SMS Hildebrand

SMS Hildebrand was the fifth vessel of the six-member Siegfried class of coastal defense ships built for the German Imperial Navy. Her sister ships were Siegfried, Beowulf, Frithjof, Heimdall, and Hagen. Hildebrand was built by the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel shipyard between 1890 and 1893, and was armed with a main battery of three 24-centimeter guns. She served in the German fleet throughout the 1890s and was rebuilt in 1900–1902. She served in the VI Battle Squadron after the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, but saw no action. Hildebrand was demobilized in 1915 and used as a barracks ship thereafter. She ran aground while en route to the Netherlands for scrapping in 1919, and was eventually broken up in situ in 1933.

In the late 1880s, the German Kaiserliche Marine grappled with the problem of what type of capital ship to build in the face of limited naval budgets . General Leo von Caprivi, the new Chef der Admiralität , requested a series of design proposals, which ranged in size from small 2,500 long tons coastal defense ships to heavily-armed 9,800 long tons ocean-going battleships. Caprivi ordered ten coastal defense ships to guard the entrances to the canal, since even opponents of the navy in the Reichstag agreed that such vessels were necessary. The first six of these, the Siegfried class, were based on the smallest proposal.

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