The first submarine from the Germania shipyard31 | 100 1906: The first German submarine
from the series 100 Photos - 100 Stories
The first German submarine was launched in 1906. A technical masterpiece! You can find out all the exciting details about the construction of the first submarine in this article.
In 1902, the submarine 'Forelle' was built as the first test, whereupon the naval engineer Gustav Berling issued the order to build a submarine for naval warfare on April 4, 1904. He turned to the Germania shipyard in Kiel, where it was finally built. Construction of the U1 finally began in April 1905. The main innovations compared to the Forelle - apart from the dimensions - were mainly the pressure hull, the horizontal arrangement of the torpedo tubes and the propulsion system. The U1 was a so-called double-hulled boat. It had room for ten crew members, could remain under water for around twelve hours and could reach a depth of up to 30 meters. The "U1" is now in the German Museum in Munich and can be viewed there.
The submarine from the insideThe first German submarine
Kiel engineers and workers spent more than a year building the prototype - although the U1 was only used for testing purposes and as a training boat, it was still a technical masterpiece! The maximum speed above water was 8.7 knots (17 km/h), under water it even traveled at 10.8 knots (20 km/h). The submarine, which was put into service with the Imperial Navy, was commanded by Erich von Boehm-Bezing and launched on December 14, 1906. However, submarines had already been used for military operations much earlier. The construction of submarines for warfare had already begun worldwide before the turn of the century. The Americans and British had already had submersible vessels for years. In France, the leading country in submarine construction at the time, there was real enthusiasm, and Russia also had three submarines built in Kiel in 1904. Submarines developed rapidly during the war and became the "knights of the deep". a total of 320 German submarines were deployed, sinking more than 6,000 civilian ships and 100 warships by the end of the war.
