Z20 Karl Galster was one of six Type 1936 destroyers built for the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) in the late 1930s. Completed in early 1939, the ship spent most of her time training. At the beginning of World War II in September, she was initially deployed to lay minefields off the German coast, but was soon transferred to the Skagerrak where she inspected neutral shipping for contraband goods. In late 1939 and early 1940, Z20 Karl Galster helped to laid three offensive minefields off the English coast that claimed one British destroyer, a fishing trawler, and twenty merchant ships. After a refit that prevented her from participating in the German invasion of Norway in April, the ship was sent to Norway for escort duties. Later that year Z20 Karl Galster was transferred to France, where she made several attacks on British shipping.
The ship returned to Germany in early 1941 for a refit and was transferred to Norway in June as part of the preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Z20 Karl Galster spent some time at the beginning of the campaign conducting anti-shipping patrols in Soviet waters but these were generally fruitless. She escorted a number of German convoys in the Arctic later in the year until engine problems sent her back to Germany for repairs. The ship returned to Norway in mid-1942, but was badly damaged when she ran aground in July and did not return until December. Z20 Karl Galster participated in the German attack (Operation Zitronella) on the Norwegian island of Spitzbergen, well north of the Arctic Circle, in September 1943. Plagued by engine problems, the ship was under repair from November to August 1944 and then spent the next six months on convoy escort duties in southern Norway when not laying minefields.
Around March 1945, Z20 Karl Galster was transferred to the Baltic Sea where she helped to escort convoys of refugee ships and also rescued evacuees herself in May, around the time that Germany surrendered. When the surviving German warships were divided between the Allies after the war, the ship was eventually allocated to the Soviet Union.
Z20 Karl Galster was handed over in 1946 and renamed Prochnyy. The ship was converted into a training ship in 1950 and then became an accommodation ship in 1954. She was scrapped four years later.
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spell or incantation; galster in Old High GermanGalster Wilderness Park Nature Center, California GermandestroyerZ20KarlGalster, 1937-1958 All pages...
the destroyer was transferred to Norway in preparation for Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941. Z20KarlGalster mostly...
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all been built in the 1930s, making them modern vessels (no destroyers remained in German hands following the close of the First World War). Including...
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Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt, Z22 Anton Schmitt, Z4 Richard Beitzen and Z20KarlGalster. Ihn had problems with her boilers that reduced her maximum speed to...
having hit any of the German ships. On the night of 24–25 November, Hans Lody and the destroyers Z4 Richard Beitzen and Z20KarlGalster sortied from Brest...
flotillas were then placed as subordinate units to the security divisions. Germandestroyer flotillas were the most recognizable surface units as they were organized...
Nazi Germany, during its existence from 1935 to the conclusion of World War II in 1945. See the list of naval ships of Germany for ships in German service...
This is a list of destroyers of the Second World War. The List of ships of the Second World War contains major military vessels of the war, arranged alphabetically...
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Connell, G. G. (1982), Arctic destroyers: the 17th Flotilla, W. Kimber, ISBN 978-0-7183-0428-7 Hill, Roger P. (1986), Destroyer Captain, Periscope Publishing...
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