Facts you may not know about Deutsch heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer

CAIRO – 11 May 2022: Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser that served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany in WWII. The Admiral Scheer was launched on April 1, 1933 and commissioned in 1934. The ship was put under the command of Captain Wilhelm Marshall, who conducted naval exercises and trials for the rest of the year.

The ship came out for the first time during the Spanish Civil War, where its duties included evacuating German civilians and conducting patrols on the Spanish coast to control the flow of war materiel to Spain, according to heritagedaily.

The Admiral Scheer witnessed its first military action and opened fire on coastal batteries, naval installations and ships in the Republican-controlled port of Almeria.

After the outbreak of World War II, Admiral Scheer underwent a renovation and was sent to the Atlantic Ocean to begin commercial raiding operations against merchant shipping. During the raid, 17 merchant ships sank.

Moreover, the Admiral Scheer was involved in many other operations during the war in Norway and the Baltic states, but by 1945, the ships' guns were poor and in need of repair. The ship arrived in the German port city of Kiel that same year to replace its cannons. But during the renovation, the port was bombed by 300 RAF bombers. The ship was struck with a few bombs causing it to capsize.

After the war, the Admiral Scheer was partially dismantled, but the sheer size of the ship's hull was too colossal. The internal ports were filled with materials from the ruins of Kiel, which had been bombed. Admiral Scheer was buried under the rubble and wreckage, where it still lies today under Ellerbrick in Kiel.