until just a few days before the end of the war, when, out of ammo and within sight of the advancing Red Army, her crew blew her up to prevent her capture.

It is often published that the secondary guns were removed from the German pre-dreadnoughts early in the war, and fitted to Armed Merchant Cruisers. However, photos on the page linked to above clearly show these gun still in place in 1945.

The wreck was broken up by an East German company starting in 1949. Most of the ship was gone by 1956, but the operation was not completed until the early 1970's.

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