德拉克講海軍歷史 戰艦指南 212 - 納粹德國海軍德意志級巡洋艦 德意志（呂佐）號

Deutschland was the first large, ocean-going, newly designed ship to be built for the German Navy after the First World War. The only other vessel of any particular size that fit that category was the Emden, and that was about half the displacement, and based on late World War I design work. Deutschland was supposed to be a replacement for one of the six pre-dreadnought battleships the Germans had been allowed to keep in the Versailles Treaty, and so her displacement and armament reflected these limitations, at least on paper. She was laid down in February 1929, launched in May 1931, and commissioned in April 1933, proving quite eager to get to sea. So eager, in fact, that she tried to sneak into the water during her launch ceremony, whilst the speeches were still being made. As Germany's first large modern warship in the interwar period, she was used quite a lot for training and show-the-flag visits during the peacetime part of her career. And indeed, for the first couple of years of her service life, with the only other substantial ships in the fleet being either the pre-dreadnoughts, which were too slow to keep up, the Königsbergs, which didn't like being out in the open ocean, she was the lone German ambassador to the high seas, at least until her sister ship Admiral Scheer was completed. Things started to get more interesting as the Spanish Civil War kicked off, and she was dispatched on an odd hybrid mission. Her paintwork and more overt public actions said she was neutral, but at the same time she was also charged with making sure German supply ships that were aiding the Spanish nationalists were able to make their runs unimpeded, which was decidedly partisan. It was during this period that she had her first case of combat damage, being hit by a couple of bombs from Soviet bombers, whose aircraft and pilots had simply had a Spanish Republican paint job added, much as many Luftwaffe units were doing on the other side. Following repairs, it was back to training and exercises until WWII broke out. Like her sister ship Graf Spee, she headed out before the outbreak of war, allowing for an immediate start to commerce raiding without having to traverse any British blockade measures. After a short pause, whilst peace options were briefly explored, she began her first mission of the war, taking three merchant ships, hampered by foul weather, and with the main mission's success really being in keeping large numbers of Allied warships, including the French battlecruiser Dunkirk, occupied looking for her. Luckily for the Deutschland, the French ship didn't find her, as the latter had been built specifically to hunt down such panzer ships. Having made it back to Germany, she would be refitted with a new, sleeker bow and a new name to show for the process, being re-designated Lützow, the reasoning being that it would be something of an embarrassment for a ship carrying the name of Germany to be sunk by the enemy, with a secondary reason being that she was no longer the biggest and toughest ship in the Kriegsmarine by quite a fair margin. She was then assigned to help in the invasion of Norway, alongside the brand new cruiser Blücher. The Norwegian coastal fortifications struck back though, sinking Blücher and damaging Lützow with point-blank fire. Although Oslo would eventually fall, the Kriegsmarine forces had to fall back and regroup, buying time for the defenders and the Norwegian royal family. And to add insult to injury, on her way back to Germany for repairs, a British submarine blew her stern off, which was something of a design flaw in a lot of German warships at the time. This left her in harbour being repaired for about a year, and the bad luck continued, as once this was done, she sailed for a new commerce raiding mission to join up with her sister ship Admiral Scheer, and was promptly hit by British torpedo bombers, which sent her back into dock for more repairs, which lasted another half year. Better late than never, she eventually turned up in Norway in May 1942, only to find that by this point the Kriegsmarine was bogged down by lack of fuel, and the next major effort she made, to try and attack convoy PQ-17, led to her running aground almost as soon as she'd weighed anchor. At the end of 1942, she was finally able to sail into action for the first time in over two years, only to find herself involved in the Battle of the Barents Sea, where she didn't really hit all that much, and it turned out to be such a fiasco that Hitler ordered all major German surface ships to be scrapped. Perhaps that old story that it's bad luck to rename a ship has a certain element of truth to it after all. Problems with her engine sent her back home in 1943, and after that it was pretty much home and the Baltic, which was the new location for most of the remaining active Kriegsmarine surface units as they tried to support ground forces falling back from the Soviet advance. This would all come to an end less than a month before the war in Europe ended, as she became the latest victim of the RAF's Tall Boy bombs, which left her as basically a fractionally above water 11-inch turret mount, pointing at the Soviets until they overran the area. Then they raised her, and sank her again a couple of years later as part of their weapons testing program. More recently, she briefly popped back into the headlines when an unexploded Tall Boy from the attack which sank her in the first place, was discovered sitting worryingly close to a shipping lane in the port. A rather brave bomb defusal drone was sacrificed trying to render the bomb safe, when the bomb instead chose to go out in rather spectacular style, although fortunately nobody else was hurt in the explosion. That's it for this video. Thanks for watching. If you have a comment or suggestion for a ship to review, let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to comment on the pinned post for dry-doc questions.