German submarine Deutschland
Encyclopedia
Deutschland was a blockade-breaking
Blockade runner
A blockade runner is usually a lighter weight ship used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait, as opposed to confronting the blockaders to break the blockade. Very often blockade running is done in order to transport cargo, for example to bring food or arms to a blockaded city...
German
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
merchant submarine
Merchant submarine
A merchant submarine is a type of submarine intended for trade, and being without armaments, it is not considered a warship like most other types of submarines...
used during World War I. It was developed with private funds and operated by the North German Lloyd
Norddeutscher Lloyd
Norddeutsche Lloyd was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on February 20, 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic...
Line. She was one of the first of seven U-151 class U-boats built and one of only two used as unarmed cargo submarines.
After making two voyages as an unarmed merchantman, she was taken over by the German Imperial Navy
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
on 19 February 1917 and converted into the U-155, armed with two torpedo tubes and a deck gun.
Construction
Deutschland was built together with her sister ship BremenGerman submarine Bremen
Bremen was a blockade-breaking German merchant submarine of World War I. Developed with private funds and operated by the North German Lloyd Line, she was one of the first of seven U-151 class U-boats built and one of only two used as unarmed cargo submarines....
in 1916 by the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei, a private shipping company created for the enterprise, a subsidiary company of the North German Lloyd shipping company (now Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd is a German transportation company comprising a cargo container shipping line, Hapag-Lloyd AG, which in turn owns other subsidiaries such as Hapag-Lloyd Ships and a cruise line, Hapag-Lloyd Cruises which is now integrated into TUI AG, Hanover...
) and the Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...
. She was constructed without armaments, with a wide beam to provide space for cargo. The cargo capacity was 700 tons (230 tons of rubber could be stored in the free-flooding spaces between the inner and outer hulls.), relatively small compared to surface ships.
Deutschland was one of seven submarines designed to carry cargo between the United States and Germany in 1916, through the naval blockade of the Entente Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
. Mainly enforced by Great Britain's Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
, the blockade had led to great difficulties for German companies in acquiring raw materials which could not be found in quantity within the German sphere of influence
Sphere of influence
In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or conceptual division over which a state or organization has significant cultural, economic, military or political influence....
, and thus substantially hindered the German war effort.
Britain and France soon protested against the use of submarines as merchant ships, arguing that they could not be stopped and inspected for munitions in the same manner as other cargo vessels. The US, under diplomatic pressure for supposedly showing favoritism while having declared itself neutral
Neutral country
A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...
, rejected the argument. Even submarines, as long as they were unarmed, were to be regarded as merchant vessels and accordingly would be permitted to trade.
Merchant service
First journey
Deutschland departed on her first voyage to the US on 23 June 1916 commanded by Paul KönigPaul König
Paul König was a sailor and business executive. He is most known for two visits he made to the United States in 1916 as captain of a merchant submarine.-Biography:König was a captain in the German merchant navy...
, formerly of the North German Lloyd company. She carried 750 tons of cargo in total, including 125 tons of highly sought-after chemical dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
s, mainly Anthraquinone
Anthraquinone
Anthraquinone, also called anthracenedione or dioxoanthracene is an aromatic organic compound with formula . Several isomers are possible, each of which can be viewed as a quinone derivative...
and Alizarine derivatives in highly concentrated form, some of which were worth as much as $1,254 a pound in 2005 money. She also carried medical drug
Medication
A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...
s, mainly Salvarsan, gemstones, and mail, her cargo being worth $1.5 million in total.
Passing undetected through the English Channel
English Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
she arrived in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
on 9 July 1916 (some sources say 7 July) after just over two weeks at sea. A photograph by Karle Netzer dates the arrival 10 July ('erreichte Baltimore Hafen 10 Juli 1916'). During their stay in the US, the German crewmen were welcomed as celebrities for their astonishing journey and even taken to fancy dinners. American submarine pioneer Simon Lake
Simon Lake
Simon Lake was a Quaker American mechanical engineer and naval architect who obtained over two hundred patents for advances in naval design and competed with John Philip Holland to build the first submarines for the United States Navy.Born in Pleasantville, New Jersey, Lake joined his father's...
visited the Deutschland while she was in Baltimore, and made an agreement with representatives of the North German Lloyd line to build cargo submarines in the US, a project which never came to fruition.
She stayed at Baltimore until 2 August, when she sailed for Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...
, arriving on 24 August with a cargo of 341 tons of nickel, 93 tons of tin, and 348 tons of crude rubber (257 tons of which were carried outside the pressure hull). Her cargo was valued at $17.5 million, several times the submarine's construction costs. She had traveled 8450 nmi (15,649.4 km), having been submerged for 190 nmi (351.9 km) of them.
Second journey
The Deutschland made another round trip in November 1916 to New LondonNew London, Connecticut
New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States.It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, southeastern Connecticut....
, Connecticut with $10 million of cargo including gems, securities, and medicinal products. At the same time the submarine U-53
SM U-53
SM U-53 was a German Type Mittel U U-boat of the Kaiserliche Marine during the First World War, one of the six forming the sub type 51.-Construction and commissioning:U-53 was ordered from Germaniawerft, Kiel in 1914 and launched in 1916...
also crossed the Atlantic to visit Newport
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...
, Rhode Island, and sank 5 Allied freighters just outside US territorial limits before returning home.
On 16 November as she was trying to put to sea, the Deutschland rammed and sank the tugboat T.A. Scott, Jr., with the loss of five men aboard the tug. Her bows were damaged, and she had to return to New London for repairs, which delayed her departure by a week. She finally left New London on 21 November 1916, with a cargo that included 6.5 tons of silver bullion.
Following his last voyage, captain Paul König wrote a book (or possibly had it ghost-written) about the journeys of the Deutschland, entitled Voyage of the Deutschland, the First Merchant Submarine (Verlag Ullstein & Co, Berlin 1916). The book was heavily publicized, as it was intended to sway public opinion
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
in both Germany and the US.
War service
A third voyage, planned for January 1917, was aborted as German-US relations had worsened following the sinking of shipping bound for the United Kingdom, often just outside of US territorial waters. The Deutschland was taken over by the German Imperial NavyKaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
on 19 February 1917 and converted into the U-155, part of the U-Kreuzer Flotilla, being fitted with 6 bow torpedo tubes with 18 torpedoes, and two 150mm deck guns taken from the pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
battleship SMS Zähringen
SMS Zähringen
SMS Zähringen was third ship of the Wittelsbach-class of pre-dreadnought battleships of the German Imperial Navy. Laid down in 1899 at the Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel, she was launched on 12 June 1901 and commissioned on 25 October 1902...
. She made three successful war cruises, sinking 42 ships and damaging one.
1917
During the summer of 1917 U-155 made a 105-day cruise, commanded by Karl Meusel, leaving Germany around 24 May and returning on 4 September. During her traverse of the Northern Passage around the northern end of the British Isles and out into the Atlantic Ocean, she was stalked and nearly sunk by U-19 near Utsira IslandUtsira
Utsira is a municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Haugaland. Utsira was separated from Torvastad on 1 July 1924.The municipality consists of an island located in the North Sea, 18 km west of Haugesund...
, Norway.
During her patrol she sank 19 merchant ships, most by either scuttling or gunfire. She attacked 19 Allied armed merchantmen but only succeeded in sinking 9 of them. Upon her return to Germany she had covered a distance of 10220 mi (16,447.5 km), of which 620 mi (997.8 km) had been travelled submerged, one of the longest voyages made by a U-boat during World War I.
1918
U-155 sailed from Kiel on 11 August 1918 commanded by Ferdinand Studt. Studt's orders directed him to cruise off the US coast in the region of the Nantucket lightshipLightship
Lightship may refer to:* Lightvessel, a permanently moored ship that has light beacons mounted as navigational aids* Light displacement, a displacement figure that measures a ship complete in all respects, but without consumables, stores, cargo, crew, and effects*Lightship, a type of blimp operated...
and lay mines off St. John's, Newfoundland
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 192,326 as of July 1, 2010, the St...
and Halifax, Nova Scotia
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
. He was also directed to cut telegraph cables off Sable Island
Sable Island
Sable Island is a small Canadian island situated 300 km southeast of mainland Nova Scotia in the Atlantic Ocean. The island is a year-round home to approximately five people...
, 80 km (49.7 mi) southeast of Nova Scotia. His orders, however, proved problematic, and Studt came to believe that the St. Johns where he was to lay mines was actually Saint John
Saint John, New Brunswick
City of Saint John , or commonly Saint John, is the largest city in the province of New Brunswick, and the first incorporated city in Canada. The city is situated along the north shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Saint John River. In 2006 the city proper had a population of 74,043...
, New Brunswick, in the Bay of Fundy
Bay of Fundy
The Bay of Fundy is a bay on the Atlantic coast of North America, on the northeast end of the Gulf of Maine between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine...
.
On U-155s outbound voyage she had captured and scuttled the Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
sailing ship Gamo, had attempted an attack on the SS France
SS France (1912)
The SS France was a French ocean liner which sailed for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, colloquially known as CGT or the "French Line". She was the only French liner to have the famous Four stackers, she was later dubbed the Versailles of the Atlantic, a reference to her décor which...
, and destroyed by gunfire the Norwegian Stortind. On 7 September U-155 found herself in a long range gun duel with the US steamer Frank H. Buck, the steamer later claiming to have sunk U-155.
On 13 September U-155 engaged in another gun fight with the British merchantman Newby Hall which managed to damage the submarine, denting her armour and causing serious leaks in her pressure hull which made diving temporarily impossible.
On 19 September Studt tried and failed to locate and cut the telegraph cable near Sable Island then headed for Nantucket.
Fate
Armistice with Germany (Compiègne)
The armistice between the Allies and Germany was an agreement that ended the fighting in the First World War. It was signed in a railway carriage in Compiègne Forest on 11 November 1918 and marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, although not technically a surrender...
. She was taken to Britain and exhibited in London and elsewhere and was eventually sold for scrap in 1921. On 17 September 1921 she was being broken up at Robert Smith and Sons, Birkenhead
Birkenhead
Birkenhead is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside, England. It is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the west bank of the River Mersey, opposite the city of Liverpool...
, when an explosion ripped the ship apart, killing five apprentices.
See also
- Italian R class submarineItalian R class submarineThe R-class or Romolo-class were a group of submarines built for the Italian Royal Navy during World War II. These submarines were designed as blockade running transport submarines for transporting high-value cargo from Europe to Japan and from Japan to Europe...
, World War 2, Italian cargo submarines - Italian submarine BarbarigoItalian submarine BarbarigoBarbarigo was a World War II Italian built for the Italian Royal Navy . The submarine was converted into a transport to carry materiel between Germany and Japan in 1943, but disappeared on her first mission in that capacity, sometime after 16 June 1943....
, World War 2, Marcello-class submarine that was converted into a transport - Italian submarine Luigi TorelliItalian submarine Luigi TorelliLuigi Torelli was a of the Italian navy during World War II. The vessel operated in the Atlantic from late-summer 1940 until mid-1943, then was sent to the Far East. After Italy’s surrender in 1943, the Torelli was taken over by the German Navy then, in the waning months of the war, the Japanese...
, World War 2, Marcello-class submarine that was converted into a transport - Submarine Cargo VesselSubmarine Cargo VesselThe Submarine Cargo Vessel is a proposed idea from the Russian Rubin Design Bureau. The idea is to utilise decommissioned SSBNs from the Russian Navy to carry cargo under the Arctic Ocean...
, modern Russian cargo submarine proposal