German cruiser Lützow (1939)
The Lützow was the fifth German Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser.[1] She was of the third group of this class and was named after Prussian general Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow who fought in the Napoleonic Wars.[1]
Lützow was laid down at DeSchiMAG in Bremen[1] on 8 February 1937 and launched 7 January 1939. Although the Lützow was designed in the mid-1930s, her dimensions, displacement and armament exceeded the restriction of the Treaty of Versailles because Germany anticipated a revision of that treaty.[1]
As a part of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Pact, Lützow was sold incomplete to the Soviet Union in 1939.[1] Stalin believed the Lutzow to be important because of its new 20.3 cm naval guns, along with their performance characteristics.[2] The incomplete Lützow was towed to Leningrad in mid-1940 in a less complete state than the Soviets had anticipated.[3] On September 25, 1940, the Soviets renamed her the Petropavlovsk.[3]
She was incomplete when Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, though four of her prized 20.3 cm guns had been installed.[4] The Soviets used her as a floating gun battery for seven days against German invaders.[4] According to German accounts, she was sunk upright in shallow waters in Kronstadt Bay in September of 1941, and later bombed and damaged again in April of 1942.[4]
The Soviets raised the ship by September 17, 1942 and renamed her Tallinn.[4] She saw action again in December of 1942, and was used to shell German positions during the 1944 Leningrad breakout.[4] Plans to complete her as a cruiser were abandoned for economic reasons (cost of repairing her were estimated at par with construction of a brand-new Kronshtadt class battlecruiser), and she was used as a static training ship until 1950. She was later renamed the Dniepr and then scrapped in 1953 at the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge in Leningrad.[4]
The name Lützow was subsequently reused to rename the German pocket battleship Deutschland.
See also
- German–Soviet Commercial Agreement (1940)
- List of World War II ships
- List of Kriegsmarine ships
- List of naval ships of Germany
- List of ship launches in 1939
References
- ^ a b c d e Philbin III, Tobias R., The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919 - 1941, University of South Carolina Press, 1994, ISBN 0872499928, page 119
- ^ Philbin III, Tobias R., The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919 - 1941, University of South Carolina Press, 1994, ISBN 0872499928, page 120
- ^ a b Philbin III, Tobias R., The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919 - 1941, University of South Carolina Press, 1994, ISBN 0872499928, page 122
- ^ a b c d e f Philbin III, Tobias R., The Lure of Neptune: German-Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919 - 1941, University of South Carolina Press, 1994, ISBN 0872499928, page 127-8
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