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After surrendering off the Forth estuary in November 1918 the ships of the German High Seas Fleet were escorted to the anchorage at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands and interned. Their guns disabled, their engines run down, and their crews far from reliable, they technically remained German property during the peace treaty negotiations at Versailles.

The naval conditions of the draft Treaty of Versailles presented on 6^th May 1919 demanded that all of the interned ships be handed over to the Allies. Rear-Admiral Ludwig von Reuter, the officer commanding the German ships in Scapa, knowing that his ships could no longer fight and that they were being used as a bargaining tool at Versailles and believing that the German Government’s rejection of the terms of the treaty meant a renewal of hostilities and the possible seizure of his ships by the British, took what he felt was the only option open to him as the local commander and scuttled the vessels.

Shortly after 10.30 on the morning of 21^st June 1919 after most of the British guard ships had left for routine torpedo exercises he ran up the order, “Paragraph 11. Bestatigen” (Paragraph 11. Confirm). Working to a pre-arranged plan some of the most powerful vessels then known were disabled, run aground or scuttled. A massive salvage operation was mounted but three German battleships and four light cruisers still lie in the Flow.

Battlecruisers

Seydlitz  (salvaged), Moltke (salvaged), Von der Tann (salvaged), Derfflinger (salvaged), Hindenburg (salvaged).

Battleships

Kaiser (salvaged), Prinzregent Luitpold (salvaged), Kaiserin (salvaged), Konig Albert (salvaged), Friedrich der Grosse (salvaged), Konig (still in the Flow), Grosser Kurfurst (salvaged), Kronprinz Wilhelm (still in the Flow), Markgraf (still in the Flow), Baden (beached), Bayern (salvaged).

Light Cruisers

Bremse (salvaged), Brummer (still in the Flow), Dresden (still in the Flow), Coln (still in the Flow), Karlsruhe (still in the Flow), Nurnberg (drifted ashore), Emden (beached), Frankfurt (beached).

Torpedoboat-destroyers

50 of which 32 sank and 18 were beached or settled in shallow water.

Dan Van der Vat, The Grand Scuttle, Berlinn, Edinburgh, 1997.

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