THE GERMAN NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1935, Page 27

THE GERMAN NAVY

During his recent statement in the House of Commons describing his conversation with Herr Hitler in Berlin, Sir John Simon mentioned that in regard to naval armaments Germany claimed, with certain reserves, 35 per cent, of British tonnage. In this connection it is interesting to recall the naval provision of the Versailles Treaty, a matter on which the latest edition of "The Statesman's YearBook" says: "The treaty allows to the German Government the right of maintaining a navy, recruited and maintained on a volunteer basis. The fleet consists of five pre-Dreadnoughts completed between 1906 and-1908, each displacing approximately 13,000 tons and mounting four. . 11-inch and from twelve to fourteen 6.7 or 6-inch guns. These ,are._ the Hanover, Schlesien, Elass, and Schles-wig-Holstein. .. . The 26-knot battleships Deutschland and Admiral Scheer, each of 10,000 tons, driven by Diesel engines, have now been completed. Each is armed with six 11-inch and eight 6-inch guns, and is claimed to have a radius of action!

of 10,000 miles at 20 knots. A third ship of this type was laid down in October, 1932. It was proposed to lay down a fourth unit in 1934. These vessels are officially rated as 'armoured ships.' The cruisers include the Berlin (1904), the still older Amazoneand Hamburg, the Emden (completed 1925), the Konigsberg, Karlsruhe, Koln, and Leipzig, completed 1929-1931, armed with nine 6-inch guns. By treaty the cruisers built since the war are limited to a standard displacement of 6000 tons. There are also. 32 destroyers and torpedo-boats. ... No submarines or naval aircraft are permitted." The 10,000-ton armoured ships are the famous "pocket battleships," which caused so much stir in naval circles. The third of them, the Admiral Graf Spec, was launched last June, the fourth, Ersatz Elass, is building at Kiel, and it was recently stated that a fifth, the Ersatz Hanover, has been laid down at Wilhelmshafen. A new 600-ton cruiser, ' the Nurnberg, with nine 5.9-inch guns, was launched last December.