German minesweeper M-1
1937 M-class minesweeper
German minesweeper M-1 was a M 1935-class minesweeper of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in World War II.
History
Laid down in 1936, M-1 was launched on 5 March 1937. Commissioned on 1 September 1938 under the command of Oberleutnant zur See Hans Bartels, she was used to transfer the Marinestosstruppkompanie to the battleship Schleswig-Holstein on 24 August 1939 in preparation for the Invasion of Poland. After service in the campaign, M-1 was relocated to the North Sea.
In February 1940, M-1 sank four Esbjerg fish trawlers, Ejjam (E 92), Gerlis (E 456), Merkator (348), and Polaris (E 504), killing all 16 crew members. Bartels later justified his decision with military necessity, as the neutral fishermen allegedly send coded messages to alert British forces to his presence on the Doggerbank.
After the German attack on the Soviet Union, M-1 was part of the naval component of Operation Siegfried, the occupation of the islands Dagö, Ösel, and Moon. Soon afterwards, M-1 became flotilla leader of 55. Vorpostenflottille operating on the west coast of occupied Norway.
On 12 January 1945, M-1 was sunk in Nordbyfjord, near Bergen in Norway, by Avro Lancaster aircraft of 9 and 617 Squadrons, Royal Air Force, using Tallboy bombs. She sank with the loss of 20 crew members.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1519278. Authority coordinates are 60.567, 6.915. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1935, 1936, 1937 and 1938.
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This entry incorporates text from “German minesweeper M-1” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.