Blücher was the second of five of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine (), built after the rise of the Nazi Party and the repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles. Named for Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, the Prussian victor of the Battle of Waterloo, the ship was laid down in August 1935 and launched in June 1937. She was completed in September 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. After completing a series of and training exercises, the ship was pronounced ready for service with the fleet on 5 April 1940. She was armed with a main battery of eight guns and, although nominally under the limit set by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, actually displaced over .
Immediately upon entering service, Blücher was assigned to the task force that supported the invasion of Norway in April 1940. Blücher served as the flagship of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Oskar Kummetz, the commander of Group 5. The ship led the flotilla of warships into the Oslofjord on the night of 8 April, to seize Oslo, the capital of Norway. Two old coastal guns in the Oscarsborg Fortress engaged the ship at very close range, scoring two hits, as did several smaller guns in other batteries. Two torpedoes fired by a torpedo battery in the fortress struck the ship, causing serious damage. A major fire broke out aboard Blücher, which could not be contained. The fire spread to one of her anti-aircraft gun magazines, causing a large explosion, and then spread further to the ship's fuel bunkers. Blücher then and sank with major loss of life.
The wreck lies at the bottom of Oslofjord, and in 2016 was designated as a war memorial to protect it from looters. Several artifacts have been raised from the wreck, including one of her Arado 196 , which was recovered during an operation to pump out leaking fuel oil from the ship in 1994.
Design
As launched, Blücher was length overall, had a beam of and a maximum draft of . The ship had a design displacement of and a full load displacement of . Blücher was powered by three sets of Blohm & Voss geared that drove three . The turbines were supplied with steam by twelve ultra-high pressure oil-fired . The ship's top speed was at . As designed, her standard complement consisted of 42 officers and 1,340 enlisted men.
Blüchers primary armament was eight SK L/60 guns mounted in four twin , placed in superfire forward and aft. Her anti-aircraft battery consisted of twelve L/65 guns, twelve guns, and eight guns. She had four triple torpedo launchers, all on the main deck next to the four range finders for the anti-aircraft guns.
Blüchers belt armor was thick; her upper deck was thick while the main armored deck was thick. The main battery turrets had thick faces and 70 mm thick sides. The ship was equipped with three Arado Ar 196 seaplanes and one catapult. Blucher never had more than two seaplanes on board, and en route to Oslo one had to rest on the catapult as one of the hangars was used for storing bombs and torpedoes.
Service history
Blücher spent most of November 1939 fitting out and finishing additional improvements. By the end of the month, the ship was ready for ; she steamed to Gotenhafen in the Baltic Sea. The trials lasted until mid-December, after which the ship returned to Kiel for final modifications. In January 1940, she resumed her exercises in the Baltic, but by the middle of the month, severe ice forced the ship to remain in port. On 5 April, she was deemed to be ready for action, and was therefore assigned to the forces participating in the invasion of Norway.
Operation Weserübung
Night had fallen by the time the German flotilla reached the approaches to the Oslofjord. Shortly after 23:00 (Norwegian time), the Norwegian patrol boat spotted the flotilla. The German torpedo boat attacked Pol III and set her on fire, but not before the Norwegian patrol boat raised the alarm with a radio report of being attacked by unknown warships. At 23:30 (Norwegian time) the south battery on Rauøy spotted the flotilla in the searchlight and fired two warning shots. Five minutes later, the guns at the Rauøy battery fired four rounds at the approaching Germans, but visibility was poor and no hits were scored. The guns at Bolærne fired only one warning shot at 23:32. Before Blücher could be targeted again, she was out of the firing sector of these shore guns and not seen by them again after 23:35.
The German flotilla steamed on at a speed of . Shortly after midnight (Norwegian time), an order from the Commanding Admiral to extinguish all lighthouses and navigation lights was broadcast over the NRK (Norsk rikskringkasting) Norwegian. The German ships had been ordered to fire only in the event they were directly fired on first. Between 00:30 and 02:00, the flotilla stopped and 150 infantrymen of the landing force were transferred to the escorts R17 and R21 (from Emden) and R18 and R19 (from Blücher).
Battle of Drøbak Sound
The Germans were unable to locate the source of the gunfire. Blücher went to full available power in an attempt to accelerate past the Norwegian guns, but the ship had only increased speed to about before the order to reverse course had to be given to avoid ship grounding in the narrow waters. The guns on Drøbak, some on Blüchers starboard side, opened fire as well. At a distance of Blücher entered the narrows between Kopås and Hovedbatteriet, the main battery, at Kaholmen. The Kopås battery ceased firing at Blücher and engaged the next target, Lützow, scoring multiple hits. First engineer Karl Thannemann wrote in his report that the hits from the guns on Drøbak, which were fired on the starboard side, were all between section IV and X in a length of amidships, between B-turret and C-turret. However, all damage was on the port side. After the first salvo from the 15 cm batteries in Drøbak, the steering from the bridge was disabled. Blücher had just passed Drøbakgrunnen (Drøbak shallows) and was in a turn to port. The commander got her back on track by using the side shafts, but she lost speed from the she had managed to achieve. At 04:34 two torpedoes from a concealed and unknown battery at the Oscarsborg fortress scored hits on the ship.
According to Kummetz's report, the first torpedo hit Boiler Room 2, just under the funnel, and the second hit Turbine Room 2/3 (the turbine room for the side shafts). Boiler 1 had already been destroyed by gunfire. Only one boiler remained, but the steam pipes through Boilers 1 and 2 and Turbine Room 2/3 had been damaged and Turbine 1 had lost power. By 04:34, the ship had been severely damaged, but had successfully passed through the firing zone; most of the Norwegian guns could no longer bear on her. The 15 cm guns in the Kopås battery were all standing in open positions with a wide sector of firing, and they were still within range. The battery crews asked for orders, but the commander of the fortress, Birger Eriksen, concluded: "The fortress has served its purpose".
After passing the gun batteries, the crew, including the personnel manning the guns, were tasked with fighting the fire. By that time she had taken on a list of 18 degrees, although this was not initially problematic. The fire eventually reached one of the ship's 10.5 cm ammunition magazines between turbine room 1 and turbine room 2/3, which exploded violently. The blast ruptured several bulkheads in the engine rooms and ignited the ship's fuel stores. The battered ship slowly began to capsize and the order to abandon ship was given. Blücher rolled over and sank at 07:30, with significant casualties. Naval historian Erich Gröner states that the number of casualties is unknown, and Henrik Lunde gives a loss of life figure ranging between 600 and 1,000 soldiers and sailors. Jürgen Rohwer meanwhile states that 125 seamen and 195 soldiers died in the sinking.
The loss of Blücher and the damage done to Lützow caused the German force to withdraw. The ground troops were landed on the eastern side of the fjord; they proceeded inland and captured Oscarborg Fortress by 09:00 on 10 April. They then moved on to attack the capital. Airborne troops captured Fornebu Airport and completed the encirclement of the city, and by 14:00 on 10 April it was in German hands. The delay caused by the temporary withdrawal of Blüchers task force, however, allowed the Norwegian government and royal family to escape the city.
Wreck
The shipwreck was protected as a war memorial on 16 June 2016, but also protected by law by the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage as a war grave. The intention was to protect the ship from looters.
Footnotes
Notes
Citations
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(1990). 9783782204873, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft. ISBN 9783782204873
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(1999). 9788299520805 ISBN 9788299520805
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(1992). 9783763758968, Bernard & Graefe Verlag. ISBN 9783763758968
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(1975). 9788203080531, Aschehoug. ISBN 9788203080531
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(2025). 9788243001916, Spartacus forlag AS. ISBN 9788243001916
Further reading
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