Admiral Graf Spee – ship’s crest
Ar 196 being hoisted on board Graf Spee
Admiral Graf Spee at Gibraltar
Crew painting the ship’s bow
Admiral Graf Spee at Geirangerfjord 1938
Crew cleaning the deck of the Admiral Graf Spee
Admiral Graf Spee 9
Graf Spee firing
Graf Spee burning in Montevideo December 1939 3
Admiral Graf Spee 7
Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee
Admiral Graf Spee 8
Admiral Graf Spee 10
Admiral Graf Spee in the Kiel Canal
Graf Spee May 1937
Graf Spee burning in Montevideo December 1939
Forward 280 mm guns of German Pocket Battleship Graf Spee 1937
Admiral Graf Spee bow view 5
Kriegsmarine Pocket Battleship Graf Spee 2
Graf Spee at the Spithead Naval Review 30 May 1937
Kriegsmarine Pocket Battleship Graf Spee
Admiral Graf Spee 4
Graf Spee burning in Montevideo 18 December 1939
Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee 2
Admiral Graf Spee 3
Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee before the war
German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee 2
Admiral Graf Spee main battery turret
German cruiser Graf Spee stern
Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee
Kriegsmarine Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee
Cruiser Admiral Graf Spee superstructure
Graf Spee in dock
Admiral Graf Spee
German cruiser Graf Spee
Graf Spee in dock – bow
Graf Spee cruiser
German cruiser Admiral Graf Spee
Graf Spee stern and torpedoes
Graf Spee and floatplane Heinkel He60
cruiser Graf Spee
Panzerschiff Graf Spee
Graf Spee in shipyard
Graf Spee Floatplane He60
Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The ship was named after Admiral Maximilian von Spee, commander of the East Asia Squadron that fought the battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands in World War I. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in October 1932 and completed by January 1936. The ship was nominally under the 10,000 long tons (10,000 t) limitation on warship size imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, though with a full load displacement of 16,020 long tons (16,280 t), she significantly exceeded it. Armed with six 280 mm (11 in) guns in two triple gun turrets, Admiral Graf Spee and her sisters were designed to outgun any cruiser fast enough to catch them. Their top speed of 28 kn (52 km/h) left only a handful of ships in the Anglo-French navies able to catch them and powerful enough to sink them.
Bibliography:
- Kapitan zur See Gerhard Bidlingmaier – KM Admiral Graf Spee / Pocket Battleship 1932-1939, Warship Profile 4
- Klaus-Peter Schmolke – Pocket Battleships of the Deutschland Class: Deutschland/Lutzow-Admiral Scheer-Admiral Graf Spee (Warships of the Kriegsmarine)
- Waldemar Danielewicz, Mirosław Skwiot – Admiral Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer, Monografie Morskie 8 AJ-Press (polish)
- Waldemar Danielewicz, Tadeusz Skwiot – Pancerniki Kieszonkowe Cz. 3: Deutschland/Lützow, Admiral Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer, Monografie Morskie 9 AJ-Press (polish)
- Eric Grove – German Capital Ships and Raiders in World War II: Volume I: From Graf Spee to Bismarck, 1939-1941
- Siegfried Breyer, Miroslaw Zbigniew Skwiot – German Capital Ships of the Second World War: The Ultimate Photograph Album
- Richard Woodman – Battle of the River Plate: A Grand Delusion
- David Miller – Command Decisions: Langsdorff and the Battle of the River Plate
- John Grehan – Capital Ships at War 1939-1945 (Despatches from the Front)
- Roger Chesneau – German Pocket Battleships, ShipCraft 1
- 1939 – The Second World War at Sea in Photographs
- German Pocket Battleships 1939-45 – Osprey New Vanguard 75
- Dudley Pope – The Battle of the River Plate: The Hunt for the German Pocket Battleship Graf Spee
- Angus Konstam and Tony Bryan – River Plate 1939: The sinking of the Graf Spee Osprey Campaign
- Stefan Draminski – The German Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee, Kagero TopDrawings