SMS Blücher

SMS Blücher was the last armored cruiser built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the late 1900s. She was designed in response to the latest British armored cruisers, but the British had already begun work on the Invincible-class battlecruisers, which marked a significant increase in firepower over earlier armored cruisers. Blücher was armed with a main battery of twelve 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, compared to the eight 30.5 cm (12 in) guns of the British ships. Blücher entered service after the Invincibles were commissioned, and as a result, was obsolescent at the start of her career.

Blücher was built at the Kaiserliche Werft shipyard in Kiel between 1907 and 1909, and commissioned on 1 October 1909. The ship initially served in the I Scouting Group for most of her career after entering service in 1910, but in late 1911 was transferred to serve as a gunnery training ship, where she remained until the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. She then returned to I Scouting Group, operating primarily in the North Sea against British forces. She took part in the operation to bombard Yarmouth and the raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby in November and December 1914, respectively.

At the Battle of Dogger Bank on 24 January 1915, Blücher was slowed significantly after being hit by gunfire from the British battlecruiser squadron under the command of Vice Admiral David Beatty. Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper, the commander of the German squadron, decided to abandon Blücher to the pursuing enemy ships in order to save his more valuable battlecruisers. Under heavy fire from the British ships, she was sunk, and British destroyers began recovering the survivors. However, the destroyers withdrew when a German zeppelin began bombing them, mistaking the sinking Blücher for a British battlecruiser. The number of casualties is unknown, with figures ranging from 747 to around 1,000. Blücher was the only warship lost during the engagement.