SMS Kaiser Barbarossa

SMS Kaiser Barbarossa

SMS Kaiser Barbarossa (His Majesty's Ship Emperor Barbarossa) was a German pre-dreadnought battleship of the Kaiser Friedrich III class. The ship was built for the Imperial Navy, which had begun a program of expansion at the direction of Kaiser Wilhelm II. She was constructed at Schichau, in Danzig. Kaiser Barbarossa was laid down in August 1898, launched on 24 April 1900, and completed in June 1901, at the cost of 20,301,000 Marks. The ship was armed with a main battery of four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns in two twin gun turrets.

Kaiser Barbarossa served with the German navy from 1901 to 1907. In 1907, the ship was drydocked for an extensive modernization, which lasted until 1910. By this time, the new dreadnought battleships began to enter service, rendering Kaiser Barbarossa obsolete. As a result, the ship was withdrawn from active service and placed in reserve. Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Kaiser Barbarossa and her sisters were mobilized as coastal defense ships in the V Battle Squadron and assigned to the Baltic Sea. The ships were withdrawn in February 1915 and relegated to secondary duties; Kaiser Barbarossa spent the remainder of the war as a prison ship in Wilhelmshaven. Following the end of the war in 1918, Kaiser Barbarossa was decommissioned and sold for scrap metal. The ship was broken up in 1919–1920.