 Pre-war illustration of Berlin
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| History | |
|---|---|
  German Empire | |
| Name | Berlin |
| Laid down | 1902 |
| Launched | 22 September 1903 |
| Commissioned | 4 April 1905 |
| Decommissioned | 29 October 1912 |
| Recommissioned | 1 August 1914 |
| Decommissioned | 11 February 1917 |
| Recommissioned | 2 July 1922 |
| Decommissioned | 27 March 1929 |
| Stricken | 1 October 1935 |
| Fate | Scuttled, 1947 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Bremen-class light cruiser |
| Displacement | |
| Length | Length overall: 111.1 meters (365 ft) |
| Beam | 13.3 m (43.6 ft) |
| Draft | 5.51 m (18.1 ft) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph) |
| Range | 4,270 nmi (7,910 km; 4,910 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Complement |
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| Armament |
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| Armor |
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SMS Berlin ("His Majesty's Ship Berlin")[a] was the second member of the seven-vessel Bremen class of light cruisers, built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the early 1900s. She and her sister ships were ordered under the 1898 Naval Law that required new cruisers be built to replace obsolete vessels in the fleet. The design for the Bremen class was derived from the preceding Gazelle class, utilizing a larger hull that allowed for additional boilers that increased speed. Named for the German capital of Berlin, the ship was armed with a main battery of ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns and had a top speed of 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph).
Berlin served with the main fleet's scouting forces for the majority of her early career; during this period, she conducted unit and fleet training exercises, visits to foreign countries, and in 1908 and 1909, several long-distance training cruises into the central Atlantic. In 1911, the ship was involved in the Agadir Crisis over the French annexation of part of Morocco, which resulted in a diplomatic defeat for Germany. Berlin was reduced to reserve status in late 1912, remaining out of service until the start of World War I in July 1914. She was used to support German coastal defense forces and to scout for the High Seas Fleet; on two different occasions, she had to tow her sister ship Danzig back to port after the latter struck naval mines, and she had to tow her sister München after that vessel was torpedoed by a submarine. Berlin was reduced to a tender in early 1917 and saw no further active service for the rest of the war.
Among the handful of vessels permitted to Weimar Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, Berlin was initially used as a stationary training vessel before being modernized between 1921 and 1922. She thereafter served as a training ship for naval cadets, and over the course of the mid-1920s, embarked a series of long-distance training cruises. The furthest of these, lasting from late 1927 to early 1929, saw the ship voyage as far as East Asia. She was decommissioned in March 1929 and kept in reserve until 1935, when she was converted into a barracks ship, a role she filled through World War II. After the war, she was loaded with chemical weapons and scuttled in the Skagerrak in 1946.
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