|
|
| Career
| 
|
| Ordered:
| 11 June 1904
|
| Laid down:
| 18 August 1905
|
| Launched:
| 17 December 1906
|
| Commissioned:
| 21 September 1908
|
| Fate:
|
|
| General Characteristics
|
| Displacement:
| 13,200t standard; 14,218t full load
|
| Dimensions:
| 127.6m x 22.2m x 7.7m
|
| Armament (in 1939):
| Four 280 mm (2×2)
Twelve 150 mm
Four 88 mm
Four 37 mm (2×2)
Three 20 mm cannon
Four machine guns
|
| Aircraft:
| No
|
| Propulsion:
| 19,330hp = 19.1 kts
|
| Crew:
| 743
|
Schleswig-Holstein, a German battleship, started World War II by firing at the Polish base at Westerplatte on 1 September 1939.
Schleswig-Holstein was one of five pre-dreadnought, Deutschland class battleships, not to be confused with a class of pocket battleships of the same name. She was named for Schleswig-Holstein, one of the German Bundeslander. The ship was built in the Germania Werft Shipyard in Kiel and commissioned into the Kaiserliche Marine on 6 July, 1908.
Schleswig-Holstein fought in World War I (e.g. Battle of Jutland). After the war, she was one of six obsolete battleships Germany was permitted to preserve. During her retrofit ending in 1926, her first two two smoke stacks were combined, reducing her total number from three to two. From 1926 to 1935 she was the flagship of the German navy. In 1936
Schleswig-Holstein was converted into a training ship. Though obsolete by the outbreak of World War II she took part in some operations.
At the end of August 1939, Schleswig-Holstein sailed to Gdansk, under the pretext of a courtesy
visit, and anchored in the channel near Westerplatte. On September 1, 1939, at 4.45 a.m.
she began to shell the Polish garrison. The battle of Westerplatte lasted seven days. After
Westertplatte capitulation, Schleswig-Holstein battered Gdynia, Kepa Oksywska, and Hel Peninsula. She was hit by 152 mm bullet during the fight with the Polish battery.
In 1940, Schleswig-Holstein took part in the capitulation of Denmark, and then served again as
a training ship (from 1941 to 1944). In September 1944 she returned to battle as an antiaircraft ship.
On December 19, 1944, in Gdynia, the battleship was struck by three bombs dropped by British bombers, burned, and sank in 39 feet of water.
After World War II, she was raised by the Soviet Union and towed to Tallinn, where she may have been renamed Borodino. She was used as a target ship until the 1960s.
See also