The Dutch hulls on the Rotterdam slipways
In mid-May 1940, the Netherlands surrenders. On the slipways of Wilton-Fijenoord and the neighbouring yards, the Kriegsmarine discovers an entire generation of Dutch warships under construction: a nearly completed submarine, destroyers of the class, and the hulls of two light cruisers.
Some of these units were scuttled by Dutch demolition teams in the Nieuwe Waterweg to keep them from the enemy. Others remain intact on their keel blocks.
The German command must decide: exploit this workforce and these hulls for its own benefit, or give up an industrial asset whose reliability, under occupation, remains uncertain.
After the Dutch surrender, what should be done with the unfinished warships seized on the slipways of Rotterdam and Schiedam?
The Germans chose to recover and complete the units for their own use. The submarine O 25 was finished and commissioned as UD-3. The destroyer , scuttled on 14 May 1940, was raised during the summer of 1940, towed to Hamburg and completed at Blohm & Voss under the name ZH1 (commissioned on 11 October 1942). The two cruiser hulls were seized under the names KH 1 and KH 2 (Kreuzer Holland), set aside for post-war completion; KH 1 was launched on 24 December 1944 to serve as a blockship fire-ship, a project that was never carried out. The yards also continued to produce for the Kriegsmarine (minesweepers), before the occupier plundered the machinery and tooling in 1943-1944.
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