Horst Wessel
"Eagle" commenced its existence in Nazi Germany as "Horst Wessel", a ship of the "Gorch Fock" class. "Horst Wessel" was an improvement on the original design. She was larger in dimension and her spars were all steel, unlike "Gorch Fock"s wooden yards. SSS "Horst Wessel" began life as "Schiff" ("ship") 508 at Blohm &amp; Voss in Hamburg, Germany in 1936. Her keel was laid on 15 February, she was launched on 13 June, completed on 16 September, and commissioned on 17 September. She was the second ship in the class to be built, following the class namesake "Gorch Fock". Rudolf Hess gave the speech at her launch in the presence of Adolf Hitler, and Horst Wessel's mother christened the new ship with a bottle of champagne. The name was given in tribute to SA leader Horst Wessel, who had been accorded martyr status by the Nazi Party. He also wrote the song which came to be known as "Horst-Wessel-Lied", which was later used as the Nazi party's anthem. Shortly after work began on "Horst Wessel", the Blohm &amp; Voss shipyard laid the keel of the , which was labeled "Schiff" 509.