Graf Spee

The Mackensen class represented the culmination of German battlecruiser development during World War I. The ships were enlarged derivatives of the Derfflinger class, with heavier 35 cm guns and improved armor protection.

Although 38 cm guns were initially considered, the resulting increase in displacement and limits imposed by the naval leadership led designers to adopt 35 cm guns instead.

Mackensen alone was ordered in peacetime; six additional ships followed under the emergency wartime construction program. After Germany learned that the British Renown class would carry 38 cm guns, the final three orders were redesigned with weapons of the same caliber, creating the separate Yorck class.

None of the four Mackensen-class ships was completed. Work on Mackensen stopped with about fourteen months remaining, and she was broken up after the war. Prinz Eitel Friedrich was roughly twenty-one months from completion; she was launched only to clear the slipway and was then scrapped. Graf Spee was an estimated twelve to eighteen months from completion when work ended. Fürst Bismarck was the least advanced ship of the class, was never launched and was dismantled on the slipway by 1922.