Scientific explorations include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expedition, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.

* 1914 – World War I: First Battle of the Atlantic – two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.

* 1914 – World War I: the Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.

* 1908 – SMS Blücher, the last armored cruiser to be built by the German Imperial Navy, launches.

* 1914 – Ypiranga incident: A German arms shipment to Mexico is intercepted by the U. S. Navy near Veracruz.

Even though Bulgaria did not send any troops to support the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Navy was involved in a number of skirmishes with the Soviet Black Sea Fleet, which attacked Bulgarian shipping.

A major setback was caused by the German Navy introducing the four-rotor Enigma used for communicating with U-boats.

*, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser

# REDIRECT German Navy

The Baralong Incidents were naval engagements of the First World War in August and September 1915, involving the Royal Navy Q-Ship, later renamed HMS Wyandra, and two German U-boats.

* 1914 – A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats an inferior squadron of the Imperial German High Seas Fleet in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

* 1943 – World War II: German warship Scharnhorst is sunk off of Norway's North Cape after a battle against major Royal Navy forces.

Later in the war he succeeded Jellicoe as Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet, in which capacity he received the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of hostilities, and then in the 1920s he served a lengthy term as First Sea Lord ( head of the Royal Navy ).

The Royal Navy could much more readily replace its losses with ships already under construction, while the engagement ended with the German fleet retreating as fast as possible from the British.

Thereafter the Imperial German Navy ceased any serious attempts to engage the British fleet and remained at home as a ' fleet in being '.

* 1939 – World War II: Battle of the River Plate – Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German Deutschland class cruiser ( pocket battleship ) Admiral Graf Spee engages with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.

# REDIRECT German Navy

The arms shipment was lost when the German ship carrying it, Aud, was scuttled after interception by the Royal Navy, after the local Volunteers had failed to rendezvous with it.

Moreover, the Swedish Navy escorted the German naval squadron, transporting German weapons to the Finnish Whites, and allowed the squadron to pass through Swedish territorial waters in February 1918.

The Reichsflotte was the first German Navy to sail under the black-red-gold flag.

With the reunification of Germany in 1990 the Marine took over the former East German Volksmarine (“ People ’ s Navy ”).

The German Navy is also engaged in operations against international terrorism such as Operation Enduring Freedom and NATO Operation Active Endeavour.

Presently the largest operation the German Navy is participating in is UNIFIL II off the coast of Lebanon.

Nearly 3, 700 Allied ships were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats.

Italian submarines participated in the Battle of the Atlantic from this base which was also a major base for German U-boats as headquarters of 12th U-boat Flotilla.

* SS Corvus, a Norwegian steamship sunk by German U-boats in February 1945

In April 1917, when German U-boats were sinking many British ships with torpedoes, the marine artist Norman Wilkinson devised dazzle camouflage, which paradoxically made ships more visible but harder to target.

* 1914: German U-boats were powered by MAN diesels.

In the Quirin affair during World War II, German U-boats set two small groups of Nazi agents ashore in Florida and Long Island to cause acts of sabotage within the country.

* 1942 – World War II: Battle of the Atlantic – German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions in response to the effective American convoy system.

During the war, Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft produced 84 U-boats for the German navy, as well as the Deutschland submarine freighter, intended to ship raw material to Germany despite the blockade.

Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft shipyard launched the German cruiser Prinz Eugen, as well as many of Germany's U-boats ( 130 between 1934 and 1945 ) using preassembled parts supplied by other Krupp factories in a process similar to the construction of the US liberty ships.

The German Navy's U-boats were also instrumental in the sinking of the civilian passenger liner the Lusitania on 7 May 1915, which was one of the main events that led to the USA joining the war two years later in 1917.

During the Second World War, German U-boats used the currents to pass into the Mediterranean Sea without detection, by maintaining silence with engines off.

In the Gallipoli Campaign in the spring of 1915 in the eastern Mediterranean, German U-boats, notably the U-21, prevented close support of allied troops by 18 pre-Dreadnought battleships by sinking two of them.

This continuous action became known as the Battle of the Atlantic, as the British developed technical defences such as ASDIC and radar, and the German U-boats responded by hunting in what were called " wolfpacks " where multiple submarines would stay close together, making it easier for them to sink a specific target.

The U. S. military engaged in various tactics against German incursions in the Americas ; these included military surveillance of foreign nations in Latin America, particularly in the Caribbean, in order to deter any local governments from supplying German U-boats.

Using newly captured French ports, the German Navy enjoyed success against an over-extended Royal Navy, using U-boats against British shipping in the Atlantic.

Between 1939 and 1945, 3, 500 Allied merchant ships were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats.

King — and Canada — were largely ignored by Winston Churchill, despite Canada's major role in supplying food, raw materials, munitions and money to the hard-pressed British economy, training airmen for the Commonwealth, guarding the western half of the North Atlantic Ocean against German U-boats, and providing combat troops for the invasions of Italy, France and Germany in 1943-45.

* July 19 – WWII: Battle of the Atlantic: German Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz orders the last U-boats to withdraw from their United States Atlantic coast positions, in response to an effective American convoy system.

But the German capital ships had been bottled up in the North Sea, and the main threat to shipping came from U-boats.

During this time, German U-boats sank a number of merchant marine ships and three Canadian warships.