The course of the battle has been intensively researched, evaluated and commented on on the basis of official documents. In this book, the participants of the battle themselves will now have their say - whether admiral or simple sailor. Letters, diary entries, reports and memoirs convey the very individual impressions and emotions that the men of the High Seas Fleet passed on to friends, family and the interested public.
On the afternoon of 31 May 1916, the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet met rather by chance in the sea area off the Skagerrak. This developed into the largest naval battle of the First World War. 100 German units fought with great zeal and enthusiasm against 151 British ships and boats until the early morning of 1 June. The British losses in personnel and material were significantly higher, so that the crews of the units of the High Seas Fleet felt victorious, not entirely without reason. However, this did not change the fundamentally unfavourable maritime strategic position of the German Empire. The view of the individual depended on the respective battle station - sometimes this was in the depths of the engine room, sometimes on the bridge. An artillery officer in the gun turret saw the battle from a different perspective than the naval assistant doctor on the dressing station. The eyewitness accounts reproduced here provide a new perspective on an epoch-making event for those personally affected.
Group
Books (first-hand)
Author
Orth, K./Kliem, E.
Title
Wir wurden wie blödsinnig vom Feind beschossen". Menschen und Schiffe in der Skagerrakschlacht 1916
