Description

Great Book by Osprey Publishing. 48 pages
The German Navy of World War II was small in number, but contained some of the most technologically advanced capital ships in the world. This meant that although the Kriegsmarine never felt capable of encountering the might of the British Navy in a fleet action, her ships were individually more than a match for the outdated vessels of the Royal Navy. Nowhere was this more the case than in Germany's fleet of light cruisers. There were only six vessels in this fleet: the Emden, Leipzig, Kln, Knigsberg, Karlsruhe and Nurnberg. Developed after Imperial Germany's defeat in WWI, the Emden was the first modern ship built by Weimar Germany, undertaking goodwill cruises throughout the world during the late 1920s and early 1930s, although she was only used for training purposes during the Second World War. The other five vessels in this class all saw active service with varying degrees of success. The Karlsruhe and the Knigsberg were lost early during the war in the Norwegian campaign, Kln and Leipzig were used throughout the war, mainly for escort and support duties, Kln was bombed and sunk in Wilhelmshaven in 1945 whilst Leipzig survived to be scrapped in 1946. The Nurnberg survived the war intact only to be confiscated by the Soviets and commissioned into the Red Navy as the Admiral Makarov, finally being decommissioned in 1959.