page_title: German battleship Gneisenau
section_title: Operation Berlin
hierarchical_section_title: German battleship Gneisenau / Service history / Operation Berlin
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Schlachtschiff "Gneisenau" Schlachtschiff "Gneisenau"
context_page_description: Gneisenau was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship and battlecruiser, of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. She was the second vessel of her class, which included one other ship, Scharnhorst. The ship was built at the Deutsche Werke dockyard in Kiel; she was laid down on 6 May 1935 and launched on 8 December 1936. Completed in May 1938, the ship was armed with a main battery of nine 28 cm C/34 guns in three triple turrets, though there were plans to replace these weapons with six 38 cm SK C/34 guns in twin turrets.
  Gneisenau and Scharnhorst operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. During their first operation, the two ships sank the British auxiliary cruiser HMS Rawalpindi in a short battle. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst participated in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway. During operations off Norway, the two ships engaged the battlecruiser HMS Renown and sank the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious. Gneisenau was damaged in the action with Renown and later torpedoed by a British submarine, HMS Clyde, off Norway.
context_section_description: Scharnhorst joined Gneisenau, in preparation for Operation Berlin, the planned breakout into the Atlantic Ocean designed to wreak havoc on the Allied shipping lanes. Severe storms caused damage to Gneisenau, though Scharnhorst was undamaged. The two ships were forced to put into port during the storm: Gneisenau went to Kiel for repairs while Scharnhorst put into Gdynia (Gotenhafen). Repairs were quickly completed, and on 22 January 1941, the two ships, again under the command of Admiral Lütjens, left port for the North Atlantic. They were detected in the Skagerrak and the heavy units of the British Home Fleet deployed to cover the passage between Iceland and the Faroes. The Germans' radar detected the British at long range, which allowed Lütjens to avoid the British patrols, with the aid of a squall. By 3 February, the two battleships had evaded the last British cruiser patrol, and had broken into the open Atlantic.
  On 6 February, the two ships refueled from the tanker Schlettstadt south of Cape Farewell. Shortly after 08:30 on 8 February, lookouts spotted convoy HX 106, though it was escorted by the battleship Ramillies. Lütjens' orders prohibited him from engaging Allied capital ships, and so the attack was called off. Scharnhorst's commander, KzS Hoffmann, however, closed to 23,000 m (25,000 yd) in an attempt to lure Ramillies away from the convoy so that Gneisenau could attack the convoy. Lütjens ordered Hoffmann to rejoin the flagship immediately. The two battleships steamed off to the northwest to search for more shipping. On 22 February, the pair spotted an empty convoy sailing west, though it dispersed at the appearance of the battleships. Gneisenau sank three ships, and along with a fourth destroyed by Scharnhorst, the pair accounted for 25,784 GRT of Allied shipping.
  Lütjens then decided to move to a new area, as the surviving members of the dispersed convoy had sent distress signals. He chose the Cape Town-Gibraltar convoy route, and positioned himself to the northwest of Cape Verde. The two ships encountered another convoy, escorted by the battleship Malaya, on 8 March. Lütjens again forbade an attack, though he shadowed the convoy and directed U-boats to attack it. A pair of U-boats sank a total of 28,488 GRT of shipping on the night of 7–8 March. Malaya turned on the two battleships and closed to 24,000 m (26,000 yd), well within the range of the Germans' guns, but Lütjens refused to be drawn into an engagement. He instead turned toward the mid-Atlantic, where the two ships refueled from the tankers Uckermark and Ermland on 12 March.
  On 15 March, the two battleships, with the two tankers in company, encountered a dispersed convoy in the mid-Atlantic. Gneisenau captured three tankers and sank a fourth, totaling 20,139 GRT of shipping. The next day, stragglers from a convoy were sighted. Gneisenau sank seven ships for 26,693 GRT, while her sister accounted for six vessels for 35,088 long tons (35,651 t). One of the surviving ships radioed the location of the German battleships, which summoned the powerful British battleships Rodney and King George V. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau used their high speed to escape in a squall, and the intervention by the British battleships convinced Lütjens that the chances of further success were small. He therefore decided to head for Brest in occupied France, which the ships reached on 22 March. She then entered drydock for periodic maintenance.
caption: Gneisenau after her second bow alteration in 1942.
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "784", "Image ImageLength": "464", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "1", "Image ImageDescription": "Schlachtschiff \"Gneisenau\"", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "4", "Image XResolution": "50", "Image YResolution": "50", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2016:09:11 15:32:13", "Image Artist": "Klein, A.", "Image ExifOffset": "296", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "446", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5423", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "784", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "464"}