Although the Weimar Republic managed to circumvent the Versailles Treaty's ban on large warships by the ingenious concept of the Panzershiffe (see note to Lot [x23]), Germany was careful not to provoke an allied reaction by attempting to buld any battleships. The Third Reich was far more careless of international opinion however and constructed a group of four battleships which, when completed, astonished the world's navies by their technical superiority to anything else afloat. All four of these battleships were destined to make names for themselves and whilst certain features of the first pair - Schnarnhorst and Gneisenau - were more reminiscent of battlecruisers, the second pair - Bismarck and Tirpitz - were thoroughbreds in every sense.
Bismarck's keel was laid in the Hamburg yard of Blohm & Voss on 1stJuly 1936 - four months before Tirpitz - and she was launched by Hitler himself on 14thFebruary 1939. When she was completed on 24thAugust 1940, she was not only the largest German warship ever built, but also the largest battleship then in service in any of the great powers' navies. Displacing 41,700 tons standard (50,900 tons deep loaded), she measured 813 feet in length with a massive 118 foot beam, and her immmensely strong transverse and longitudinal steel-constructed hull, which was nearly all welded, was divided into twenty two watertight compartments. Heavy Krupp armour protected both her hull and upperworks, and her main armament consisted of four pairs of 15in. guns, 12-6in. guns and innumerable smaller calibre weapons. Her three sets of Blohm & Voss geared turbines were fired from twelve Wagner ultra high pressure boilers and the 138,000shp they generated could drive her at fractionally over 30 knots if required. With bunker capacity, including top-up tanks, for 7,400 tons of fuel oil, her range at cruising speed was enormous and it was no wonder that the British Admiralty became progressively more alarmed as her completion loomed. Named for Otto von Bismarck, the nineteenth-century Prussian statesman who forged the German nation, it was decided not to send Bismarck to sea until after Tirpitz was finished in February 1941 in case the two were needed for a joint offensive. In the event, this decision was rescinded and Bismarck made ready to break out into the North Atlantic in the spring of 1941. It was to be her one and only combat mission yet it was to focus the world's attention for ten days before the drama was resolve and make her one of the most famous ships of the century.
On 18thMay 1941, Bismarck sailed from the Baltic port of Gdynia in company with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. Under the command of Captain Lindemann and flying the flag of Vice-Admiral Ltjens, her orders were to sink allied merchantmen but avoid units of the Royal Navy as much as possible despite her superior firepower. Putting briefly into Bergen, she was spotted by R.A.F. reconnaissance aircraft and the British Home Fleet was mobilised immediately to intercept and destroy her. A cat-and-mouse chase, hampered by bad weather, ensued for several days until Bismarck and Prinz Eugen were sighted in the Denmark Strait by the cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk. Anticipating this, a battle squadron comprising the ageing battlecruiser H.M.S. Hood and the brand new battleship Prince of Wales had sailed from Scarpa Flow the previous day and raced at maximum speed to a point where they could engage the enmy. Shortly before 6.00am on 24thMay, the four capital ships came to action and opened fire at a range of 25,000 yards. After barely ten minutes, a plunging 15in. shell penetrated Hood's deck and, to the amazement of all who watched, she blew up and sank instananeously with the loss of 1,338 officers and men; out of her entire company, only three survived. The news of the Hood's loss broadcast that evening came as a profound shock, not least to Churchill and the War Cabinet, and efforts to avenge her and destroy Bismarck were redoubled with a ferocity rare even in wartime. By the next day, a sizeable force was converging on her and on the evening of the 26th, a lucky hit from one of the Ark Royal's torpedo bombers crippled her steering gear and sent her, unmanoeuvrable, into the path of the avengers. H.M.S. Rodney, leading the pack, fired the opening salvoes at 8,47am on the morning of 27thMay, closely followed by those of King George V and the cruisers Norfolk and Dorsetshire. Bismarck fought valiantly but it was a hopeless struggle; by 9.30am her main armament had been silenced and, after repeated torpedo hits by Dorsetshire, Bismarck sank at 10.36am with the loss of almost everyone aboard her.