Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,800
Germany's only aircraft carrier ...
On August 8, 1938, the first and only German aircraft carrier was launched at Kiel!
The ship is christened "Graf Zeppelin" - godmother is Hella von Brandenstein-Zeppelin ...
... the daughter of the aged airship pioneer Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (next picture in the centre), who is also present ...:
Also present are of course Hitler, the Commander-in-Chief of Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder ...
... and the inevitable Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Göring, who gives the baptismal address ...:
Then the 33,550-ton colossus slides down the drainage track into its element ...:
Insgesamt plante Hitlerdeutschland den Bau von zwei Flugzeugträgern, die Kriegsmarine wollte noch zwei weitere haben - keiner wird jemals zum Einsatz kommen!
Der Bau der "Graf Zeppelin" wird sich mit Unterbrechungen bis Februar 1943 hinziehen, als er – obwohl bereits weit fortgeschritten – endgültig eingestellt wird...:
From the second - still nameless - "Flugzeugträger B" ...
... parts of the fuselage had already been completed by then ...
... it was canceled again on the Helgen in 1943!
After Stalingrad, Germany had other worries than building a second aircraft carrier ...!
At the end of the war, the "Graf Zeppelin", which had meanwhile been partially cannibalized again, was hidden in the Swina estuary in front of Swinemünde (today: Świnoujście, Poland) ...:
... and sunk by the Germans themselves in the shallow water when the Red Army approached.
After the war the Soviets will lift it - and finally sink it in 1947 by explosion attempts ...:
There, on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, the wreck lies to this day ...:
On August 8, 1938, the first and only German aircraft carrier was launched at Kiel!
The ship is christened "Graf Zeppelin" - godmother is Hella von Brandenstein-Zeppelin ...
... the daughter of the aged airship pioneer Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (next picture in the centre), who is also present ...:
Also present are of course Hitler, the Commander-in-Chief of Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder ...
... and the inevitable Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Göring, who gives the baptismal address ...:
Then the 33,550-ton colossus slides down the drainage track into its element ...:
Insgesamt plante Hitlerdeutschland den Bau von zwei Flugzeugträgern, die Kriegsmarine wollte noch zwei weitere haben - keiner wird jemals zum Einsatz kommen!
Der Bau der "Graf Zeppelin" wird sich mit Unterbrechungen bis Februar 1943 hinziehen, als er – obwohl bereits weit fortgeschritten – endgültig eingestellt wird...:
From the second - still nameless - "Flugzeugträger B" ...
... parts of the fuselage had already been completed by then ...
... it was canceled again on the Helgen in 1943!
After Stalingrad, Germany had other worries than building a second aircraft carrier ...!
At the end of the war, the "Graf Zeppelin", which had meanwhile been partially cannibalized again, was hidden in the Swina estuary in front of Swinemünde (today: Świnoujście, Poland) ...:
... and sunk by the Germans themselves in the shallow water when the Red Army approached.
After the war the Soviets will lift it - and finally sink it in 1947 by explosion attempts ...:
There, on the bottom of the Baltic Sea, the wreck lies to this day ...:
