German cruiser Admiral Hipper
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Career (Nazi Germany)
Name: Admiral Hipper
Namesake: Admiral Franz von Hipper
Builder: Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, Germany
Laid down: 6 July 1935
Launched: 6 February 1937
Commissioned: 29 April 1939
Fate: Scuttled, 3 May 1945, raised and scrapped in 1948 - 1952

General characteristics
Class and type: Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser
Displacement: 16,170 t (15,910 long tons; 17,820 short tons) Full load: 18,200 long tons (18,500 t)
Length: 202.8 m (665 feet 4 inches) overall
Beam: 21.3 m (69 feet 11 inches)
Draft (full load): 7.2 m (24 feet)
Propulsion: 3 - Blohm & Voss steam turbines, 3 - three blade propellers, 132,000 shp (98 MW)
Speed: 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Complement: 42 officers, 1,340 enlisted men
Armament: 8 - 20.3 cm (8.0 inch) guns, 12 - 10.5 cm (4.1 inch) guns, 12 - 3.7 cm (1.5 inch) guns, 8 - 2 cm (0.79 inch) guns (20 x1), 6 - 53.3 cm (21 inch) torpedo tubes
Armor: Belt: 70 to 80 mm (2.8 to 3.1 inch)
Armor deck: 20 to 50 mm (0.79 to 2.0 inch)
Turret faces: 105 mm (4.1 inch)
Aircraft carried: 3 aircraft
Aviation facilities: 1 catapult

Admiral Hipper, the first of five ships of her class, was the lead ship of the Admiral Hipper class of heavy cruisers which served with the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. The ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany in July 1935 and launched February 1937; Admiral Hipper entered service shortly before the outbreak of war, in April 1939. The ship was named after Admiral Franz von Hipper, commander of the German battlecruiser squadron during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and later commander in chief of the German High Seas Fleet.

Admiral Hipper saw a significant amount of action during the war. She led the assault on Trondheim during Operation WeserŸbung; while en route to her objective, she sank the British destroyer HMSÊGlowworm. In December 1940, she broke out into the Atlantic Ocean to operate against Allied merchant shipping, though this operation ended without significant success. In February 1941, Admiral Hipper sortied again, sinking several merchant vessels before eventually returning to Germany via the Denmark Strait. The ship was then transferred to northern Norway to participate in operations against convoys to the Soviet Union, culminating in the Battle of the Barents Sea on 31 December 1942, where she was damaged and forced to withdraw by the light cruisers HMSÊSheffield and HMSÊJamaica.

Enraged by the defeat at the battle, Adolf Hitler ordered the majority of the surface warships scrapped, though Admiral Karl Dšnitz was able to convince Hitler to retain the surface fleet. As a result, Admiral Hipper was returned to Germany and decommissioned for repairs. The ship was never restored to operational status, however, and on 3 May 1945, Royal Air Force bombers severely damaged her while she was in Kiel. Her crew scuttled the ship at her moorings, and in July 1945, she was raised and towed to Heikendorfer Bay. She was ultimately broken up for scrap in 1948 - 1952; her bell resides in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.