Reinhard Scheer
Encyclopedia
Reinhard Scheer was an Admiral
in the German
Kaiserliche Marine
. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruiser
s and battleship
s, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I
, Scheer was the commander of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet
. He then took command of the III Battle Squadron, which consisted of the newest and most powerful battleships in the navy. In January 1916, he was promoted to Admiral and given control of the High Seas Fleet. Scheer led the German fleet at the Battle of Jutland
on 31 May–1 June 1916, one of the largest naval battles in history.
Following the battle, Scheer joined those calling for unrestricted submarine warfare
against the Allies
, a move the Kaiser eventually permitted. In August 1918, Scheer was promoted to the Chief of Naval Staff; Admiral Franz von Hipper
replaced him as commander of the fleet. Together they planned a final battle against the British Grand Fleet, but war-weary sailors mutinied
at the news and the operation was abandoned. Scheer retired after the end of the war.
A strict disciplinarian, Scheer was popularly known in the Navy as the "man with the iron mask" due to his severe appearance. In 1919, Scheer wrote his memoirs; a year later they were translated and published in English. He wrote his autobiography in 1925. Scheer died at Marktredwitz
. He is buried in the municipal cemetery at Weimar
. The admiral was commemorated in the renascent Kriegsmarine
by the heavy cruiser
Admiral Scheer
, built in the 1930s.
, Lower Saxony
. He came from a middle class background, which initially hampered his naval career, as the Kaiserliche Marine was dominated by wealthy families.
Reinhard Scheer entered the navy on 22 April 1879 aged 15 as a cadet. His first sea assignment was aboard the sail-frigate . His first cruise aboard Niobe lasted from June to September 1879. During the cruise he was trained in navigation and engineering. Following his return to Germany in September, Scheer was assigned to the Naval School in Kiel
to continue his officer training. He received only a "satisfactory" rating on his cadet evaluation in 1879, but received the second highest grade in his class for the Sea Cadet's Exam the following year. Following his graduation from the Naval School, Scheer embarked on a six month long special training program for gunnery, torpedo warfare, and infantry training. Afterward, he was assigned to the gunnery training ship . Scheer was for a short time assigned to the armored frigate
. For his last year in cadet training, he was assigned to the protected cruiser
, which conducted a world tour. The ship sailed to Melbourne
, Australia, Yokohama
, Kobe
, and Nagasaki
in Japan, and Shanghai
, China during the trip.
Following his commission into the German navy, he was transferred to the East Africa Squadron; his first tour with the unit lasted from 1884 to 1886. He was assigned to the crew of the frigate . Here he was promoted to Leutnant. He also made important connections in Africa; among those he befriended was Leutnant Henning von Holtzendorff
, who would later serve as commander of the High Seas Fleet. During the assignment, on December 1884, Scheer participated in a landing party that suppressed a pro-British indigenous chieftain in Kamerun
.
After his return to Germany in 1886, Scheer took part in torpedo training aboard , from January to May 1888. In May 1888, Scheer returned to the East Africa Squadron as a torpedo officer aboard the corvette
. This tour lasted until early summer 1890, at which point Scheer returned to Germany, where he was made an instructor at the Torpedo Research Command in Kiel
. Thus far in his career, Scheer had made a strong reputation for himself as a torpedo specialist. While stationed in Kiel, Scheer met Alfred von Tirpitz, who took note of his expertise. In 1897, following von Tirpitz's promotion to Secretary of State of the Imperial Navy Office, he transferred Scheer to the Reichsmarineamt (RMA) to work in the Torpedo Section.
After promotion to Korvettenkapitän, Scheer commanded the light cruiser .
Scheer was promoted to Kapitän zur See in 1905 and took command of the battleship in 1907, a command he held for two years. A report dated 1 December 1909 recommended Scheer for promotion; he became chief of staff to the commanding officer of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff
, under whom Scheer had served on the cruiser SMS Prinzess Wilhelm. Scheer reached flag rank less than six months after taking his post on von Holtzendorff's staff, at the age of 47. He held the Chief of Staff position until late 1911, when he was transferred back to the RMA under Alfred von Tirpitz
. Here, he held the position of Chief of the General Naval Department through 1912. Following this appointment, Scheer returned to a sea command, in the form of squadron commander for the six battleships of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet in January 1913.
had begun. He thereafter took command of the III Battle Squadron, which consisted of the most powerful battleships in the German fleet: the dreadnought
s of the and es. Scheer advocated raids on the British coast to lure out portions of the numerically superior Royal Navy
so they could be overwhelmed by the German fleet. He was highly critical of Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl
, who he felt was overly cautious.
Following the bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby
, during which Ingenohl had withdrawn instead of attacking a weaker British squadron, Scheer remarked, "[Ingenohl] had robbed us of the opportunity of meeting certain divisions of the enemy according to the prearranged plan, which was now seen to be correct." Following the loss of at the Battle of Dogger Bank
in January 1915, the Kaiser removed Admiral von Ingenohl from his post on 2 February. Admiral Hugo von Pohl
replaced him as commander of the fleet. Admiral von Pohl was exceedingly cautious; in the remainder of 1915, he conducted only five ineffective fleet actions, all of which remained within 120 nautical mile
s of Helgoland
.
Following the Kaiser's order forbidding unrestricted submarine warfare on 24 April 1916, Scheer ordered all of the U-boat
s in the Atlantic to return to Germany and abandon commerce raiding. Scheer intended to use the submarines to support the fleet by stationing the U-boats off major British naval bases. The U-boats would intercept British forces leaving the ports when provoked by a bombardment by the I Scouting Group
battlecruisers under the command of Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper
. Scheer planned the operation for 17 May, but damage to the battlecruiser from the previous month, coupled with condenser trouble on several of the battleships of III Battle Squadron caused the plan to be delayed, ultimately to 31 May.
had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation, and so sortied the Grand Fleet, totaling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, the night before in order to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet.
At 16:00 UTC, the two battlecruiser forces encountered each other and began a running gun fight south, back towards Scheer's battle fleet. Upon reaching the High Seas Fleet, Vice Admiral David Beatty's
battlecruisers turned back to the north to lure the Germans towards the rapidly approaching Grand Fleet, under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe
. During the run to the north, Scheer's leading ships engaged the s of the 5th Battle Squadron. By 18:30, the Grand Fleet had arrived on the scene, and was deployed into a position that would cross Scheer's "T"
from the northeast. To extricate his fleet from this precarious position, Scheer ordered a 16-point
turn to the south-west. At 18:55, Scheer decided to conduct another 16-point turn to launch an attack on the British fleet; he later explained his reasoning:
This maneuver again put Scheer in a dangerous position; Jellicoe had turned his fleet south and again crossed Scheer's "T." A third 16-point turn followed, which was covered by a charge by Hipper's mauled battlecruisers. Scheer then ordered the fleet to adopt the night cruising formation, which was completed by 23:40. A series of ferocious engagements between Scheer's battleships and Jellicoe's destroyer screen ensued, though the Germans managed to punch their way through the destroyers and make for Horns Reef
. The High Seas Fleet reached the Jade between 13:00 and 14:45 on 1 June; Scheer ordered the undamaged battleships of the I Battle Squadron to take up defensive positions in the Jade roadstead
while the s were to maintain a state of readiness just outside Wilhelmshaven.
campaign in the Atlantic. He argued that it was the only option to defeat Great Britain. Scheer spent the majority of the remainder of the year debating the issue with the naval command. Ultimately, Scheer and his allies prevailed and the unrestricted submarine campaign was resumed in February 1917. Despite his conviction that only the U-boats could defeat Britain, Scheer continued to utilize the surface fleet. On 18–19 August 1916, the High Seas Fleet again sortied in an attempt to draw out and defeat Admiral Beatty's battlecruiser squadron. The Royal Navy again intercepted German communications and sent the Grand Fleet out. In this case, however, Scheer's reconnaissance worked as intended, and warned him of the Grand Fleet's approach in time to retreat back to Germany. In later 1917, Scheer began to use light elements of the fleet to raid British convoys to Norway in the North Sea. This forced the British to deploy battleships to escort the convoys, which presented Scheer with the opportunity to attempt to isolate and destroy several battleships of the Grand Fleet. On 23 April 1918, Scheer sent the entire High Seas Fleet to intercept one of the convoys. However, Hipper's battlecruisers crossed the convoy's path several times without sighting any ships; it was later discovered that German intelligence had miscalculated the date the convoy would depart Britain. The German fleet turned south and reached their North Sea bases by 19:00.
and General Erich Ludendorff
to discuss the deteriorating war situation. The three agreed that the U-boat campaign would be the sole hope for a German victory, as the German army had been pushed to the defensive. Scheer then called for a crash program to build a vastly increased number of U-boats. He stipulated that, at a minimum, at least 16 additional U-boats be constructed per month in the last quarter of 1918. This was to increase to at least an additional 30 per month by the third quarter of 1919. In total, the plan called for 376 to 450 new U-boats. However, German naval historian Holger Herwig suggested the program was "a massive propaganda effort designed to have an effect at home and abroad."
In October, with the war largely lost, Scheer and Hipper envisioned one last major fleet advance to attack the British Grand Fleet. Scheer intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, to achieve a better bargaining position for Germany regardless of the cost to the navy. The plan involved two simultaneous attacks by light cruisers and destroyers, one on Flanders
and another on shipping in the Thames estuary
; the five battlecruisers were to support the Thames attack while the dreadnoughts remained off Flanders. After both strikes, the fleet was to concentrate off the Dutch coast, where it would meet the Grand Fleet in battle. While the fleet was consolidating in Wilhelmshaven, however, war-weary sailors began deserting en masse. As Von der Tann and Derfflinger passed through the locks that separated Wilhelmshaven's inner harbor and roadstead, some 300 men from both ships climbed over the side and disappeared ashore. On 24 October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on several battleships mutinied
; three ships from the III Squadron refused to weigh anchors, and acts of sabotage were committed on board the battleships and . In the face of open rebellion, the order to sail was rescinded and the planned operation was abandoned. In an attempt to suppress the mutiny, the High Seas Fleet squadrons were dispersed.
In 1928, Scheer accepted an invitation to meet his adversary from Jutland, John Jellicoe, in England. However, at the age of 65, Scheer died at Marktredwitz
in before he could make the trip. He was buried in the municipal cemetery at Weimar. His tombstone reads: [Here rests Admiral Reinhard Scheer] — with the dates of his life, his flag in metal applique and the single word (the German name for the Battle of Jutland).
The heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer
was named after Reinhard Scheer and christened by his daughter Marianne. The ship was ordered and funded by the Reichsmarine
of the Weimar Republic
and launched in 1933.
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
in the German
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
Kaiserliche Marine
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
. Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet; he progressed through the ranks, commanding cruiser
Cruiser
A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundreds of years, and has had different meanings throughout this period...
s and battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
s, as well as major staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Scheer was the commander of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet
High Seas Fleet
The High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...
. He then took command of the III Battle Squadron, which consisted of the newest and most powerful battleships in the navy. In January 1916, he was promoted to Admiral and given control of the High Seas Fleet. Scheer led the German fleet at the Battle of Jutland
Battle of Jutland
The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet during the First World War. The battle was fought on 31 May and 1 June 1916 in the North Sea near Jutland, Denmark. It was the largest naval battle and the only...
on 31 May–1 June 1916, one of the largest naval battles in history.
Following the battle, Scheer joined those calling for unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchantmen without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules...
against the Allies
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
, a move the Kaiser eventually permitted. In August 1918, Scheer was promoted to the Chief of Naval Staff; Admiral Franz von Hipper
Franz von Hipper
Franz Ritter von Hipper was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy . Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern...
replaced him as commander of the fleet. Together they planned a final battle against the British Grand Fleet, but war-weary sailors mutinied
Wilhelmshaven mutiny
The Kiel mutiny was a major revolt by sailors of the German High Seas Fleet on 3 November 1918. The revolt triggered the German revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. It ultimately led to the end of the First World War and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.-...
at the news and the operation was abandoned. Scheer retired after the end of the war.
A strict disciplinarian, Scheer was popularly known in the Navy as the "man with the iron mask" due to his severe appearance. In 1919, Scheer wrote his memoirs; a year later they were translated and published in English. He wrote his autobiography in 1925. Scheer died at Marktredwitz
Marktredwitz
Marktredwitz is a municipality in the district of Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 22 km west of Cheb, 50 km east of Bayreuth and 50 km south of Hof/Saale.The town celebrated the Horticultural Show 2006 in cooperation with Cheb....
. He is buried in the municipal cemetery at Weimar
Weimar
Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...
. The admiral was commemorated in the renascent Kriegsmarine
Kriegsmarine
The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...
by the heavy cruiser
Heavy cruiser
The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range, high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 203mm calibre . The heavy cruiser can be seen as a lineage of ship design from 1915 until 1945, although the term 'heavy cruiser' only came into formal use in 1930...
Admiral Scheer
German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer
Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June...
, built in the 1930s.
Early career
Scheer was born in ObernkirchenObernkirchen
Obernkirchen is a town in the district of Schaumburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approximately 8 km southwest of Stadthagen, and 15 km east of Minden....
, Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
. He came from a middle class background, which initially hampered his naval career, as the Kaiserliche Marine was dominated by wealthy families.
Reinhard Scheer entered the navy on 22 April 1879 aged 15 as a cadet. His first sea assignment was aboard the sail-frigate . His first cruise aboard Niobe lasted from June to September 1879. During the cruise he was trained in navigation and engineering. Following his return to Germany in September, Scheer was assigned to the Naval School in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
to continue his officer training. He received only a "satisfactory" rating on his cadet evaluation in 1879, but received the second highest grade in his class for the Sea Cadet's Exam the following year. Following his graduation from the Naval School, Scheer embarked on a six month long special training program for gunnery, torpedo warfare, and infantry training. Afterward, he was assigned to the gunnery training ship . Scheer was for a short time assigned to the armored frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...
. For his last year in cadet training, he was assigned to the protected cruiser
Protected cruiser
The protected cruiser is a type of naval cruiser of the late 19th century, so known because its armoured deck offered protection for vital machine spaces from shrapnel caused by exploding shells above...
, which conducted a world tour. The ship sailed to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia, Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
, Kobe
Kobe
, pronounced , is the fifth-largest city in Japan and is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū, approximately west of Osaka...
, and Nagasaki
Nagasaki
is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...
in Japan, and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China during the trip.
Following his commission into the German navy, he was transferred to the East Africa Squadron; his first tour with the unit lasted from 1884 to 1886. He was assigned to the crew of the frigate . Here he was promoted to Leutnant. He also made important connections in Africa; among those he befriended was Leutnant Henning von Holtzendorff
Henning von Holtzendorff
Henning von Holtzendorff was a German admiral during World War I who became famous for his Dec 1916 memo to Kaiser Wilhelm II about unrestricted submarine warfare against the United Kingdom...
, who would later serve as commander of the High Seas Fleet. During the assignment, on December 1884, Scheer participated in a landing party that suppressed a pro-British indigenous chieftain in Kamerun
Kamerun
German Cameroon was a West African colony of the German Empire from 1884 to 1916 in the region of today's Republic of Cameroon.-History:-1800s:...
.
After his return to Germany in 1886, Scheer took part in torpedo training aboard , from January to May 1888. In May 1888, Scheer returned to the East Africa Squadron as a torpedo officer aboard the corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...
. This tour lasted until early summer 1890, at which point Scheer returned to Germany, where he was made an instructor at the Torpedo Research Command in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
. Thus far in his career, Scheer had made a strong reputation for himself as a torpedo specialist. While stationed in Kiel, Scheer met Alfred von Tirpitz, who took note of his expertise. In 1897, following von Tirpitz's promotion to Secretary of State of the Imperial Navy Office, he transferred Scheer to the Reichsmarineamt (RMA) to work in the Torpedo Section.
After promotion to Korvettenkapitän, Scheer commanded the light cruiser .
Scheer was promoted to Kapitän zur See in 1905 and took command of the battleship in 1907, a command he held for two years. A report dated 1 December 1909 recommended Scheer for promotion; he became chief of staff to the commanding officer of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff
Henning von Holtzendorff
Henning von Holtzendorff was a German admiral during World War I who became famous for his Dec 1916 memo to Kaiser Wilhelm II about unrestricted submarine warfare against the United Kingdom...
, under whom Scheer had served on the cruiser SMS Prinzess Wilhelm. Scheer reached flag rank less than six months after taking his post on von Holtzendorff's staff, at the age of 47. He held the Chief of Staff position until late 1911, when he was transferred back to the RMA under Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz
Alfred von Tirpitz was a German Admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871...
. Here, he held the position of Chief of the General Naval Department through 1912. Following this appointment, Scheer returned to a sea command, in the form of squadron commander for the six battleships of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet in January 1913.
World War I
On 9 December 1913, Scheer was promoted to Vizeadmiral. He remained with the II Battle Squadron until January 1915, by which time World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
had begun. He thereafter took command of the III Battle Squadron, which consisted of the most powerful battleships in the German fleet: the dreadnought
Dreadnought
The dreadnought was the predominant type of 20th-century battleship. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy's had such an impact when launched in 1906 that similar battleships built after her were referred to as "dreadnoughts", and earlier battleships became known as pre-dreadnoughts...
s of the and es. Scheer advocated raids on the British coast to lure out portions of the numerically superior Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
so they could be overwhelmed by the German fleet. He was highly critical of Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl
Friedrich von Ingenohl
Gustav Heinrich Ernst Friedrich von Ingenohl was a German admiral from Neuwied best known for his command of the German High Seas Fleet at the beginning of World War I....
, who he felt was overly cautious.
Following the bombardment of Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby
Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby
The raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby, which took place on 16 December 1914, was an attack by the Imperial German Navy on the British seaport towns of Scarborough, Hartlepool, West Hartlepool, and Whitby. The attack resulted in 137 fatalities and 592 casualties, many of which were civilians...
, during which Ingenohl had withdrawn instead of attacking a weaker British squadron, Scheer remarked, "[Ingenohl] had robbed us of the opportunity of meeting certain divisions of the enemy according to the prearranged plan, which was now seen to be correct." Following the loss of at the Battle of Dogger Bank
Battle of Dogger Bank (1915)
The Battle of Dogger Bank was a naval battle fought near the Dogger Bank in the North Sea on 24 January 1915, during the First World War, between squadrons of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet....
in January 1915, the Kaiser removed Admiral von Ingenohl from his post on 2 February. Admiral Hugo von Pohl
Hugo von Pohl
Hugo von Pohl was a German admiral who during the First World War commanded the German High Seas Fleet from 1915 until shortly before his death from illness in 1916....
replaced him as commander of the fleet. Admiral von Pohl was exceedingly cautious; in the remainder of 1915, he conducted only five ineffective fleet actions, all of which remained within 120 nautical mile
Nautical mile
The nautical mile is a unit of length that is about one minute of arc of latitude along any meridian, but is approximately one minute of arc of longitude only at the equator...
s of Helgoland
Heligoland
Heligoland is a small German archipelago in the North Sea.Formerly Danish and British possessions, the islands are located in the Heligoland Bight in the south-eastern corner of the North Sea...
.
Command of the High Seas fleet
Vice Admiral Scheer became Commander in chief of the High Seas Fleet on 18 January 1916 when Admiral von Pohl became too ill to continue in that post. Upon promotion to the position, Scheer wrote Guiding Principles for Sea Warfare in the North Sea, which outlined his strategic plans. His central idea was that the Grand Fleet should be pressured by higher U-boat activity and zeppelin raids as well as increased fleet sorties. The Grand Fleet would be forced to abandon the distant blockade and would have to attack the German fleet; the Kaiser approved the memorandum on 23 February 1916. Now that he had approval from the Kaiser, Scheer could use the fleet more aggressively.Following the Kaiser's order forbidding unrestricted submarine warfare on 24 April 1916, Scheer ordered all of the U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
s in the Atlantic to return to Germany and abandon commerce raiding. Scheer intended to use the submarines to support the fleet by stationing the U-boats off major British naval bases. The U-boats would intercept British forces leaving the ports when provoked by a bombardment by the I Scouting Group
I Scouting Group
The I Scouting Group was a special reconnaissance unit within the German Kaiserliche Marine. The unit was famously commanded by Admiral Franz von Hipper during World War I. The I Scouting Group was one of the most active formations in the High Seas Fleet during the war; the unit took part in every...
battlecruisers under the command of Vice Admiral Franz von Hipper
Franz von Hipper
Franz Ritter von Hipper was an admiral in the German Imperial Navy . Franz von Hipper joined the German Navy in 1881 as an officer cadet. He commanded several torpedo boat units and served as watch officer aboard several warships, as well as Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern...
. Scheer planned the operation for 17 May, but damage to the battlecruiser from the previous month, coupled with condenser trouble on several of the battleships of III Battle Squadron caused the plan to be delayed, ultimately to 31 May.
Battle of Jutland
Admiral Scheer's fleet, composed of 16 dreadnoughts, six pre-dreadnoughts, six light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats departed the Jade early on the morning of 31 May. The fleet sailed in concert with Hipper's five battlecruisers and supporting cruisers and torpedo boats. The British navy's Room 40Room 40
In the history of Cryptanalysis, Room 40 was the section in the Admiralty most identified with the British cryptoanalysis effort during the First World War.Room 40 was formed in October 1914, shortly after the start of the war...
had intercepted and decrypted German radio traffic containing plans of the operation, and so sortied the Grand Fleet, totaling some 28 dreadnoughts and 9 battlecruisers, the night before in order to cut off and destroy the High Seas Fleet.
At 16:00 UTC, the two battlecruiser forces encountered each other and began a running gun fight south, back towards Scheer's battle fleet. Upon reaching the High Seas Fleet, Vice Admiral David Beatty's
David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty
Admiral of the Fleet David Richard Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty, GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO was an admiral in the Royal Navy...
battlecruisers turned back to the north to lure the Germans towards the rapidly approaching Grand Fleet, under the command of Admiral John Jellicoe
John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe
Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, GCB, OM, GCVO was a British Royal Navy admiral who commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in World War I...
. During the run to the north, Scheer's leading ships engaged the s of the 5th Battle Squadron. By 18:30, the Grand Fleet had arrived on the scene, and was deployed into a position that would cross Scheer's "T"
Crossing the T
Crossing the T or Capping the T is a classic naval warfare tactic attempted from the late 19th to mid 20th century, in which a line of warships crossed in front of a line of enemy ships, allowing the crossing line to bring all their guns to bear while receiving fire from only the forward guns of...
from the northeast. To extricate his fleet from this precarious position, Scheer ordered a 16-point
Compass Point
Compass Point may refer to:* Compass point, a direction on a traditional compass* Compass Point * Compass Point Shopping Centre, a shopping mall in Singapore* Compass Point Studios, a studio in Nassau, Bahamas...
turn to the south-west. At 18:55, Scheer decided to conduct another 16-point turn to launch an attack on the British fleet; he later explained his reasoning:
It was as yet too early to assume 'night cruising order.' The enemy could have compelled us to fight before dark, he could have prevented our exercising our initiative, and finally he could have cut off our return to the German Bight. There was only one way of avoiding this: to inflict a second blow on the enemy with another advance carried through regardless of cost...It also offered the possibility of a last attempt being made to bring help to the hard-pressed , or at least of rescuing her ship's company.
This maneuver again put Scheer in a dangerous position; Jellicoe had turned his fleet south and again crossed Scheer's "T." A third 16-point turn followed, which was covered by a charge by Hipper's mauled battlecruisers. Scheer then ordered the fleet to adopt the night cruising formation, which was completed by 23:40. A series of ferocious engagements between Scheer's battleships and Jellicoe's destroyer screen ensued, though the Germans managed to punch their way through the destroyers and make for Horns Reef
Horns Reef
Horns Rev is a shallow area in the eastern North Sea, about 15 km / 10 miles off the westernmost point of Denmark, Blåvands Huk...
. The High Seas Fleet reached the Jade between 13:00 and 14:45 on 1 June; Scheer ordered the undamaged battleships of the I Battle Squadron to take up defensive positions in the Jade roadstead
Roadstead
A roadstead is a place outside a harbor where a ship can lie at anchor. It is an enclosed area with an opening to the sea, narrower than a bay or gulf. It has a surface that cannot be confused with an estuary. It can be created artificially by jetties or dikes...
while the s were to maintain a state of readiness just outside Wilhelmshaven.
Post-Jutland
After the battle was finished, Scheer wrote an assessment of the engagement for the Kaiser; in it, he strongly urged for the resumption of the unrestricted submarine warfareUnrestricted submarine warfare
Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchantmen without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules...
campaign in the Atlantic. He argued that it was the only option to defeat Great Britain. Scheer spent the majority of the remainder of the year debating the issue with the naval command. Ultimately, Scheer and his allies prevailed and the unrestricted submarine campaign was resumed in February 1917. Despite his conviction that only the U-boats could defeat Britain, Scheer continued to utilize the surface fleet. On 18–19 August 1916, the High Seas Fleet again sortied in an attempt to draw out and defeat Admiral Beatty's battlecruiser squadron. The Royal Navy again intercepted German communications and sent the Grand Fleet out. In this case, however, Scheer's reconnaissance worked as intended, and warned him of the Grand Fleet's approach in time to retreat back to Germany. In later 1917, Scheer began to use light elements of the fleet to raid British convoys to Norway in the North Sea. This forced the British to deploy battleships to escort the convoys, which presented Scheer with the opportunity to attempt to isolate and destroy several battleships of the Grand Fleet. On 23 April 1918, Scheer sent the entire High Seas Fleet to intercept one of the convoys. However, Hipper's battlecruisers crossed the convoy's path several times without sighting any ships; it was later discovered that German intelligence had miscalculated the date the convoy would depart Britain. The German fleet turned south and reached their North Sea bases by 19:00.
Chief of Naval Staff
In June 1918, Scheer was informed that the state of Admiral von Holtzendorff's health would not permit him to remain in his post as chief of the naval staff much longer. On 28 July, Scheer was informed that von Holtzendorff had submitted his resignation to the Kaiser. Two weeks later, on 11 August 1918, Scheer was promoted to the Chief of Naval Staff; his subordinate Franz von Hipper in command succeeded him in command of the High Seas Fleet. The following day, Scheer met with Field Marshal Paul von HindenburgPaul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....
and General Erich Ludendorff
Erich Ludendorff
Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff was a German general, victor of Liège and of the Battle of Tannenberg...
to discuss the deteriorating war situation. The three agreed that the U-boat campaign would be the sole hope for a German victory, as the German army had been pushed to the defensive. Scheer then called for a crash program to build a vastly increased number of U-boats. He stipulated that, at a minimum, at least 16 additional U-boats be constructed per month in the last quarter of 1918. This was to increase to at least an additional 30 per month by the third quarter of 1919. In total, the plan called for 376 to 450 new U-boats. However, German naval historian Holger Herwig suggested the program was "a massive propaganda effort designed to have an effect at home and abroad."
In October, with the war largely lost, Scheer and Hipper envisioned one last major fleet advance to attack the British Grand Fleet. Scheer intended to inflict as much damage as possible on the British navy, to achieve a better bargaining position for Germany regardless of the cost to the navy. The plan involved two simultaneous attacks by light cruisers and destroyers, one on Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
and another on shipping in the Thames estuary
Thames Estuary
The Thames Mouth is the estuary in which the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea.It is not easy to define the limits of the estuary, although physically the head of Sea Reach, near Canvey Island on the Essex shore is probably the western boundary...
; the five battlecruisers were to support the Thames attack while the dreadnoughts remained off Flanders. After both strikes, the fleet was to concentrate off the Dutch coast, where it would meet the Grand Fleet in battle. While the fleet was consolidating in Wilhelmshaven, however, war-weary sailors began deserting en masse. As Von der Tann and Derfflinger passed through the locks that separated Wilhelmshaven's inner harbor and roadstead, some 300 men from both ships climbed over the side and disappeared ashore. On 24 October 1918, the order was given to sail from Wilhelmshaven. Starting on the night of 29 October, sailors on several battleships mutinied
Wilhelmshaven mutiny
The Kiel mutiny was a major revolt by sailors of the German High Seas Fleet on 3 November 1918. The revolt triggered the German revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. It ultimately led to the end of the First World War and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.-...
; three ships from the III Squadron refused to weigh anchors, and acts of sabotage were committed on board the battleships and . In the face of open rebellion, the order to sail was rescinded and the planned operation was abandoned. In an attempt to suppress the mutiny, the High Seas Fleet squadrons were dispersed.
Post-war
Scheer wrote his memoirs in 1919, which were translated into English the following year. In October 1920, an intruder broke into Scheer's house and murdered his wife, Emillie and his maid, and injured his daughter Else. The man then committed suicide in the cellar. Following the incident, Scheer retreated into solitude. He wrote his autobiography, entitled Vom Segelschiff zum U-Boot (From Sailing Ship to Submarine), which was published on 6 November 1925.In 1928, Scheer accepted an invitation to meet his adversary from Jutland, John Jellicoe, in England. However, at the age of 65, Scheer died at Marktredwitz
Marktredwitz
Marktredwitz is a municipality in the district of Wunsiedel, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 22 km west of Cheb, 50 km east of Bayreuth and 50 km south of Hof/Saale.The town celebrated the Horticultural Show 2006 in cooperation with Cheb....
in before he could make the trip. He was buried in the municipal cemetery at Weimar. His tombstone reads: [Here rests Admiral Reinhard Scheer] — with the dates of his life, his flag in metal applique and the single word (the German name for the Battle of Jutland).
The heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer
German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer
Admiral Scheer was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June...
was named after Reinhard Scheer and christened by his daughter Marianne. The ship was ordered and funded by the Reichsmarine
Reichsmarine
The Reichsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Weimar Republic and first two years of Nazi Germany. It was the naval branch of the Reichswehr, existing from 1918 to 1935...
of the Weimar Republic
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government...
and launched in 1933.