Here at LSOZI, we take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger
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Warship Wednesday, July 2, 2025: Lost Bird of the Baltic
Image via the Farenthold Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command NH 65783
Above we see the Nautilus-class minenkreuzer SMS Albatross in port, likely in Wilhelmshaven or Kiel, just prior to the Great War. A slight cruiser by any measure, she was perhaps better described as a heavily armed minelayer with a profile approaching that of an elegant turn-of-the-century steam yacht.
Put in an impossible situation some 110 years ago today, she was run aground in neutral waters– and that’s where the story really starts.
The Kaiser’s Mine Cruisers
The Albatross and her half-sister ship Nautilus sprang from the lessons learned during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, which saw the aggressive use of mine warfare in fleet operations. The two ships were the size (322 feet oal/2,345 tons displacement on Nautilus, 331 ft./2,500-ton Albatross) and speed (20.8 knots) of light cruisers.
They had two stacks to vent their quartet of marine boilers and a pair of 3-cylinder compound engines. Twin military masts with mounted searchlights could accommodate an auxiliary sail rig if needed, but they don’t seem to have ever carried any canvas. They had a 1:10 length-to-beam ratio and looked fast sitting still.
Nautilus, German cruiser minelayer, photographed by Renard of Kiel while passing under the Levensau Bridge of the Kiel Canal in 1907, soon after entering fleet service on 19 March 1907. Note the rakish clipper bow and bowsprit, which Albatross did not share. While 322 feet oal, the waterline length was just 296 feet at the waterline (316 on Albatross). NH 46829
While largely unarmored, they could duke it out against smaller vessels or serve as commerce raiders due to their all-up main battery of eight 8.8 cm/35 (3.46″) SK L/35 C/01 guns in single low-angle shielded mounts. Nautilus originally carried two guns in casemate and six on upper decks, but all were later consolidated on deck, while Albatross always had hers on deck, arranged two forward, two aft, and four amidships in broadside. Magazines held a total of 2,000 15-pound shells for these guns, which had a range of 9,600 yards.
However, rather than torpedoes and secondary batteries as found on other cruisers, these twins had weight and space to accommodate a serious deck cargo of sea mines on a rail system dropping over the stern, with Nautilus rigged for 391 such “eggs” while Albatross could stow 288. With a shallow draft of just 15 feet for both sisters, they could operate in the littorals of the North, Baltic, and Mediterranean Seas, sowing their enemy seaports and strategic roadsteads shut with their mines. Alternatively, they could drop fields quickly in the path of enemy squadrons during fleet actions, covering retreats, or isolating opponents.
The German Elektrische Minen A (EMA), with a charge of 330 pounds of wet gun cotton, was the standard contact (Hertz horn) mine of the Kaiserliche Marine headed into the Great War.
Besides their dual use as mine layers and scout cruisers, both ships were given reinforced bows for service as light icebreakers or “boom chargers” as needed. The simplification of mission between the efficient mine-laying system and the single battery meant these ships had comparatively small crews of just ten officers and 191 men.
Termed Minendampfschiffe A und B on contract, both ships were built at Aktien-Gesellschaft Weser in Bremen with Nautilus (Baunummer 152) and Albatross (No. 162), sandwiched between the future Jutland veteran Nassau class battleship SMS Westfalen and the elegant NDL Reichspostdampfer liner Lutzow. Both cruisers ran 2,879,000 marks each despite the moderate differences in design. While most naval journals consider these to be one class of ship, Jane’s at the time listed each separately.
Nautilus 1914 Janes
Albatross 1914 Janes, note the different hull form.
Meet Albatross
Ordered under the 1906 program, our subject was laid down in Bremen on 24 May 1907. She was at least the second SMS Albatross in the Kaiserliche Marine, following in the path of a Kaiserliche Werft Danzig-built steam gunboat that entered service in 1871 and roamed the world on a series of exotic cruises until she was decommissioned in 1898.
The first SMS Albatross, a 4-gun steamer with a three-masted barque rig, served as a gunboat and later as a station ship and survey vessel. Disposed of in 1899, she was wrecked in commercial service in 1906.
Our Albatross took to the water on 23 October 1907, began sea trials on 19 May 1908, and was accepted and commissioned shortly after. As such, she entered service just 14 months after Nautilus.
She spent her pre-war period in a sleepy series of fleet maneuvers, mine warfare training (as a Minenschulschiff), and the like, based at Cuxhaven. The most notable incident from this time was a minor collision in 1911 with the 5,448 GRT NDL steamer Wartburg (which was later seized in 1917 and used by the Navy in the Great War as the cargo ship USS Wabash on a series of round trips between the U.S. and Saint-Nazaire).
During her antebellum service, Albatross served as a stopover for bright young officers bound for flag rank. Her first three skippers– Korvettenkapitäns Titus Turk, Karl Wedding, and Wilhelm Adelung– all went on to become admirals.
War!
When the Great War kicked off in 1914, Albatross, accompanied by the light cruiser SMS Stuttgart and half a squadron of destroyers on 25/26 August, laid an offensive barrage of 200 mines in the Tyne Estuary, a 13-mile-long field that gave the British a good bit of heartburn.
The same sortie was accompanied by Nautilus, escorted by SMS Mainz and the other half squadron of destroyers, to lay her field of 200 off the Humber.
On the way back to Germany in the fog, according to Corbett, a total of 16 British fishing craft were deep sixed by the destroyers of the two mine laying groups (six by the Albatross group and 10 by the Nautilus group) after first taking the crews prisoner then landing them in Germany for the duration.
The Tyne field laid by Albatross soon claimed the Danish coaster Skeatti Sogeli and the fishing drifter Barley Rig, the latter with the loss of five of her nine crew. Two of the four Admiralty trawlers– HMT Crathie (No.106) and HMT Thomas W Irvin (No.61)— that went to sweep the mines on 27 August were also lost. Five ratings rode the ersatz minesweepers to the bottom. The remaining Admiralty trawlers under CDR R W Dalgety, RN, managed to gingerly clear the rest of the field.
Further tasked with mine operations in the North Sea and Baltic until they froze in the winter of 1914, Albatross went back to it after the thaw in the spring of 1915.
It was on one such mission under Kommodore Johannes August Karl Franz von Karpf, to sow an offensive minefield off the Russian-occupied Aland Islands between Finland and Sweden, saw Albatross screened by armored cruiser SMS Roon (10200t, 4×8.3″,10×5.9″ guns) along with the light cruisers SMS Augsburg (4800 t, 12x 10.5 cm L45s) and SMS Lubeck (3200t, 10×4.1″) and seven torpedo boats (S 126, S 131, G 135, G 141, S 142, G 147, and S 149) assigned in July 1915.
After laying 180 mines north of Bogskar on 1 July and turning back to Germany, Albatross and her screen on the next morning, at 0615, spied Russian RADM Mikhail Bakhirev’s cruiser squadron comprised of the massive British-built armored cruiser Rurik (15000t, 4×10″, 8×8″, 20×4.7″), the French-built armored cruiser sisters Admiral Makarov and Bayan (each 8400 t and carrying two 8″ and eight 6″) and the German-designed protected cruisers Bogatyr and Oleg (each 6700 t and carrying 12×6″). This put the Germans at just 42 guns, none larger than 8-inch, versus 76 Russian guns of comparable bore or larger.
Unknown to Von Karpf, his wireless communications were intercepted and decoded by the Russian admiralty, who cued Bakhirev, originally on a mission to bombard Memel, to intercept. (The Russians were able to listen in on these communications because they had obtained Signalbuch der Kaiserliche Marine nr 151 after the light cruiser SMS Magdeburg ran aground off Odensholm the previous August.)
The running battle ensued with Von Karpf’s dispersed squadron already split in two, with Roon and Lubeck headed toward Libau, while Augsburg, Albatross, and three torpedo boats were closer to Swedish waters. The Russian cruisers Bogatyr and Oleg caught up to the humble Albatross alone, and, with 24 6-inch guns against eight 88mm pieces, it was one-sided.
SMS Albatross is attacked by Russian cruisers in Swedish waters, 2 July 1915, by Wilhelm Malchin. Der Krieg 1914/19 in Wort und Bild, 39. Heft
Oil painting by J Hägg. “Albatross under fire” Swedish Marinmuseum B1397
In the end, it was only the decision of FKpt Georg West to run Albatross inland to the shallows near the Swedish island of Ostergarnsholm that saved his ship. Remember, Albatross only had a 14-foot draft, whereas the heavily armored Bogatyr and Oleg drew 21. Beached just 500 feet offshore, aflame, and riddled with Russian shrapnel, Albatross was left alone by 0830 as Bogatyr and Oleg withdrew to the east to catch up to Roon and Lubeck, with whom they engaged in an ineffective artillery duel, later joined by Rurik.
When the smoke cleared, with the other cruisers on both sides only suffering negligible damage, it was Albatross that was wrecked.
Not only that, but she was also in Swedish territorial waters.
Internment
Sweden was neutral from 1814 to 2024, but during the Great War was for sure more aligned to the Kaiser’s sphere of influence than that of any other.
A traditional enemy of Tsarist Russia, the Swedish and German general staff had met for several loose planning sessions on how best to fight the Russians before 1914, and, once the “lights went out across Europe” in August, exports to Germany, primarily of much-needed iron ore, jumped almost 800 percent. While thousands of Swedish expatriates wore the uniforms of the Allied armies, thousands more volunteered to serve under German flags, especially when it came to fighting Russia in the hope of liberating neighboring Finland– a land that had been part of Sweden for almost 700 years.
This sets the stage for the reception that the wounded FKpt West and his crew received.
Almost immediately after the Russian cruisers left over the horizon, locals began assisting the Albatross, shuttling wounded to shore.
A field hospital was established in the sugar mill at Romakloster for the 49 wounded German sailors. Soon, a detachment of the Gotland Infantry Regiment (I/27) arrived to stand quiet guard on the beach over a grim collection of 26 men who had been killed. One crew member had fallen overboard during the shelling and could not be found.
Recovered German sailors on the beach at Gotland, covered by the naval ensign of SMS Albatross. Note the blue-uniformed Swedish troops standing guard. The fallen sailors were later interred in a mass grave just east of Östergarn Church.
Two of the crew members who died during transportation to Roma were buried at Bjorke cemetery.
Crew of the German minelayer Albatross. Swedish Marinmuseum D 14988:1
Relieved of their ship, some ~210 assorted German internees from Albatross were left in the sugar mill at Romakloster for a period.
Then, with the mill needed for the upcoming beet harvest, they were shuffled about 20 miles away to the naval shooting range at Blahall on the Tofta coast of the Swedish island of Gotland.
Finally, the internees were moved to a military camp in Skillingaryd on the mainland in the autumn of 1917.
There, they were kept under loose guard but allowed to take local employment and generally enjoyed the rest of their war.
The crew crafted a large, tabletop-sized scale model of their lost cruiser and donated it to their captors.
It later found its way into the Swedish Marinmuseum. MM11315
Grey painted model of the German warship Albatross, mounted on an oak board, and in addition, a glass stand. On the stand, a nickel silver plate engraved: “To my friend Ivar Uggla from his albatross friends Christmas 1918”.
As for Albatross, the ship was righted by the Swedish Navy and towed by the Neptunbolaget salvage company, first to the island of Faro on 23 July, then to Karlskrona. Stockholm rebuffed numerous and regular requests from the Russian government to turn her over as an earned war trophy. The Swedish government just as often cited their note of protest over the fact that the battle was largely conducted in their neutral waters.
Albatross being salvaged with Swedish torpedo boats alongside. This image was made into a popular postcard. Swedish Marinmuseum MM10668
Albatross salvaged and afloat in Gotland. She was escorted in by the Swedish destroyers HSwMS Wale and Magne. Swedish Marinmuseum MM11394
As the war wore on, the relationship between Germany and Sweden became more strained. The country suffered more than 900 civilian mariners killed during the conflict, most at the hands of U-boats and German raiders, who sank at least 132 Swedish-flagged vessels at sea. Further, the Swedish navy had lost men and ships while sweeping German mines (the gunboat Gunhild was lost to a mine in the Skagerrak with a loss of 19 lives) while the Swedish submarine Hvalen was shot up by a German armed trawler who thought she was British, leading to the death of yet another sailor.
Still, the Swedish and German military cooperated in the joint occupation of the Åland Islands off Finland in 1918 (including landing a battalion of the famed Göta Life Guards, I/2, ashore), teaming up to fight the local Reds and disarm miserable Russian garrisons on the archipelago.
Post-war, the disarmed Albatross was sailed to Danzig on her own power, arriving on 31 December 1918, and was returned to German custody. Following the Versailles Treaty and the resulting limitations placed on the then-Weimar Republic’s Reichsmarine, Albatross was deemed surplus and sold for 900,000 marks to a firm in Hamburg to be broken up for scrap in 1921.
While I cannot find out what became of the good FKpt West, the leader of the squadron when she was lost, Johannes von Karpf, went on to fight another day. Commanding the battlecruiser SMS Moltke at Jutland and later the BCs SMS Lutzow and Hindenburg, he ended the Great War as a rear admiral and retired from the Reichsmarine on 5 November 1919. He passed in Hamburg in 1941 after serving on the board of several shipping companies in that port city. The Russian squadron commander, RADM Bachirev, was shot by the Reds in 1920.
Von Karpf, seen left as the last skipper of the Kaiser’s yacht, Hohenzollern.
As for the sister of Albatross, Nautilus continued to see service in the Baltic in the latter part of the war, meeting the Russians on several occasions– including fighting with field guns, mortars, and flamethrowers while supporting German landings in Moon Sound (it pays to be able to float in 15 feet of water!). Still steaming in 1918, she was disarmed and hulked.
Retained for another decade, she was sold to a Danish firm for 180,000 marks and scrapped in 1928.
Epilogue
Albatross forever changed a piece of Sweden’s coast, where July 2 is remembered annually as “Albatrossdagen” or Albatross Day. A small museum was constructed in 1977 near where she grounded, and today it holds more than 700 images, the cruiser’s ensign, two models, uniform items, and numerous relics.
A monument is maintained on the beach near where she grounded back in 1915.
Östergarn cemetery still holds her war dead in a place of honor, complete with a memorial.
It is often visited on Albatrossdagen by the German military attaché from Stockholm. This year, German Defense Attaché Markur Bruggemeier will lay a wreath from Germany at the sailor’s grave.
A detailed 1:100 model crafted by Heinz Zimmermann of Albatross in her wartime livery is in the Marinemuseum in Wilhelmshaven
Modell (von Heinz Zimmermann) im Maßstab 1:100 des Minenkreuzers SMS Albatross im deutschen Marinemuseum in Wilhelmshaven. (Wiki Commons)
Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive
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