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The Kaiserliche Marine, the navy of the German Empire, built a series of battlecruisers in the first half of the 20th century. The battlecruiser type was an outgrowth of older armored cruiser designs; they were intended to scout for the main battle fleet and attack the reconnaissance forces of opposing fleets. Kaiser Wilhelm II maintained that the new battlecruisers be able to fight in the line of battle with battleships to counter Germany's numerical inferiority. was the first German battlecruiser, built in 1908–1910. The Kaiserliche Marine eventually built four more battlecruisers before the start of the First World War to serve with the High Seas Fleet, and another two were completed during the conflict. A further seven were planned, including four of the and three of the ships. Two of the ''Mackensen''s—the name ship and ''Graf Spee''—were launched but never completed, and the other two were in earlier stages of work when they were canceled towards the end of the war. Serious work never began on the three ''Ersatz Yorck''-class ships. Six of the seven battlecruisers completed before or during World War I saw relatively heavy combat, primarily in the North Sea. All of the ships, with the exception of , which had been assigned to the German Mediterranean Division, were assigned to the I Scouting Group under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper. The unit conducted several raids of the English coast between 1914 and 1916, which culminated in the Battle of Jutland during 31 May – 1 June 1916, in which they were expected to draw parts of the British fleet onto the German battleship line. The German flagship was sunk at the battle, and the other ships were heavily damaged. For their own part, during the battle ''Von der Tann'' sank her counterpart , sank , and and ''Lützow'' together destroyed . The five remaining battlecruisers—''Von der Tann'', , ''Seydlitz'', ''Derfflinger'', and —were interned with the bulk of the German fleet at the British naval base at Scapa Flow following the end of the war. The ships were subsequently scuttled by their crews in 1919 to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Allied Powers. ''Goeben'' was transferred to the Ottoman Navy at the outbreak of hostilities, and operated against the Russian Black Sea Fleet for the majority of the war. She was heavily damaged by British naval mines near the end of the war, but was repaired and went on to serve the Turkish Navy until the 1950s; she was eventually broken up for scrap in the 1970s. The successor to the Kaiserliche Marine, the Kriegsmarine, considered building three s before the Second World War as part of the Plan Z buildup of the Navy. However, the outbreak of war in 1939 caused the plans to be shelved, and none of these ships were built. == SMS ''Von der Tann'' == SMS ''Von der Tann'' was the first German battlecruiser, ordered in 1907. She was designed in response to the British s, construction on which had begun the previous year. As the first of a new type, the design process for ''Von der Tann'' was highly controversial. Großadmiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the State Secretary for the Imperial German Navy, wanted the ship to follow the British pattern of large guns, relatively light armor, and high speed. Kaiser Wilhelm II, along with other senior navy officers instead argued that, owing to Germany's numerical inferiority, the new ships should have armor strong enough to permit their use in the battle line. ''Von der Tann'' was present for most of the German fleet operations during World War I, including several raids of the English coast. At the Battle of Jutland, ''Von der Tann'' was the last ship in the German battlecruiser squadron. She engaged and, after 15 minutes of firing, ''Von der Tann''s 28 cm (11 in) shells caused a magazine explosion, destroying ''Indefatigable''. At the end of the war, ''Von der Tann'' was interned in Scapa Flow and eventually scuttled. She was raised in 1930 and broken up for scrap between 1931–34. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「List of battlecruisers of Germany」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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