page_title: List of heavy cruisers of Germany
section_title: Deutschland class
hierarchical_section_title: List of heavy cruisers of Germany / Deutschland class
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. Panzerschiff "Admiral Graf Spee" Information added by Wikimedia users.English: German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee
context_page_description: The German navies of the 1920s through 1945—the Reichsmarine and later Kriegsmarine—built or planned a series of heavy cruisers starting in the late 1920s, initially classified as Panzerschiffe. Four different designs—the Deutschland, D, P, and Admiral Hipper classes, comprising twenty-two ships in total—were prepared in the period, though only the three Deutschland-class ships and three of the five Admiral Hipper-class cruisers were ever built.
  The terms of the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, limited German warships to a displacement of 10,000 long tons. The first class of ships designed under these restrictions was the Deutschland class, designed in the late 1920s, and commonly referred to as "pocket battleships". They incorporated a series of radical innovations to save weight, including extensive use of welded construction and diesel engines. An improved version, the D class, was planned for 1934, but escalating design requirements in response to the French Dunkerque-class battleships resulted in the replacement of the D class with the two Scharnhorst-class battleships.
  Plans for an improved Panzerschiff were renewed in 1937 with the P class.
context_section_description: Initially ordered as Panzerschiffe, the three Deutschland-class ships were designed to meet the limitations imposed on the German Navy by the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty limited large German warships to a displacement of 10,000 long tons (10,160 t), but did not restrict the caliber of main battery guns. Several innovations were incorporated into the design, including extensive use of welding and all-diesel propulsion, which saved weight and allowed for the heavier main armament and armor. Nevertheless, the ships exceeded the weight restriction by several thousand tons, though the German Navy claimed the vessels were within the limitations. The three ships, Deutschland, Admiral Scheer, and Admiral Graf Spee, were built between 1929 and 1936. Design changes were made over the course of the construction program, resulting in slightly differing characteristics of each ship.
  Commonly referred to as "pocket battleships" due to their heavy armament, all three ships saw service in the non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in 1936–1938. They served as commerce raiders early in World War II; Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled outside Montevideo in December 1939 following the Battle of the River Plate. Deutschland conducted one cruise into the North Atlantic without significant success, before returning to Germany to be renamed Lützow. She and Admiral Scheer were also re-rated as heavy cruisers. She then participated in Operation Weserübung, where she was badly damaged by Norwegian coastal batteries and a British torpedo. After repairs, she was deployed to occupied Norway to operate against convoys to the Soviet Union. There she was joined by Admiral Scheer, which had completed the most successful raiding cruise conducted by a major surface unit. Both ships ultimately returned to German waters by the end of 1943, where they were sunk by British bombers in the final weeks of the war. Lützow was re-floated by the Soviet Navy and expended as a target in July 1947.
caption: Admiral Graf Spee in 1936
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