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German Battleship Gneisenau
''Gneisenau'' () was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship and battlecruiser, of Nazi Germany's '' Kriegsmarine''. She was the second vessel of her class, which included her sister ship, . The ship was built at the ''Deutsche Werke'' dockyard in Kiel; she was laid down on 6 May 1935 and launched on 8 December 1936. Completed in May 1938, the ship was armed with a main battery of nine 28 cm (11 in) C/34 guns in three triple turrets. Plans were approved, once construction had started, to replace these weapons with six 38 cm (15 in) SK C/34 guns in twin turrets, but as this would involve a lot of redesign, construction continued with the lower calibre guns. The intent was to make the upgrade in the winter of 1940–41, but the outbreak of World War II stopped this. ''Gneisenau'' and ''Scharnhorst'' operated together for much of the early portion of World War II, including sorties into the Atlantic to raid British merchant shipping. ...
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Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany quickly became a totalitarian state where nearly all aspects of life were controlled by the government. The Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", alluded to the Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which Hitler and the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich, ended in May 1945 after just 12 years when the Allies defeated Germany, ending World War II in Europe. On 30 January 1933, Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany, the head of gove ...
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Battlecruiser
The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attributes. Battlecruisers typically had thinner armour (to a varying degree) and a somewhat lighter main gun battery than contemporary battleships, installed on a longer hull with much higher engine power in order to attain greater speeds. The first battlecruisers were designed in the United Kingdom, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship. The goal of the design was to outrun any ship with similar armament, and chase down any ship with lesser armament; they were intended to hunt down slower, older armoured cruisers and destroy them with heavy gunfire while avoiding combat with the more powerful but slower battleships. However, as more and more battlecruisers were ...
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Gotenhafen
Gdynia ( ; ; german: Gdingen (currently), (1939–1945); csb, Gdiniô, , , ) is a city in northern Poland and a seaport on the Baltic Sea coast. With a population of 243,918, it is the 12th-largest city in Poland and the second-largest in the Pomeranian Voivodeship after Gdańsk. Gdynia is part of a conurbation with the spa town of Sopot, the city of Gdańsk, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the Tricity (''Trójmiasto'') with around 1,000,000 inhabitants. Historically and culturally part of Kashubia and Eastern Pomerania, Gdynia for centuries remained a small fishing village. By the 20th-century it attracted visitors as a seaside resort town. In 1926, Gdynia was granted city rights after which it enjoyed demographic and urban development, with a modernist cityscape. It became a major seaport city of Poland. In 1970, protests in and around Gdynia contributed to the rise of the Solidarity movement in nearby Gdańsk. The port of Gdyn ...
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Blockship
A blockship is a ship deliberately sunk to prevent a river, channel, or canal from being used. It may either be sunk by a navy defending the waterway to prevent the ingress of attacking enemy forces, as in the case of at Portland Harbour in 1914; or it may be brought by enemy raiders and used to prevent the waterway from being used by the defending forces, as in the case of the three old cruisers , and scuttled during the Zeebrugge raid in 1918 to prevent the port from being used by the German navy. An early use was in 1667, during the Dutch Raid on the Medway and their attempts to do likewise in the Thames during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, when a number of warships and merchant ships commandeered by the Royal Navy were sunk in those rivers to attempt to stop the attacking forces. An even earlier use are the six 11th century Skuldelev ships in Roskilde Fjord, sunk to protect Roskilde from northern Vikings. They are now on display in the Viking Ship Museum. The above is the p ...
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Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the Chancellor of Germany, chancellor in 1933 and then taking the title of in 1934. During his dictatorship, he initiated European theatre of World War II, World War II in Europe by invasion of Poland, invading Poland on 1 September 1939. He was closely involved in military operations throughout the war and was central to the perpetration of the Holocaust: the genocide of Holocaust victims, about six million Jews and millions of other victims. Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary and was raised near Linz. He lived in Vienna later in the first decade of the 1900s and moved to Germany in 1913. He was decorated during his Military career of Adolf Hitler, service in the German Army in Worl ...
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English Channel
The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kanaal, "The Channel"; german: Ärmelkanal, "Sleeve Channel" ( French: ''la Manche;'' also called the British Channel or simply the Channel) is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busiest shipping area in the world. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to at its narrowest in the Strait of Dover."English Channel". ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', 2004. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some . The Channel was a key factor in Britain becoming a naval superpower and has been utilised by Britain as a natural def ...
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Channel Dash
The Channel Dash (german: Unternehmen Zerberus, Operation Cerberus) was a German naval operation during the Second World War. (Cerberus), a three-headed dog of Greek mythology who guards the gate to Hades. A (German Navy) squadron comprising the two s, the heavy cruiser and their escorts was evacuated from Brest in Brittany to German ports. ''Scharnhorst'' and ''Gneisenau'' had arrived in Brest on 22 March 1941 after the success of Operation Berlin in the Atlantic. More raids were planned and the ships were refitted at Brest. The ships were a threat to Allied trans-Atlantic convoys and RAF Bomber Command attacked them from 30 March 1941. ''Gneisenau'' was hit on 6 April 1941 and ''Scharnhorst'' on 24 July 1941, after dispersal to La Pallice. In late 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the (OKM; German Navy High Command) to plan an operation to return the ships to German bases against a British invasion of Norway. The short route up the English Channel was preferred to a detour around ...
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Brest, France
Brest (; ) is a port city in the Finistère department, Brittany. Located in a sheltered bay not far from the western tip of the peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon. The city is located on the western edge of continental France. With 142,722 inhabitants in a 2007 census, Brest forms Western Brittany's largest metropolitan area (with a population of 300,300 in total), ranking third behind only Nantes and Rennes in the whole of historic Brittany, and the 19th most populous city in France; moreover, Brest provides services to the one million inhabitants of Western Brittany. Although Brest is by far the largest city in Finistère, the ''préfecture'' (regional capital) of the department is the much smaller Quimper. During the Middle Ages, the history of Brest was the history of its castle. Then Richelieu made it a military harbour in 1631. Brest grew around its arsenal unti ...
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Operation Berlin (Atlantic)
Operation Berlin was a raid conducted by the two German ''Scharnhorst''-class battleships against Allied shipping in the North Atlantic between 22 January and 22 March 1941. It formed part of the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II. The and sailed from Germany, operated across the North Atlantic, sank or captured 22 Allied merchant vessels, and finished their mission by docking in occupied France. The British military sought to locate and attack the German battleships, but failed to damage them. The operation was one of several made by German warships during late 1940 and early 1941. Its main goal was for the battleships to overwhelm the escort of one of the convoys transporting supplies to the United Kingdom and then sink large numbers of merchant ships. The British were expecting this given previous attacks, and assigned battleships of their own to escort convoys. This proved successful, with the German force having to abandon attacks against convoys on 8 February as ...
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Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung (german: Unternehmen Weserübung , , 9 April – 10 June 1940) was Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. In the early morning of 9 April 1940 (''Wesertag'', "Weser Day"), Germany occupied Denmark and invaded Norway, ostensibly as a preventive manoeuvre against a planned, and openly discussed, French-British occupation of Norway known as Plan R 4 (actually developed as a response to any German aggression against Norway). After the occupation of Denmark (the Danish military was ordered to stand down as Denmark did not declare war with Germany), envoys of the Germans informed the governments of Denmark and Norway that the ''Wehrmacht'' had come to protect the countries' neutrality against Franco-British aggression. Significant differences in geography, location and climate between the two nations made the actual military operations very dissimilar. The invasion fleet's no ...
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38 Cm SK C/34 Naval Gun
The 38 cm SK C/34SK – ''Schnelladekanone'' (quick loading cannon); ''C – Construktionsjahr'' (year of design) naval gun was developed by Germany mid to late 1930s. It armed the s and was planned as the armament of the s and the re-armed s. Six twin-gun mountings were also sold to the Soviet Union and it was planned to use them on the s, however they were never delivered. Spare guns were used as coastal artillery in Denmark, Norway and France. One gun and one barrel is currently on display at respectively Møvig Fortress outside Kristiansand and Bunkermuseum Hanstholm, Denmark. Ammunition It used the standard German naval system of ammunition where the base charge was held in a metallic cartridge case and supplemented by another charge in a silk bag. Both cartridges were rammed together. ;Propellant charge Main charge: 38 cm HuelsKart34 – GefLdG – RP C/38 (16/7) Fore charge: 38 cm VorKart34 – GefLdG – RP C/38 (16/7) Shell Four types of shells were us ...
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