The German Battlecruiser Blucher.  History of the Blucher from its launch in 1908 to its sinking at the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1915.  Photographs of the Blucher

SMS Blücher

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SMS Blucher used as a gunnery experiment ship before the outbreak of World War One, was sunk at the battle of Dogger Bank by a 13.5 inch shell from HMS Princess Royal at 20,000 yards which pierced the armour deck and ignited charges on the ammunition rails causing a huge fire.  She was hard to sink, probably hit by over 50 heavy shells and two 21 inch torpedos on the 24th January 1915.

SMS Blucher engaging the British Fleet.  German propaganda postcard published 1916

Blucher.

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SMS Blücher

The armoured cruiser (termed Großer Kreuzer = Big Cruiser in Germany) was not well liked by Tirpitz. Originally not intended as a Raider against British shipping and not needed as a scout – because it was thought that the Royal Navy would sought battle at any cost - Tirpitz had build this type of warship in the hope that sometimes “something good will become out of it”. In fact the armoured cruisers up to Roon and Yorck were no match for their British counterparts. The Scharnhorst/Gneisenau pair, capable of running 23 knots, their eight 8.2 inch guns and 6 inch armour were a big step forward for the German navy. The next ship, the “Großer Kreuzer E” – the later Blücher – should have been on the forefront of armoured cruiser technology. Pushed by the Kaiser, who demanded a much more powerful cruiser type and confronted with  financial restrictions and the limited size of the Kiel-Canal, Tirpitz and his staff tried to produce the best design possible. Indeed, the powerful armament of twelve 8.2 inch guns and a 7.1 inch armoured belt made her a tough opponent and with her maximum speed of over 25 knots she was the fastest armoured cruiser in the world. But a week after the Kaiser had signed the order to build the ship at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, the Naval Attaché in London reported of a new British cruiser type armed with 12 inch guns ( the later HMS Invincible). After these rumours had been verified as true and realising that their brilliant new cruiser design will be outdated even before it enters service, Tirpitz and his staff were deeply frustrated. As the German Navy only had eight cruisers in service or on stock and with the financial disaster in mind if the new ship had to be broken up (a re-design was proposed, but thought not to be sufficient to face the new British ship), there was no other way as to build the ship as designed.

The new armoured cruiser was christened on April 11^th 1908 and named after Field Marshal  Gerhard Leberecht Fürst Blücher von Wahlstatt, who commanded the Prussian troops in the Wars against Napoleon. The ship started her career as Flagship of the scouting forces and from 1911 - as the first German Battlecruiser Von der Tann had been commissioned - she served as a gunnery experimentation vessel and gunnery training ship. On May 29^th  1913 Blücher ran aground in the Great Belt, but she came off three days later with the help of the pre-Dreadnought Wettin and the cruisers Stuttgart and Augsburg. At the beginning of the Great War Blücher had been detached to the Baltic. She served as the Flagship of Grand Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia ( the Kaisers brother ) and briefly engaged the Russian armoured cruisers Bajan and Pallada during a sortie north of the Island of Gothland on September 6^th 1914. A few weeks later Blücher returned to Wilhelmshaven and found herself in action against targets she was not designed for – Cities.  In November 1914 she fired against targets in and around Great Yarmouth and a month later she was off Hartlepool. There she received four 6 inch hits from a Land battery and had 9 casualties. The ship was lucky not to engage the British Battlecruisers as she would have been outgunned, outranged and outrunned. Of course officers and crew knew about this, but sailing against their enemy was eagerly preferred to the seemingly endless days in port. So everyone was delighted as they heard they will be out for another sortie. Blücher was mainly chosen because Von der Tann had to spend some days in dockyard hands and British Capital ships were not expected, because it was thought they had returned to their bases for refuelling after their uneventful appearance in the German Bight on January 19^th. This fateful decision led to Blücher´s destruction in the Doggerbank action on January 24^th 1915. [ Because of the complexity, we will only focus on Blücher, and on a reduced scale ] Blücher opened fire as last ship of the line, accompanied by Seydlitz (Flag), Derfflinger and Moltke. As the five British Battlecruisers  opened fire, Blücher was unable to answer because of the great range. Therefore it took 26 minutes until she was able to return fire. Although six minutes earlier she had received her first hit it took more than an hour until she received the fatal blow.  A hit in the main ammunition passage set of up to 40 cartridges, putting two wing turrets out of action and damaging the boiler room, reducing the speed to 17 knots.  The British ships started to concentrate their fire on the crippled Blücher, scoring up to 70 to 100 hits. Light cruisers and destroyers put two torpedo into the ship and she finally sank, nearly four hours after the start of the battle, 40 miles off the Dutch coast. Of the 1028 crew members 747 where lost with the ship. The survivors where picked up by British destroyers, including the skipper, Capt. Erdmann,, who later died of pneumonia in Edinburgh.

Our thanks again to Frank Kohlmann for contributing this piece.