German Destroyers and Escorts

The destroyers and torpedo boats of the Kriegsmarine, although not fully utilised during World War 2, were fundamental workhorses and served in many roles in most theatres. Together with the ocean-going minesweepers, also covered in this volume, they provided cover for capital ships and coastal convoys and thus were an inextricable part of the German maritime operations, as covered in the previous three volumes relat­ing to warships in this series.
The Treaty of Versailles had left the Kaiserliche Marine with only 16 destroyers -the so-called torpedo-boat destroyers of World War 1. In fact, the Germans had a habit of calling all small warships by the general name Zerstdrer, and this can confuse the naval historian on occasions! Under the terms of the Treaty, only a dozen of these craft could be operated at one time, together with a similar number of torpedo boats (Torpedoboote).