Captain Hans Langsdorff knew there was no way out.
For the last three months, the Kriegsmarine’s most successful commerce raider to date,
Graf Spee, had been devastating the Atlantic with gallantry, but those days were almost over.
Langsdorff was contemplating his valuable ship from the harbor of
Montevideo as he thought of the immediate future. Following prize rules and saving
merchant crews before sinking their ships had resulted in his downfall.
The British and French had tracked Graf Spee and were out there,
on the horizon, waiting to finish her off.
There were only two options going forward: Langsdorff could muster the tired crew for one
last ride, or scuttle the ship to prevent her from falling into the hands of the British...
Prussian Humiliation
Following the cease-fire of World War 1, the Prussian Empire was forced to sign the
humiliating Treaty of Versailles in 1919. This document forced Germany to declare itself the sole
provocateur of the gruesome conflict that drained Europe. And to further humiliate the Germans,
their territorial possessions were to be dismembered and shared between the victors.
The treaty also limited the size of Germany’s army,
and the country could no longer develop new technology for aircraft or surface ships.
They would have to manage with a few pre-dreadnought ships and outdated aircraft.
Moreover, the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 imposed limits on the tonnage,
size, and construction of surface vessels,
and only allowed the Germans to build ships that displaced a maximum of
10,000 tons. Meanwhile, the victors of World War 1 could build warships of up to 35,000 tons.
The Reichsmarine had a disproportionate disadvantage against most European navies,
but German naval officers would not give up easily.
As such, they began working on an ambitious warship design that would allow the German
Navy to develop powerful vessels without breaking the ignominious naval treaty.
The Panzerschiffe
The German naval officers’ preliminary studies had one objective: to come up
with a new type of surface vessel that could be light enough to not
exceed the tonnage limit of the 1922 Naval Treaty but also armed to the
teeth to be capable of destroying enemy warships that were heavier and larger.
It took the Germans years to envision the ideal vessel, and numerous designs were ditched and
modified. It was until 1928 that they came up with their Deutschland-class warship.
The German delegation had arduous negotiations with Britain, France, and the United States
to get clearance for their new design. They ultimately prevailed and got to work right away.
Three Deutschland-class warships were built, and they were classified as Panzerschiffe or armored
cruisers. The weight and dimensions of each vessel would vary according to unique improvements.
Still, they all had the same purposes: they were designed to outgun any hostile
cruiser fast enough to approach them or else outspeed the rest.
Due to their heavy weaponry, the United Kingdom and the US would later classify
them as pocket battleships, as they were to be armed with six powerful 28-centimeter guns.
When designing pocket battleships, the Germans conducted meticulous testing on
the average speed of French and British warships.
Based on the definitive Panzerschiffe’s design, the Germans concluded that the enemy ships that
were able to match the speed of their pocket battleships lacked enough armament to damage them.
And they planned to exploit this advantage to its fullest in the case of conflict.
Graf Spee
Following the passing of President Paul von Hindenburg in 1934, the Nationalist Socialist
Party rose to power with Chancellor Adolf Hitler as its head. The future Fuhrer was quick to give
his full support to the military leaders who followed and supported Germany's rearmament.
The Reichsmarine was renamed the Kriegsmarine, and naval development rapidly increased.
Panzerschiff Graf Spee had been ordered just a year before, on October 1, 1942,
from the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven.
The ship was named after Prussian Admiral Maximilian von Spee, who
lost his life during the Battle of the Falkland Islands in World War 1.
Graf Spee would replace the old pre-dreadnought battleship Braunschweig.
She was launched on June 30, 1934, and christened by the daughter of the deceased
Admiral of the Prussian Imperial Navy. The pocket battleship was then finished on January 6.
The Deutschland-class cruiser was 186 meters long, had a beam of 21.65 meters
and a draft of 7.34 meters. Although Graf Spee was officially designed within
the tonnage limit of the treaties, she exceeded them by adding more armament.
Graf Spee displaced over 16,000 tons while fully loaded and was powered by eight MAN 9
diesel engines that produced 56,000 horsepower to two propeller shafts.
These propellers saved valuable weight that was used to provide Graf Spee with better armor.
Meanwhile, the ship’s armored belt was 100 millimeters thick, the main armored deck was
between 45 and 70 millimeters thick, and the upper deck only had 17 millimeters of armor.
As for the armor in the main guns,
it was 140 millimeters thick in the front and 70 millimeters on the sides.
Pocket Battleship Armament
Graf Spee’s maximum speed was 52.8 kilometers per hour, with an estimated range of about
30,000 kilometers if traveling at a speed of 34 kilometers per hour.
Her main armament comprised six 28-centimeter SKC28 guns mounted in two triple-gun turrets.
One was mounted forward and the other aft.
The second battery consisted of eight 15-centimeter SKC28 guns mounted in single
turrets amidships. The ship was later upgraded with six 105-millimeter, eight 37-millimeter,
and over ten 20-millimeter cannons that could be used against surface and land-based targets.
Additionally, the pocket battleship also carried a pair of deck-mounted
torpedo tubes located at the stern and had space for a catapult from which
two Arado Ar 196 sea aircraft could be launched for air reconnaissance.
Graf Spee was manned by a crew of 30 officers and over 1,040 sailors.
She soon completed successful sea trials and was promptly sent to
the Atlantic for non-intervention patrols during the summer of 1936.
A Trip to Spain
As the Spanish Civil War broke out,
the Kriegsmarine was ready to take its ships for testing.
While the Republican Party was aided by the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States,
and several other countries, the Nationalist Party, led by Army General Francisco Franco,
was supported by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler.
Graf Spee helped expose the war assets the Soviet Union and other countries
lent to the Republicans, which also prompted the Germans and Italians
to support Franco with equipment and men from the Condor Legion.
Following her first tour in Spain, Graf Spee assisted in the Coronation Review at Spithead
for King George VI. She was then returned to Spain to continue patrolling the Atlantic.
War Breaks Out
During her fifth patrol in 1938, Captain Hans Wilhelm Langsdorff assumed command of the ship and
made numerous visits to foreign ports before being called to Germany as tensions rose in Europe.
Following the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland,
France and Britain issued an ultimatum that then turned into a declaration
of war when the Reich invaded Poland with the support of the Soviet Union.
In September of 1939, Graf Spee was sailing in the Atlantic when Hitler
ordered the Kriegsmarine to launch commerce raids against Allied merchant vessels.
Graf Spee then began stopping and searching ships for contraband. If war supplies were found,
the ship’s crew would be evacuated before sending the merchant vessels to the ocean's depths.
After that, Captain Langsdorff always sent a distress signal so that the crews could be
picked up. But as Graf Spee continued sinking more ships, the distress signals became a trend that
was ultimately used by the British Admiralty to prepare a task force to hunt her down.
In early October, the French and British assembled eight groups to hunt down Graf Spee in the South
Atlantic. More than 12 vessels left Europe to go after Captain Langsdorff and his crew.
Meanwhile, Graf Spee kept her successful streak, sinking the steamer Newton Beech,
the merchant Ashlea, and the steamer Huntsman. These ships’ crews were kept
safe and transported to the vessel Altmark, which had been refueling Graf Spee for the past months.
By mid-October, Admiral Graf Spee left the waters
of South America after sinking the steamer Trevanion and made
way for the Indian Ocean to confuse the Allied hunting parties going after her.
Still, the French and British warships were not going to give up so easily.
One Last Breath
In mid-November, Graf Spee intercepted the tanker MV Africa Shell.
Days later, she went after the British merchant ship Doric Star, which refused to stop for the
German inspection. Captain Langsdorff then gave the order to fire and sank the ship. However,
Doric was able to send a distress signal before going down, alerting the Anglo-French task force.
After sinking the vessels SS Tairoa and Streonshalh, Graf Spree stopped to refuel with
Altmark and transferred more prisoners. Captain Langsdorff then ordered the pocket battleship to
head for Montevideo after the crew recovered the shipping routes of more Allied merchants.
During the early hours of December 13, 1939, lookouts from Graf Spee spotted HMS Exeter
and other British warships. This encounter would lead to the Battle of River Plate.
Admiral Graf Spee and her crew fought bravely against overwhelming odds before
realizing that the pocket battleship would likely fall into the hands of the enemy.
After being hit more than 70 times by a force that significantly outnumbered them,
Captain Langsdorff headed to Montevideo for repairs.
Still, he knew the Allied fleet would converge there to finish them off.
To avoid this, Langsdorff decided to scuttle the ship, which took place on December 18.
Two days later, he shot himself in his Buenos Aires hotel room.
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