German cruiser Karlsruhe 1940
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | German cruiser Karlsruhe | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1940 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | light cruiser | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | War action | Wikidata P828 has cause (on P793 event): torpedo |
| Nationality / flag | Nazi Germany | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | Kriegsmarine | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | Operation Weserübung | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Skagerrak | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Norway | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 11 km from land |
| Position | 58.0667, 8.0667 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
Karlsruhe was a light cruiser, the second member of the Königsberg class, and served from November 1929 to May 1938, and again from November 1939 to April 1940, seeing action in World War II. She was operated by two German navies, the Reichsmarine and the Kriegsmarine. She had two sister ships, Königsberg and Köln. Karlsruhe was laid down in July 1926 at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel, launched in August 1927, and commissioned into the Reichsmarine in November 1929. She was armed with a main battery of nine 15 cm SK C/25 guns in three triple turrets and had a top speed of 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph).
Like her sisters, Karlsruhe served as a training cruiser for naval cadets throughout the 1930s. During the Spanish Civil War, she joined the non-intervention patrols off the Spanish coast. She was in the process of being modernized at the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, and was therefore not ready for action until November 1939. In April 1940 Karlsruhe participated in Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway.
Diving & visiting
Karlsruhe sank in deep water, and the exact position of the wreck remained unknown for more than 80 years. The Norwegian power grid operator Statnett conducted a sonar survey in April 2017 that located the wreck but did not identify it at the time. The vessel lies upright on the sea floor, 15 m (49 ft) from the submerged power line between Denmark and Norway, operated by Statnett. Karlsruhe's bow is no longer attached to the vessel. The wreck is some 13 nmi (24 km; 15 mi) off the Norwegian coast, at a depth of about 490 m (1,610 ft).
Location
- Recorded position: 58.0667, 8.0667 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Skagerrak
- Nearest coast: Norway
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article German cruiser Karlsruhe (revision 1375861720), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “The wreck”; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- MS Seattle 1940 · 4 km
- MS Palatia 1942 · 50 km
- SS Rio de Janeiro 1940 · 91 km
- HMS Seawolf 95 km
- HNLMS O 22 1940 · 151 km
- Alexander Nevsky 1868 · 154 km
Other wrecks of the Operation Weserübung
- Blücher 1940
- German submarine U-64 1940
- HMS Glowworm 1940
- HMS Hardy 1940
- HMS Hunter 1940
- Scharnhorst 1943
- HMS Penelope 1944
- U-29 1945
- U-30 1945
- U-48 1945
All 11 wrecks of the Operation Weserübung →
Browse more: Europe wrecks · wrecks off Norway · Skagerrak · Second World War