Königsberg-class cruiser (1927)
The Königsberg class, sometimes referred to as the K class, was a class of light cruisers of the German Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine. The class comprised three ships named after German cities: Königsberg, Karlsruhe, and Köln, all built between 1926 and 1930. These ships were the first of the Reichsmarine with a modern cruiser design; their predecessor, Emden, was based on World War I-era designs. They were armed with a main battery of nine 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and with twelve 50 cm (20 in) torpedo tubes.
A member of the Königsberg class in 1936
Karlsruhe circa 1930
Köln at her launching on 23 May 1928
Königsberg in 1936
The Reichsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Weimar Republic and first two years of Nazi Germany. It was the naval branch of the Reichswehr, existing from 1919 to 1935. In 1935, it became known as the Kriegsmarine, a branch of the Wehrmacht; a change implemented by Adolf Hitler. Many of the administrative and organizational tenets of the Reichsmarine were then carried over into the organization of the Kriegsmarine.
The Mürwik Naval School in 1929
Ships of the Reichsmarine on maneuvers in 1929 with a Königsberg-class cruiser on the right
Image: Admiraal Adolf von Trotha
Image: Paul Behncke (1866 1937) (cropped)