Captain Hans Langsdorff was an hero in both ways, he hated the Nazis and saved countless life, both enemies and his owns... He acted like a gentleman and did his duty, not many people did that for the enemies...
He was in fact a somewhat inept captain and leader who should have fought much more intelligently in the main battle and then fought his way out of the harbor after running away. His subsequent suicide confirmed his cowardice. If he disliked his government so much, then he should have surrendered his comission previously, not his vessel !
@@marcoflumino Wrong on both counts. You would do well to study this battle and the tactics employed, referencing the range capabilities of 11" guns compared to those of his adversaries, and the folly of repeatedly swapping targets. If you think avoiding battle to save lives and skulking away to commit suicide is honourable, then I pity anyone who has the misfortune to serve next to you.
@@phibber So in fighting for his country, he strives to enable the very goverment he hates ? You think that sounds logical ? His suicide note contained the following ""I can now only prove by my death that the fighting services of the Third Reich are ready to die for the honor of the flag". Does that sound like he hated his government to you ? And he didn't "go down with his ship". He lay on a bed in a hotel room and shot himself 2 DAYS LATER ! Suicide is an act of cowardice. How do you think his crew felt losing their ship so ignominiously and then their captain ?
I am from Montevideo, Uruguay. Graf Spee was sunk by her crew on December 17th, 1939 (not 18th) the day of my first birthday! Only my mother and I remained home, as everybody went to the coast to watch the eventual battle Graf Spee vs HMS cruisers Ajax, Achilles and Cumberland. But the Germans scuttled their warship just off Montevideo at approx. 2000 hrs. Her crew had been transferred to Argentine barges and tugs that took them to Buenos Aires, where they were interned.
The Graf Spee had sustained damage that made it unseaworthy - it's opponents waiting off Montevideo were hardly in better shape following the engagement. The ships were well armed but the Graf Spee was not only critically damaged but critically low on ammunition. It was unlucky that it couldn't limp into Buenos Aires as Argentina was sympathetic to Germany and the ship would have most certainly been granted safe haven there thus posing quite a problem for the Royal Navy if it could have been repaired. The captain scuttling the ship undoubtedly saved many lives on both sides but he had to sacrifice his own life in the process. Sad story really, but a piece of the ship is preserved in Uruguay apparently.
The design never made sense to me. Yes it outgunned cruisers, but it could still be critically damaged by them. And it couldn't sink cruisers easily the way a capital ship would. Because of it's speed, enemy cruisers - which the UK had plenty of - could hang around and tail it or gang up for battle. Because of radio, those cruisers could warn away merchant ships and bring capital ships to her. And UK, US, and France had battlecruisers that could run her down and sink her.
@@recoil53 yes you right also RN navel tactics means RN cruisers would operate in Squadrons or 2 to 4 ships Which ment single ship would alway be out gunned
@@recoil53 They were powerful ships with extreme range, but their speed made them somewhat vulnerable, both to cruiser groups and battlecruisers. The next class, which was never bult, would be larger and faster, The raider concept with heavy warships was also somewhat flawed, as even light damage could be a mission kill. As shown by Bismarck, the damage she took in Denmark Strait was nothing for a battleship that was part of a larger force, but for a lone raider it was fatal.
@@TTTT-oc4eb Plus you are talking about a crew of 1K. A "super destroyer" or small Iowa makes more sense if they are against committing to subs. And in a fleet they really are in a weird in between place.
Graf Spee neither was a battleship, nor were there ever any plans whatsoever to reclassify any of the class to the status of battleships. Panzerschiffe became Heavy Cruisers. There never was a "Prussian Empire" signing anything in WWI. The Kingdom of Prussia long merged into the German Empire by the year 1871. Germany never partook in or signed the Washington Naval Treaty: Restrictions imposed on the German Navy disallowing vessels over 10,000 tons is part of the Treaty of Versailles. I usually like your contributions, but I am baffled to keep seeing such severe inaccuracies of the very same particular mistake being reiterated over and over again across the internet. The full content of all naval conferences as well as that of the Versailles treaty are on file and widely available.
The British and Americans classified the Graf Spee as a pocket battleship. The Germans classified it as a Panzerschiffe. So it is acceptable to call it a battleship.
I was in Montevideo in the late 80's on a UNITAS cruise. You can still see part of the mast stick out of the water and the area is blocked off for passage as it's shallow water, but the water is so full of silt and mud in that harbor that you can't see more than an inch below the surface.
Unless something has changed, the Graf Spee remains where she sank in December 1939. The water is not deep and I believe the ship remains a hazard to other surface vessels. Then there is the problem with possible explosive armament still on board her.
A key point is British Intelligence made the commander think he did not have a chance to escape. It was a ploy and when he found out he got played he committed suicide. That is what made the first Allied victory so sweet.
The suicide wasn't sweet. Langsdorff was an honourable captain and he feared the repercussions on his family by the Nazi's if he didn't 'punish himself'
Well to be honest:the ship had zero percent chance of escaping and reaching Germany-with its fuel filtration system destroyed........he had two choices:leave crew ashore and scuttle the ship(thus saving most of his crew.....or risk getting caught on open sea with possibility of losing all crew......he made correct choice
Few gaps on the story. The real story was in the belief that more ships were just over the horizon and they would be taken by these, which were much further away.
Naval vessel range is in nautical miles and speed in knots. A nautical mile is 2000 yards and a knot is one nautical mile per hour. Aviation range and speed is also in nautical miles and knots
FWIW, a nautical mile is only approximately 2000 yards - it's a bit longer than that, and is defined as exactly 1 minute of latitude. Makes navigation (if you're sailing due north or south) a bit easier. It's about 15% longer than a statute mile.
@@gregmead2967 …. 2k yds was how it was explained to me. As were knots were NM/hr. But it’s been along time since I studied it part of to qualify in submarines
Captain Hans Langsdorff was obviously a great man, very much like Rommel. Rommel visited my fathers hospital tent near Sedi Rezegh where he was wounded fighting the 21st Panzer Div in Operation Crusader. Rommel entered the tent and got all his medics/doctors at work patching up a bunch of New Zealand wounded which included Major General Howard Kippenberger the head of the NZ 20th Battalion! It is a shame that Langsdorff and Rommel had to pay the ultimate price of war. Its a shame it cannot be limited to the likes of Hitler, Stalin or Putin!
I love all your DARK series and especially the cadence and tone of your speaking. You might consider rather than repeat photos 3 and 4 times during one segment allow the photo to stay visible longer rather than the machine gun speed you seem to rush through them.
Far too many of the movie clips of the "Graf Spee" were actually of the Scharnhorst and/or Gneisenau. Any shot showing one deck-level and one superfiring triple turret cannot be depicting a panzerschiff since their turrets were both at deck level on opposite ends of the superstructure. The British squadron which engaged Graf Spee did not have an overwhelming force advantage as this video implies--HMS Exeter was a Washington-treaty heavy cruiser with 6 8-inch guns but little armor, while HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles were light cruisers with 6-inch guns and 8 torpedo tubes each, and light armor over the engineering spaces and turrets only. The light cruisers' 6-inch guns couldn't penetrate Graf Spee's armor at all, their only real threat was their torpedo tubes. All three British ships did enjoy a 6-knot speed advantage, which meant that they could choose whether or not to engage, and Ajax and Achilles could eventually close to torpedo range. Once Graf Spee was localized, it was all over. Faster British and French ships with heavier guns. plus overwhelming numbers of cruisers. were converging on the mouth of the River Plate. That left Captain Langsdorff no viable military options, so he decided to save his crew by scuttling the ship rather than sortieing into a battle he couldn't win and his ship certainly wouldn't survive.
Also, the British traded radio traffic leading the Germans to believe that a much stronger force was waiting offshore for them. If they had sortied early, they could have fought their way through the small ships outside the port. Very British.
Not just Russia helping Germany prior to Poland. There was Ford, DOW Chemical, Coke/Fanta, Woolworth, MGM, Kodak, GE, Alcoa, IBM, JD Rockefeller, ... also in some ways helping Germany.
During the U-boats refueled at Standard Oil in Linden, NJ. Rockefeller had a German American night crew. All bund members. Someone should calculate U-boat's trips and mileage to see how far they could go and if they were aided on the east coast.
The Battle of the River Plate was fought in the South Atlantic on 13 December 1939 as the first naval battle of the Second World War. The Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, engaged a Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Commodore Henry Harwood,comprising the light cruisers HMS Ajax, HMS Achilles (on loan to the New Zealand Division) and the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter. There were no french naval assets present for The Battle of the River Plate, plus the kiwis should get a mention as well. I really like this channel but the inaccuracies are definitely a bit jarring in this and the episode about Warspite 🤦
Does not the German U-boat going into Scapa Flow and sinking the HMS Royal Oak on 14 Oct 1939 not count as the first naval battle of WWII between the UK and Nazi Germany?
@@andysnyder4506 I think to truly be a "battle" both sides have to fire a shot. An outdated WW1 battleship in harbor that doesn't fire back against a submarine sneak attack is hardly a battle
Why is it that when ever a video is made of any of the Deutschland class ships nearly half of the videos shown are of the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Which are completely different ships. It is a very interesting video spoiled by lack of correct video footage. The video is still worth a like though.
I feel like it's worth noting that the battleship in the thumbnail is an American Iowa class battleship, it's hard to make out her hull number but I'm pretty sure that's BB-63, USS Missouri.
@@dominicbuckley8309 Correct, Geiranger fjord in Norway. Now a popular destination for cruise ships. There's even two live webcams there that you can watch on UA-cam.
The Graf Spee is a tier 6 premium german cruiser Famous for committing suicide on Uruguayan waters *(scuttling the ship)* because of a certain colonial power *(Ahem, the british)* told them a very elaborate lie *(by lying to the graf spee crew that they have the entire royal navy fleet waiting for them)*
Are you suggesting that lying to the Graf Spee during a war is somehow dishonorable or against the laws of war? There's a very long history of opposing sides lying to the other to get an important victory. It's an essential part of war.
The captain of the graf spee made a fatal error. His mission was to sink merchant ships, not engage the British navy. Once he realized the ships in the horizon were warship, he should have made smoke and ran away
My dad was a Marine 36-66. He volunteered for sea duty and found himself aboard a US navel ship in Montevideo Harbor Uruguay when the Graf Spee claimed 48 hours, as was its right as Uruguay was neutral. Dad said the US Ambassador leaned on Uruguay, and the Graf Spee left the Harbor after 24 hours. The Graf Spee limped into Montevideo Harbor, and its Captain scuttled the Graf Spee. I also read the exact history in The Rise and Fall of the Third Riche. The Captain eventually returned to Germany, and he was murdered by Hitler goons.
lol well your old man was wrong ,a lot of work went into first getting her to stay in port then to get her out of port and that was done with English and French diplomats not the USA you guys weren't in the war at that time
When you’re giving out speed and using kilometers either, say the miles per hour as well or print it at the bottom of the screen. I hate to Google it every time so I know how fast the damn thing is going.
'Secret battleship', how does that work? Reconnaissance, thousands of workers, acres of shipyards, 'Nope, didn't see a thing for the past couple of years' LOL
I believe that Captain Langsdorff was one of the Good Germans, in that he knew Hitler was evil enough to have him executed in spite of his relative success in destroying British shipping. He was also concerned about the lives of his crew.
First Deutschland Class was not ergonomically not economical, they were pretty much all Weimar Germany could build to have at least some firepower. The ships are slow. Verry slow. Are rather poorly protected for their size. And are using a pretty old main battery with only a verry limited number of guns... On top of that, graf spee was in bad shape before the first engagement already. Her engines were lang due for rebuild.... She had been in the water for quite some time and was unable to reach her top speed... (not verry fast to begin with) And second: Deutschland Class heavy Cruisers are no battleships...
my dad used tells me story`s from when he was a kid in the 60`s in Montevideo about how he was able to see the super structure from the fort general artigas on top of the hill in cerro and how they used to take boats out to it and stuff i was there back in 2018 but the government of Uruguay removed most of the ship so that no one could hit it but for the most part most of the ship is still there
A lot of inaccurate information here and I can't help feel it tries to portray Germany as an innocent party . They use a lot of film of other battleships and the Spee actually outgunned the British force in the initial battle.
Her capitan let everyone on the captured ships to escape and then sank them. He could have just opened fire and kill everyone on those ships, but he didn't
Not bad a few errors, like the French fleet locations was many in the Med sea and Casablanca in 1939 odd one or to floating around, they had very little to do with the hunting down the Graf Spee, the hunt was many done by the Aussie, Kiwi and Brits
The feature that makes the Iowa Class Battleships better than all of the German and Japanese Battleships combined, is the one that allows you to visit ours today without SCUBA gear.
Significantly outnumbered? Graf Spee was attacked by three Royal Navy cruisers, Exeter, Achilles and Ajax, all smaller and with smaller calibre guns than the German ship i.e. the kind of ships the commentary tells us the Panzerschiffe were designed to be able to outfight. And the Battle of the River Plate was, accordingly, a close run thing.
The Second German Empire ruled Germany during WWI, and the head of it, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated shortly before the cease fire that ended the fighting of WWI. The new/next government of Germany, The Weimar Republic, signed the Treaty of Versailles.
"Classified as armored cruisers" 3:05 Hitler's most secret BATTLESHIP is, at best, misleading. Graf Spee ordered October 1. 1942. 4:28 An obvious mistake! Launched in 1936 and scuttled Dec. 17, 1939. Admiral Graf Spee had single triple turrets, one forward, one aft. The video repeatedly shows a ship with two forward triple turrets. What's with that? This could have been great, but as often happens with dark skies/seas, attention to detail is sadly lacking.
The Soviets were stuck in a corner, either agree to partition Poland or let all of Poland be taken by the Nazis. They weren't prepared for a new war while still reeling from the problems of tsarist industrial inefficiencies and the effects of WWI. Every major power had nonaggression pacts with Germany ceding them all sorts of territories to appease them before the war. European countries attempts to "strangle Bolshevism in its cradle" (churchill) was still in good memory too.
If you're going to be an information provider - then get things right! 1) It's not pronounced "Monte-video". It's pronounced like this: "MON" + "ti" + "vi" + "DAY" + "oh". 2) Graf Spee's main armament consisted of a single triple gun turret forward and another one aft. The video is interspersed with clips of either the Scharnhorst or Gneisenau, which had three triple gun turrets, namely, two turrets forward in a super-firing arrangement and one aft.
Dark Skies does explain the lack of photo and film material and does not claim the films or the ships shown as being originally genuine. Todays' Generation ought to know that there was such a lack of reporting and genuine real film compared to todays plethora of stuff (the comparison is astonishing - I am surprised that anything survives from 80+ years ago to show anything here!).
ordered in 1928, laid down 1932 and delayed as the last of her class due to lack of finance, launched 1934, commissioned 1936 - I also guess he just misspelled.
The catapult could launch 2 planes. I wonder what they did when it was time to come back. Surely they couldn't land back on the ship? I guess they'd have to head for terra firma instead.
Seems to me like this was a very capable and successful warship in it's short life. Had the nazi's not been obsessed with making all these super weapons they might have had way more success building a dozen of these ships. The amount of materials, labor, time and money that went into building the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, 2 ships that never actually helped the German cause could have been better spent. But that seems to be the common theme among their war effort. Actually lucky for all of us on the allies side. I don't think there was any way Germany would have ever won given the size of the opposition but the war could have gone on twice as long with many more tens of millions of lives lost.
Without even being in the action, Tirpitz frightened the Royal Navy escorts away from a convoy taking war supplies from Britain to Murmansk, to supply Stalin's lot with stuff to use against the Nazis. The convoy was decimated by U-boats.
I watch this narrator purely for his spin on german war history… hilarious versions about how courageous they were and sometimes how they fought against all the odds. Doesn’t bother to research, provide actual relevant footage or overlay areas of the positions/places. Recent example is the triumphant evacuation video of nazis during WWII in Eastern Europe which he states immediately puts Dunkirk to shame. Also refers of the occupying nazis as “German civilians and just regular soldiers”… not a mention of the reasons of how and why regular German people/soldiers got to the place they were fleeing.
One more thing: author of this video is way more interested in cheap melodrama than historical fact. Just look at the title and ask yourself: Hcoronation
At about one minute in, you stated that The Prussian Empire was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This turns out not to be correct in so many ways... There was never a Prussian Empire. There was the Kingdom of Prussia, prior to the full unification of Germany and the declaration of the Second German Empire.
One thing I never fully understood about war- Aggressor country: we hate you, want your resources and want your economy decimated!... But first, lets sign this set of rules we should abide by Defending country: suuurre..... Seriously, wtf?! Aren't you supposed to conquer your enemies by any means necessary? Yet they want to set rules.. craziness.
The Spanish always said there were no Nazis in Spain, but if you look along the coast near Cadiz, you will find German sub pens. also this video just confirmed Germany's support of Franco, so there must of been Germans active in Spain,
the damaged british ships were no match for the pocket battleship if she had come out fighting but hitler hated losing in battles with warships so told the captain to scuttle to save face
@@Navalator the british had been damaged by the spee but were ready to fight but if spee knocked out another ship the odds are that the other two could not match the pocket battleships firepower but the captain of the spee was led to believe that a bigger force was lying in wait for him so thats why he scuttled her instead of being sunk by a battleship
Captain Hans Langsdorff was an hero in both ways, he hated the Nazis and saved countless life, both enemies and his owns... He acted like a gentleman and did his duty, not many people did that for the enemies...
He was in fact a somewhat inept captain and leader who should have fought much more intelligently in the main battle and then fought his way out of the harbor after running away. His subsequent suicide confirmed his cowardice.
If he disliked his government so much, then he should have surrendered his comission previously, not his vessel !
@@steeevo0136 Clearly you have no sense of honour or been in the military...
@@marcoflumino Wrong on both counts. You would do well to study this battle and the tactics employed, referencing the range capabilities of 11" guns compared to those of his adversaries, and the folly of repeatedly swapping targets.
If you think avoiding battle to save lives and skulking away to commit suicide is honourable, then I pity anyone who has the misfortune to serve next to you.
@@steeevo0136 A Man can hate his government and still love his country.ACaptain goes down with his ship, he is not a coward.
@@phibber So in fighting for his country, he strives to enable the very goverment he hates ? You think that sounds logical ?
His suicide note contained the following ""I can now only prove by my death that the fighting services of the Third Reich are ready to die for the honor of the flag". Does that sound like he hated his government to you ?
And he didn't "go down with his ship". He lay on a bed in a hotel room and shot himself 2 DAYS LATER !
Suicide is an act of cowardice. How do you think his crew felt losing their ship so ignominiously and then their captain ?
I am from Montevideo, Uruguay. Graf Spee was sunk by her crew on December 17th, 1939 (not 18th) the day of my first birthday! Only my mother and I remained home, as everybody went to the coast to watch the eventual battle Graf Spee vs HMS cruisers Ajax, Achilles and Cumberland. But the Germans scuttled their warship just off Montevideo at approx. 2000 hrs. Her crew had been transferred to Argentine barges and tugs that took them to Buenos Aires, where they were interned.
First hand accounts of history are more valuable than what some historian writes in a book.
The Graf Spee had sustained damage that made it unseaworthy - it's opponents waiting off Montevideo were hardly in better shape following the engagement. The ships were well armed but the Graf Spee was not only critically damaged but critically low on ammunition. It was unlucky that it couldn't limp into Buenos Aires as Argentina was sympathetic to Germany and the ship would have most certainly been granted safe haven there thus posing quite a problem for the Royal Navy if it could have been repaired. The captain scuttling the ship undoubtedly saved many lives on both sides but he had to sacrifice his own life in the process. Sad story really, but a piece of the ship is preserved in Uruguay apparently.
The design never made sense to me.
Yes it outgunned cruisers, but it could still be critically damaged by them. And it couldn't sink cruisers easily the way a capital ship would.
Because of it's speed, enemy cruisers - which the UK had plenty of - could hang around and tail it or gang up for battle. Because of radio, those cruisers could warn away merchant ships and bring capital ships to her. And UK, US, and France had battlecruisers that could run her down and sink her.
@@recoil53 yes you right also RN navel tactics means RN cruisers would operate in Squadrons or 2 to 4 ships Which ment single ship would alway be out gunned
@@recoil53 They were powerful ships with extreme range, but their speed made them somewhat vulnerable, both to cruiser groups and battlecruisers. The next class, which was never bult, would be larger and faster, The raider concept with heavy warships was also somewhat flawed, as even light damage could be a mission kill. As shown by Bismarck, the damage she took in Denmark Strait was nothing for a battleship that was part of a larger force, but for a lone raider it was fatal.
It is! I live in Montevideo and in the port you can find her optical rangefinder just outside of the main building
@@TTTT-oc4eb Plus you are talking about a crew of 1K.
A "super destroyer" or small Iowa makes more sense if they are against committing to subs.
And in a fleet they really are in a weird in between place.
Graf Spee neither was a battleship, nor were there ever any plans whatsoever to reclassify any of the class to the status of battleships. Panzerschiffe became Heavy Cruisers.
There never was a "Prussian Empire" signing anything in WWI. The Kingdom of Prussia long merged into the German Empire by the year 1871.
Germany never partook in or signed the Washington Naval Treaty: Restrictions imposed on the German Navy disallowing vessels over 10,000 tons is part of the Treaty of Versailles. I usually like your contributions, but I am baffled to keep seeing such severe inaccuracies of the very same particular mistake being reiterated over and over again across the internet. The full content of all naval conferences as well as that of the Versailles treaty are on file and widely available.
The British and Americans classified the Graf Spee as a pocket battleship. The Germans classified it as a Panzerschiffe. So it is acceptable to call it a battleship.
"A few minor errors" are par for the course with the "Dark" series.
it's been clear to me for a while that this channel is somebody's ego trip . . .
@@Otokichi786 I don't mind about the... uhm... "minor" and the "dark" ones. So long they don't get too pitch dark. ^^
@@davidkinsey8657 No They didn't.
I was in Montevideo in the late 80's on a UNITAS cruise. You can still see part of the mast stick out of the water and the area is blocked off for passage as it's shallow water, but the water is so full of silt and mud in that harbor that you can't see more than an inch below the surface.
Its main optics rangefinding tower is sitting on the docks of the ferry harbour in Montevideo
The Spanish War is like the first proxy war... everyone sent their stuff to see what everyone else's stuff could do
Just like the current Ukraine
@@prabuddhabose9045 to be fair, Putin's "stuff" was there first.
@@Bdub1952 _Please! Russia's runty red ruler only wants to save the Christian Occident . . ._
@@Bdub1952 To be fair, I don't think anyone mentioned time in the comments.
I know of a war were it happens exactly the same and by the same gang
Unless something has changed, the Graf Spee remains where she sank in December 1939. The water is not deep and I believe the ship remains a hazard to other surface vessels. Then there is the problem with possible explosive armament still on board her.
The Fench didn't have any ships waiting for the Graf Spee. The only ships involved were English.
Ahem...British.
who are the "fench?"
Think you are forgetting Achilles was on loan to New Zealand and had a New Zealand crew.
Kiwi's also deserve recognition
@@ronaldtreitner1460 Ohhh they’re easy to spot, look for the guys with the white flags 😂😂😂
I think you mean “British” !
A key point is British Intelligence made the commander think he did not have a chance to escape. It was a ploy and when he found out he got played he committed suicide. That is what made the first Allied victory so sweet.
Correct. It was a ploy of deception that in terms of naval tradition went back at least to the Napoleonic wars.
The suicide wasn't sweet. Langsdorff was an honourable captain and he feared the repercussions on his family by the Nazi's if he didn't 'punish himself'
@@ASB117 Yes...we know his options was the same as Rommel's. "Sweet" is in reference to how the Allies felt.
Well to be honest:the ship had zero percent chance of escaping and reaching Germany-with its fuel filtration system destroyed........he had two choices:leave crew ashore and scuttle the ship(thus saving most of his crew.....or risk getting caught on open sea with possibility of losing all crew......he made correct choice
Captain Langsdorff said "you English are hard, you do not know when you are beat"
A bit ridiculous to say the Graf Spee was disadvantaged when you consider the age, armament and speed of the Ajax Exeter and HMNZS Achilles.
Few gaps on the story. The real story was in the belief that more ships were just over the horizon and they would be taken by these, which were much further away.
@@bradclifton5248 seeing as my uncle served on the Achilles, I think I know about the "story". My point remains.
Naval vessel range is in nautical miles and speed in knots. A nautical mile is 2000 yards and a knot is one nautical mile per hour. Aviation range and speed is also in nautical miles and knots
FWIW, a nautical mile is only approximately 2000 yards - it's a bit longer than that, and is defined as exactly 1 minute of latitude. Makes navigation (if you're sailing due north or south) a bit easier. It's about 15% longer than a statute mile.
@@gregmead2967 …. 2k yds was how it was explained to me. As were knots were NM/hr. But it’s been along time since I studied it part of to qualify in submarines
The Metric channel. This channel used to be good... sigh
It wasn't an Anglo-French TF. The French were nowhere near Montevideo.
Nice to see pictures of Scharnhorst in there as well. She was a beautiful ship.
Great video.
Captain Hans Langsdorff was obviously a great man, very much like Rommel. Rommel visited my fathers hospital tent near Sedi Rezegh where he was wounded fighting the 21st Panzer Div in Operation Crusader. Rommel entered the tent and got all his medics/doctors at work patching up a bunch of New Zealand wounded which included Major General Howard Kippenberger the head of the NZ 20th Battalion!
It is a shame that Langsdorff and Rommel had to pay the ultimate price of war.
Its a shame it cannot be limited to the likes of Hitler, Stalin or Putin!
I like how well Dan Cummins narrates these in between his comedy tours.
I love ranking these videos on how many time “moreover” is used. Three is the record!
This is one of my favourite war stories, really pleased the channel has covered it
Captain Langdorff said "you English are hard, you do not know when you are beat"
@@chrislambert9435 SO COOL! TELL US MORE
I love all your DARK series and especially the cadence and tone of your speaking. You might consider rather than repeat photos 3 and 4 times during one segment allow the photo to stay visible longer rather than the machine gun speed you seem to rush through them.
Far too many of the movie clips of the "Graf Spee" were actually of the Scharnhorst and/or Gneisenau. Any shot showing one deck-level and one superfiring triple turret cannot be depicting a panzerschiff since their turrets were both at deck level on opposite ends of the superstructure.
The British squadron which engaged Graf Spee did not have an overwhelming force advantage as this video implies--HMS Exeter was a Washington-treaty heavy cruiser with 6 8-inch guns but little armor, while HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles were light cruisers with 6-inch guns and 8 torpedo tubes each, and light armor over the engineering spaces and turrets only. The light cruisers' 6-inch guns couldn't penetrate Graf Spee's armor at all, their only real threat was their torpedo tubes. All three British ships did enjoy a 6-knot speed advantage, which meant that they could choose whether or not to engage, and Ajax and Achilles could eventually close to torpedo range.
Once Graf Spee was localized, it was all over. Faster British and French ships with heavier guns. plus overwhelming numbers of cruisers. were converging on the mouth of the River Plate. That left Captain Langsdorff no viable military options, so he decided to save his crew by scuttling the ship rather than sortieing into a battle he couldn't win and his ship certainly wouldn't survive.
It's a battleship. Scrap the thing. WAR is unbelievably stupid.
Also, the British traded radio traffic leading the Germans to believe that a much stronger force was waiting offshore for them. If they had sortied early, they could have fought their way through the small ships outside the port. Very British.
@@JamesSmith-op7yc WOW BRO! SUCH KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS YOU HAVE BROUGHT AND SHARED WITH US! DO YOU HAVE MORE?
I bet you're just loaded with expertise.
@@pugsymalone6539 This was a key part of the Story and he never mentioned it. He should probably avoid Naval Battles if this is the best he can do.
@@Asymmetrical-Saggin Sacasm is the lowest form of wit .
Not just Russia helping Germany prior to Poland. There was Ford, DOW Chemical, Coke/Fanta, Woolworth, MGM, Kodak, GE, Alcoa, IBM, JD Rockefeller, ... also in some ways helping Germany.
You forgot Charles Lindbergh.
Prescott Bush
During the U-boats refueled at Standard Oil in Linden, NJ. Rockefeller had a German American night crew. All bund members. Someone should calculate U-boat's trips and mileage to see how far they could go and if they were aided on the east coast.
Many of whom were also involved in the business plot to overthrow the government and install a fascist dictatorship.
But Russia helped Germany *after* Poland.
The Battle of the River Plate was fought in the South Atlantic on 13 December 1939 as the first naval battle of the Second World War. The Kriegsmarine heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee, commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, engaged a Royal Navy squadron, commanded by Commodore Henry Harwood,comprising the light cruisers HMS Ajax, HMS Achilles (on loan to the New Zealand Division) and the heavy cruiser HMS Exeter.
There were no french naval assets present for The Battle of the River Plate, plus the kiwis should get a mention as well. I really like this channel but the inaccuracies are definitely a bit jarring in this and the episode about Warspite 🤦
My Grandfather (A Kiwi) was on the Achilles during the battle.
Captain Langdorff said "you English are hard, you do not know when you are beat"
Does not the German U-boat going into Scapa Flow and sinking the HMS Royal Oak on 14 Oct 1939 not count as the first naval battle of WWII between the UK and Nazi Germany?
@@andysnyder4506 I think to truly be a "battle" both sides have to fire a shot. An outdated WW1 battleship in harbor that doesn't fire back against a submarine sneak attack is hardly a battle
Yeah they just sucker punched the Royal Oak
Most of these videos were not actually of Graf Spee
Because footage is sometimes in short supply. It's not like the Ukraine war.
Why is it that when ever a video is made of any of the Deutschland class ships nearly half of the videos shown are of the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Which are completely different ships. It is a very interesting video spoiled by lack of correct video footage. The video is still worth a like though.
I feel like it's worth noting that the battleship in the thumbnail is an American Iowa class battleship, it's hard to make out her hull number but I'm pretty sure that's BB-63, USS Missouri.
I think it’s actually the Tirpitz
No, it is indeed the Admiral Graf Spee, pictured in Geiranger between 01 and 09 July 1938, while on a diplomatic visit to Norway before the war.
@@dominicbuckley8309 Correct, Geiranger fjord in Norway. Now a popular destination for cruise ships. There's even two live webcams there that you can watch on UA-cam.
I dont think pocket battleship was an official naval intelligence designation for these ships...I think that was the British press being alarmist
Thank you for sharing
🏆🙏🇺🇲🤗☸️
Please name the French ships involved in this action. That would be a real historical breakthrough…
The Graf Spee is a tier 6 premium german cruiser
Famous for committing suicide on Uruguayan waters *(scuttling the ship)*
because of a certain colonial power *(Ahem, the british)* told them a very elaborate lie
*(by lying to the graf spee crew that they have the entire royal navy fleet waiting for them)*
WOW?
Are you suggesting that lying to the Graf Spee during a war is somehow dishonorable or against the laws of war? There's a very long history of opposing sides lying to the other to get an important victory. It's an essential part of war.
@@gregmead2967 and saved hundreds of lives.
normaly these are good videos but this one has so many errors, like it would have been more acurate if u just read the wiki page for it
Actually, it made it one of his typical videos.
The vast majority of the images are not related to the story
Close your eyes and visualize
They hardly ever are
@@CM-ve1bz That's what she said! 😂
Bruh, what tf do you want, a black screen?? That’s how a historical UA-cam vid works😂😂
Kinda' like a White House Press Conference 😝!!!!
The captain of the graf spee made a fatal error. His mission was to sink merchant ships, not engage the British navy. Once he realized the ships in the horizon were warship, he should have made smoke and ran away
I’m not a fan of clickbait titles, was it just me or did I miss what the trap was?
A man that followed with honour the rules of naval warfare, died in a hotel room, very sad.
My dad was a Marine 36-66. He volunteered for sea duty and found himself aboard a US navel ship in Montevideo Harbor Uruguay when the Graf Spee claimed 48 hours, as was its right as Uruguay was neutral.
Dad said the US Ambassador leaned on Uruguay, and the Graf Spee left the Harbor after 24 hours.
The Graf Spee limped into Montevideo Harbor, and its Captain scuttled the Graf Spee.
I also read the exact history in The Rise and Fall of the Third Riche.
The Captain eventually returned to Germany, and he was murdered by Hitler goons.
The Captain took his own life two days later, in uniform over the Nazi naval Ensign after writing a loyal but quite guilt ridden letter.
God Bless the USMC......
My apologies. The Captain did take his life.
Captain Langsdorff said "you English are hard, you do not know when you are beat"
lol well your old man was wrong ,a lot of work went into first getting her to stay in port then to get her out of port and that was done with English and French diplomats not the USA you guys weren't in the war at that time
I visited Montevideo in 1993 while deployed on USS Whidbey Island LSD 41 in support of UNITAS 34-93.
Got to admit the Germans made some beautiful battleships.
👍
Especially the four big ones and the Hippers.
What happened to the ship in the thumbnail?
When you’re giving out speed and using kilometers either, say the miles per hour as well or print it at the bottom of the screen. I hate to Google it every time so I know how fast the damn thing is going.
Damn, Uruguay missed an opportunity to have this beauty and name it the SS Capybara
'Secret battleship', how does that work? Reconnaissance, thousands of workers, acres of shipyards, 'Nope, didn't see a thing for the past couple of years' LOL
@ 0.20 Where?
I believe that Captain Langsdorff was one of the Good Germans, in that he knew Hitler was evil enough to have him executed in spite of his relative success in destroying British shipping. He was also concerned about the lives of his crew.
One of the sexiest Battleships ever built. What is it about great design that is always so ergonomically efficient as well as attractive to the eye ?
First Deutschland Class was not ergonomically not economical, they were pretty much all Weimar Germany could build to have at least some firepower.
The ships are slow.
Verry slow.
Are rather poorly protected for their size.
And are using a pretty old main battery with only a verry limited number of guns...
On top of that, graf spee was in bad shape before the first engagement already. Her engines were lang due for rebuild.... She had been in the water for quite some time and was unable to reach her top speed... (not verry fast to begin with)
And second:
Deutschland Class heavy Cruisers are no battleships...
my dad used tells me story`s from when he was a kid in the 60`s in Montevideo about how he was able to see the super structure from the fort general artigas on top of the hill in cerro and how they used to take boats out to it and stuff i was there back in 2018 but the government of Uruguay removed most of the ship so that no one could hit it but for the most part most of the ship is still there
Used tells?
I love the book and the Film about "Graf Spee".
A lot of inaccurate information here and I can't help feel it tries to portray Germany as an innocent party . They use a lot of film of other battleships and the Spee actually outgunned the British force in the initial battle.
Captain Langsdorff said "you English are hard, you do not know when you are beat"
fought BRAVELY ? you mean it HAD to fight FAIRLY for its 1st and only time !" COMMERCE RAIDER" says it all
4:28. you mean 1932, wouldn't have noticed but had CC on
Could you start adding the imperial unit system? Not everyone knows the metric system.. extremely frustrating …
Dark Seas; I`m thinking we need a quick peck into the dictionary here ! If the ship is the most successful raider where is the "gallantry" in that ?
By adhering to Prize Rules, instead of just sinking ships with all hands on board.
Her capitan let everyone on the captured ships to escape and then sank them. He could have just opened fire and kill everyone on those ships, but he didn't
Most pics look like Scharnhorst/Gniesenau.
Gneisenau.
Not bad a few errors, like the French fleet locations was many in the Med sea and Casablanca in 1939 odd one or to floating around, they had very little to do with the hunting down the Graf Spee, the hunt was many done by the Aussie, Kiwi and Brits
The feature that makes the Iowa Class Battleships better than all of the German and Japanese Battleships combined, is the one that allows you to visit ours today without SCUBA gear.
Repeat after me....Monte VID DAY O smh aside from that great Video 😂😂
Why do you use film about Scharnhorst on deutschland class?
🤔 Couldn't have been too secret....It got found and got sunk 🙄!!!
1969 I saw the GRAF SPEE tied to a dock near Montevideo, UR.
no
Soo much going on there in the pic at 8:00
"Graf Spee had been ordered just a year before on October 1, 1942" ; She was launched on June 30, 1934" I'm confused!!
thanks for the circle around the MASSIVE FUCKING BATTLESHIP, wouldnt have been able to see it without it
Significantly outnumbered? Graf Spee was attacked by three Royal Navy cruisers, Exeter, Achilles and Ajax, all smaller and with smaller calibre guns than the German ship i.e. the kind of ships the commentary tells us the Panzerschiffe were designed to be able to outfight. And the Battle of the River Plate was, accordingly, a close run thing.
The Second German Empire ruled Germany during WWI, and the head of it, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated shortly before the cease fire that ended the fighting of WWI. The new/next government of Germany, The Weimar Republic, signed the Treaty of Versailles.
His mispronunciation of Montevideo drove me crazy. It's pronounced like MontehveeDAYoh.
A little help with pronunciation - Monte Video/mohn-TAY vee-DAY-o. And, Graf Spee/groff sh-PAY.
So right. This narrator gets sooooo much wrong! Not that the sycophants ever notice!
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"Classified as armored cruisers" 3:05 Hitler's most secret BATTLESHIP is, at best, misleading. Graf Spee ordered October 1. 1942. 4:28 An obvious mistake! Launched in 1936 and scuttled Dec. 17, 1939. Admiral Graf Spee had single triple turrets, one forward, one aft. The video repeatedly shows a ship with two forward triple turrets. What's with that? This could have been great, but as often happens with dark skies/seas, attention to detail is sadly lacking.
Place captions of the names of the actual ship, .ie otherwise disclose video props or substitutions !!
The Soviets were stuck in a corner, either agree to partition Poland or let all of Poland be taken by the Nazis. They weren't prepared for a new war while still reeling from the problems of tsarist industrial inefficiencies and the effects of WWI. Every major power had nonaggression pacts with Germany ceding them all sorts of territories to appease them before the war. European countries attempts to "strangle Bolshevism in its cradle" (churchill) was still in good memory too.
The date stated for the order is wrong it should be 1932, not 1942.
Knots and inches please .. I dont do metric conversions
As it was described at the time, an elephant sunk by three terriers.
Not fair to elephants or to the ship. She was more like a sabre tooth tiger. Elephants are peaceable animals
If you're going to be an information provider - then get things right!
1) It's not pronounced "Monte-video". It's pronounced like this: "MON" + "ti" + "vi" + "DAY" + "oh".
2) Graf Spee's main armament consisted of a single triple gun turret forward and another one aft. The video is interspersed with clips of either the Scharnhorst or Gneisenau, which had three triple gun turrets, namely, two turrets forward in a super-firing arrangement and one aft.
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Actually, it is prononunced Monte-vi-de-o, at least in spanish. I know because i live here
Dark Skies does explain the lack of photo and film material and does not claim the films or the ships shown as being originally genuine. Todays' Generation ought to know that there was such a lack of reporting and genuine real film compared to todays plethora of stuff (the comparison is astonishing - I am surprised that anything survives from 80+ years ago to show anything here!).
You're closer, but tay, not ti.
Tonnage is not a measure of weight with ships, it's a measure of volume.
I'm sure he meant that she was ordered in 1932, not 1942 ...
ordered in 1928, laid down 1932 and delayed as the last of her class due to lack of finance, launched 1934, commissioned 1936 - I also guess he just misspelled.
Thanks for this 👍
The catapult could launch 2 planes. I wonder what they did when it was time to come back. Surely they couldn't land back on the ship? I guess they'd have to head for terra firma instead.
They were sea planes. So they colud land in water.
@@jakubkarczynski269 The seaplanes would land alongside the ship and taxi to the side. Then they would be hoisted aboard the ship for another flight.
Float planes. They land alongside and a crane winches them up to platform.
The Germans were not limited in any way by the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty because they were not a participant.
An over gunned heavy cruiser. The Brits had several ships that could both out gun and overtake it. Hood, Repulse, Renown.
Ordered in 1942 4:24, completed in 1934, sunk in 1939? Something's not quite right....
Darn youtube I had to sub Again!
why is the entire transcript in the first few frames
Why all that disturbing noise in the background?
Thanks for keeping everything metric
Me: ITS A TRAP! *all squadrons charge towards the Imperial Fleet*
Where would you rather be, risking your life against British Navy, or sunning it in Uruguay for rest of the war
Seems to me like this was a very capable and successful warship in it's short life. Had the nazi's not been obsessed with making all these super weapons they might have had way more success building a dozen of these ships. The amount of materials, labor, time and money that went into building the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, 2 ships that never actually helped the German cause could have been better spent. But that seems to be the common theme among their war effort. Actually lucky for all of us on the allies side. I don't think there was any way Germany would have ever won given the size of the opposition but the war could have gone on twice as long with many more tens of millions of lives lost.
Captain Langsdorff said "you English are hard, you do not know when you are beat"
Its, not it’s. Nazis, not Nazi’s.
Without even being in the action, Tirpitz frightened the Royal Navy escorts away from a convoy taking war supplies from Britain to Murmansk, to supply Stalin's lot with stuff to use against the Nazis. The convoy was decimated by U-boats.
"fought bravely" - is there any other way when one is fighting for one's Life?
Desperately, vehemently, viciously, recklessly, hopelessly...
Fighting for their lives against merchantmen?
Their real fight was against 3 light cruisers.
@@adventussaxonum448 2 light 1 heavy
Wow this was really interesting to watch.
Lots of significant details omitted.
Graff Spee was never a battlship just a very large cruiser
Devastating the Atlantic with gallantry……WTF!
I watch this narrator purely for his spin on german war history… hilarious versions about how courageous they were and sometimes how they fought against all the odds.
Doesn’t bother to research, provide actual relevant footage or overlay areas of the positions/places.
Recent example is the triumphant evacuation video of nazis during WWII in Eastern Europe which he states immediately puts Dunkirk to shame. Also refers of the occupying nazis as “German civilians and just regular soldiers”… not a mention of the reasons of how and why regular German people/soldiers got to the place they were fleeing.
It wasn’t as deep as that, I do agree though. I was struck by the languageIt’s such a curious expression.
One more thing: author of this video is way more interested in cheap melodrama than historical fact. Just look at the title and ask yourself: Hcoronation
YES!!!!!
At about one minute in, you stated that The Prussian Empire was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles. This turns out not to be correct in so many ways...
There was never a Prussian Empire. There was the Kingdom of Prussia, prior to the full unification of Germany and the declaration of the Second German Empire.
Even with the big guns, they were very ineffective against the three cruisers.
Hitler did not have any secret battleships. Choose a realistic headline
to use a distress call as bait is a war crime
One thing I never fully understood about war-
Aggressor country: we hate you, want your resources and want your economy decimated!... But first, lets sign this set of rules we should abide by
Defending country: suuurre.....
Seriously, wtf?! Aren't you supposed to conquer your enemies by any means necessary? Yet they want to set rules.. craziness.
It’s to show God how civilized gentlemen fight…
So Graf Spee was ordered in 1942, 3 years after it was scuttled...lol?
The Spanish always said there were no Nazis in Spain, but if you look along the coast near Cadiz, you will find German sub pens. also this video just confirmed Germany's support of Franco, so there must of been Germans active in Spain,
Please do a video about Laffey (Benson class destroyer DD-459)
scharnhorst or gneasenau
@@flfar3445 Pretty sure Drachinifel got those covered.
I think on Drachinifel last video while touring a cruiser, Laffey was tied next to her. He might be visiting her next.
the damaged british ships were no match for the pocket battleship if she had come out fighting but hitler hated losing in battles with warships so told the captain to scuttle to save face
HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?
@@Navalator the british had been damaged by the spee but were ready to fight but if spee knocked out another ship the odds are that the other two could not match the pocket battleships firepower but the captain of the spee was led to believe that a bigger force was lying in wait for him so thats why he scuttled her instead of being sunk by a battleship