BWPicLightCruiserKonigsberg

The Königsberg was a German Weimer-era Reichsmarine light cruiser,
laid down in 1926 and launched in 1927 at Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
The Königsberg was the first ship in her class; a class which also
included the Köln and Karlsruhe. The ship's primary armament was in
and of itself sufficient - consisting of three triple turreted 5.9-inch
(15cm) guns. That said, the ship was not well suited to service on the
open ocean and during the 1930s she went through numerous
upgrades in an attempt to somewhat alleviate her otherwise
inadequate design. Commissioned in April 1929, the Königsberg spent
much of her service touring foreign ports and involved in training
exercises though she deployed along the Spanish Coast for a brief
stint during the Spanish Civil War.

During the first six months of the Second World War the Königsberg,
when deployed, did so in mere training operations in the Baltic Sea
and mine laying operations in the North Sea. However, when Hitler
decided to invade Norway in April 1940 the Kriegsmarine was hardly
prepared to conduct large-scale amphibious landings and thus
gathered the bulk of its available surface fleet to ferry German troops
to Norway. This lead to the Königsberg's first serious combat
deployment - it would also be her last.

The Königsberg's target was the Norwegian port city of Bergen.
Having managed to make it to Bergen on April 9th without running into
Allied warships, the nearly 600 foot long Königsberg was able to
unload her complement of troops and support the German landings by
engaging Norwegian defensive positions. As was the case elsewhere
on Norway's coast defending Norwegian shore batteries proved to be
both accurate and deadly. Within a short period the Königsberg had
absorbed significant damage that severely hampered her mobility.
Though German troops quickly took Bergen and the Königsberg
successfully evaded one subsequent British air raid what remaining
luck she may have had soon ran out. On April 10th a follow up air raid
led by British dive-bombers found the battered Königsberg and
repeatedly hammered the German light cruiser with multiple bomb hits,
forcing the crew to abandon ship before she sank.

The ability of the Germans to seize Norway by landing troops almost
at will up and down the Norwegian coast was a severe blow to Allied
naval prestige. On the other hand, the Königsberg's fate was far from
unique and overall the Kriegsmarine suffered crippling losses to its
surface fleet during the Scandinavian campaign. As a result, one
long-term strategic result to emerge from Germany's Scandinavian
adventure was that Britain had taken perhaps the most crucial step in
guaranteeing she would not suffer the same fate as Norway.

Picture Courtesy of the Department of the Navy - Naval Historical
Center