- Admiral
Scheer, originally designated as Armored Ship was the second one from the
Deutschland class. Her sister ships were the Lützow and Admiral Graf Spee.
Admiral Scheer was launched on 1st of April 1933 and commissioned on 12th of
November 1934.
- Her first service was during the Spanish Civil war when she served on the non-intervention patrols from 1936 to 1937. Originally designated as Armored Ship, Admiral Scheer was taken to a dry dock after the Spanish Civil war to refit her as a Heavy Cruiser. The refitting didn't went without troubles and the ship was plagued with engine problems initially and didn't leave from the dock until in November 1940.
- During her first patrol, she sunk 17 merchant vessels which totaled over 100 000 tons. This book shows her first patrol voyage, which saw the ship sailing all the way to the Indian Ocean.
- During her fifth attack against Allied merchant shipping, the Captain of the ship made the error of concentrating the fire towards Auxilary Cruiser Jarvis Bay and thus allowed the convoy to scatter. This action is shown in the book and while the Jarvis Bay takes the punishment, you can actually see the merchant ships speeding away in the background of the picture.
- Admiral Scheer returned from her patrol in April 1941. This was her first and last succesfull patrol as for the rest of the war, the ship remained in the Baltic mainly in training duties and giving fire support to the ground forces. The ship's greatest contribution was that the first patrol disturbed Allied shipping quite notably and also tied down three hunter groups that contained British battleships, ships that British could ill afford to this kind of duty.
- During the winter of 1944 to 1945, when the German troops were retreating in East-Prussia under the pressure of the Soviet attack, Admiral Scheer gave fire support for the ground troops before finally moving to the Kiel Harbor. Here she was attacked by the RAF on 9th of April 1945. The ship was hit five times by the bombs.
- Finally the ship capsized with the loss of 32 members from the crew. After the war, the wreck of Admiral Scheer was ripped off from all valuable materials under the British command and finally the remains of the ship became a foundation for a car park.
- The book has been printed in 1942, probably a year after the first succesfull patrol of the Admiral Scheer. What is interesting is that this book has been part of the collection of a Finnish library. However, most likely the book has been acuired "too late" to the Finnish library, as there is no markings, that anyone would have ever borrowed the book. Most likely the war was already over for Finland, when the book finally found it's way to a library in Helsinki Finland and had to be removed, due to a political reasons.
- In the nineties it has been removed from the library warehouse due to the same reason as other books get removed from the library collection: Not enough people borrowing the book. Well, how are you going to borrow the book, if it was forgotten to the warehouse in 1944?
COPYRIGHT: 1942 by v. Hase & Koehler, Leipzig. Printed in Germany. Druck der Leipziger Verlagsdruckerei G.m.b.H. vorm. Fischer & Kürsten 1942.
WRITTEN BY: Jochen Brennecke
PHOTOGRAPHS BY: Winkelmann & Stöss
- To see the pictures, move to the Thumbnails.
