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| Industry | Shipbuilding |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1867 |
| Defunct | 1945 |
| Fate | Dismantled afterWorld War II; re-activated asHowaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft Kiel Shipyards ~1968 |
| Headquarters | Kiel,Germany |
| Products | Merchant ships Warships U-boats |
Number of employees | 10,000 |
| Parent | Krupp (After 1896) |
Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft (often just calledGermaniawerft, "Germania shipyard") was a Germanshipbuilding company, located in the harbour atKiel, and one of the largest and most important builders ofU-boats for theKaiserliche Marine inWorld War I and theKriegsmarine inWorld War II. The original company was founded in 1867 but went bankrupt and was bought out byFriedrich Krupp. Krupp was very interested in buildingwarships and in the time before the First World War built a number of battleships for the Kaiserliche Marine, includingSMS Posen,SMS Prinzregent Luitpold,SMS Kronprinz, andSMS Sachsen. A total of 84 U-boats were built in the shipyard during the war. After the war it returned to the normal production of yachts and transports.
The company was founded in 1867 byLloyd Foster, as theNorddeutsche Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, in the town of Gaarden, nearKiel. The idea of the company was to constructwar andmerchant ships. In 1876 the company built the personal yacht ofKaiser Wilhelm II, theSMY Hohenzollern.
The company went bankrupt in 1879 and had to be sold and became property of theMärkisch-Schlesischen Maschinenbau und Hütten-Aktiengesellschaft. They had constructedsteam engines inBerlin since 1822. A few years later this company also got in trouble and in late 1882 a new company was founded, theSchiff- und Maschinenbau-Actien-Gesellschaft Germania.
A few more warships were constructed and the company also had a very good reputation concerning the construction oftorpedo boats. However the financial problems were never far away and by the end of August 1896 Krupp took over, as they were very interested in building warships themselves. Between 1898 and 1902 the company doubled its surface and new and large slips were constructed. In 1902 the company changed name and became theFriedrich Krupp Germaniawerft.
In 1908, Germaniawerft built theschoonerGermania forGustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, based on a design fromMax Oertz. It was the first yacht of its size built in Germany. In the period precedingWorld War I, it also built a number ofbattleships for theKaiserliche Marine, includingSMS Posen,SMS Prinzregent Luitpold,SMS Kronprinz andSMS Sachsen. During the First World War, the company turned to buildingU-boats. A total of 84 U-boats were delivered to the Kaiserliche Marine.
Afterwards, it returned to its original vocation, including building the steel-hulledbarqueMagdalene Vinnen II, nowSTS Sedov and the largest traditionalsailing ship still afloat.
DuringWorld War II, the Germaniawerft was one of the most important suppliers of theKriegsmarine, because of its proximity to German naval facilities in Kiel. Over the course of the war, the company completed 131 U-boats (typesII,VII,XB,XIV,XVII, andXXIII). The Kriegsmarine had in total ordered 240 U-boats. In 1944, the shipyard had over 10,000 employees, of which roughly 11% wereforced labourers.
On 26 April 1945, the last U-boat built in the Germaniawerft was launched,U-4714. The war ended before it could enter into service. The most famous U-boats built at the Germaniawerft are probablyU-47, which was commanded byGünther Prien during his sinking ofHMS Royal Oak in 1940, andU-96, which formed the basis ofLothar-Günther Buchheim's novelDas Boot.
After the war, the partially ruined shipyard was one of the first facilities dismantled by the victorious Allies. The population of heavily bombed Kiel protested furiously this decision, but to no avail. The site was broken up and not rebuilt. In the late 1960s, the grounds were purchased byHowaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft as a submarine-building shipyard. As of 2015, submarines are being built at the site.
