Service
Karlsruhe was first designated as a training ship and made five cruises until 1936. (One such cruise included a stop in Honolulu Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, in March 1934.) In 1936, she was severely damaged during a tropical storm on the American West coast, and had to stop at Naval Base San Diego for major repairs before returning to Germany in June 1936.
In January and February 1937, she took part in the non-intervention patrols off the coasts of Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Civil War, but returned to the Baltic Sea for training purposes after that. In May 1938, she was put out of service and underwent major overhaul at Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven which lasted until November 1939.
In early April 1940, Karlsruhe took part in the invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung) as part of Task Force (Gruppe) 4, carrying troops together with the torpedo boats Seeadler, Greif and Luchs. Sailing from Bremerhaven on 8 April 1940, she arrived off Kristiansand early next morning. Fog prevented her from entering the harbour immediately. When the fog finally lifted, she encountered a Norwegian coastal battery, which was suppressed and eventually surrendered. After disembarking her troops in Kristiansand in the early hours of 9 April, she headed back to Germany. However, the British submarine HMS Truant, lying in wait outside Kristiansand, attacked Karlsruhe on her way back, hitting her with two torpedoes that struck her at the bow and at the base of the main mast, thus disabling both engines and power stations. The crew was ordered off the ship by the captain and was picked up by the torpedo boat Greif, which then fired two more torpedoes, sinking the crippled cruiser at 58°4′N 8°4′E / 58.067°N 8.067°E / 58.067; 8.067 around 22:50 in the evening .
Captain Friedrich Rieve later was reprimanded in an inquiry into the sinking of the Karlsruhe. Since it had been established that the ship had been afloat for more than two hours after being torpedoed, the board came to the conclusion that not nearly enough effort had been made to save the ship, especially since it took two more torpedoes to finally sink her.
Read more about this topic: German Cruiser Karlsruhe
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