Kleiner Flugzeugträger “Rhein” – A Brief but Curious Chapter in Germany’s Carrier Aspirations

When Germany resumed construction of the Graf Zeppelin in mid-1942, it became clear that a single fleet carrier would not suffice for the operational ambitions of the Kriegsmarine. With the Seydlitz conversion stalled and several passenger-liner conversions still on paper, naval planners began searching for a vessel that could be quickly and cheaply modified to begin at least some form of carrier training and support operations.

Thus emerged one of the lesser-known projects of the late war: the small aircraft carrier Rhein.

Origins: From Merchant to Makeshift Carrier

The Rhein began life as the diesel merchant ship Wuppertal, a vessel once considered for conversion into an auxiliary cruiser. Though robust and well-maintained, she offered only modest speed, but in 1942 time, not perfection, became the decisive factor.

Her conversion at the Deutsche Werke in Kiel proceeded remarkably quickly. The original superstructure was stripped away, replaced by:

• an open hangar deck,

• a wooden overlying flight deck,

• a relatively large island for command and control,

• and an armament of four 10.5 cm AA guns and numerous 2 cm light weapons.

A single elevator serviced a hangar designed for up to ten aircraft.

Aircraft themselves proved a challenge. The Luftwaffe lacked dedicated carrier aircraft, and the Me 109Ts and Ju 87s built for Graf Zeppelin had been scattered across various units. Scrapping together a naval air group required weeks of searching, recovering airframes from depots, and hurriedly retraining ground crews.

By March 1943, the modest carrier, now christened Kleiner Flugzeugträger Rhein, was completed.

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Baltic Training and Deployment to Norway

Sea trials in the Baltic revealed the ship’s greatest flaw early on:
a top speed of only 18 knots.

This handicap made it difficult for Rhein to launch fully laden aircraft and rendered coordinated fleet operations problematic. Nevertheless, training proceeded, and by August 1943, the ship was dispatched to Norway to join the battle group centered around Tirpitz.

Her single major combat participation occurred during Operation Sizilien, the German-Naval and Luftwaffe raid on Spitzbergen in September 1943. Though too slow to maneuver with the larger ships, Rhein’s contingent of Ju 87s proved useful for reconnaissance flights and small-scale ground attacks that supplemented the assault. These limited successes, however, could not conceal the ship’s operational weaknesses.

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Decline and Disuse

Following the catastrophic sinking of Scharnhorst in December 1943, the Kriegsmarine reassessed all remaining surface operations in northern waters. Slow and poorly protected, Rhein had no realistic role in the increasingly desperate Norwegian theater.

She received orders to return to Germany, arriving in Kiel in January 1944.
There she was formally decommissioned, her aircraft reassigned and her crew dispersed.

With resources dwindling and the naval war entering its final, hopeless phase, the Rhein was left idle.

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Final Fate

In the final days of the war, as German naval forces attempted to prevent their vessels from falling into Allied hands, Rhein was scuttled in the Heikendorf Bight in May 1945.
The wreck was raised shortly after and scrapped between 1947 and 1948, leaving little trace of Germany’s only completed “small carrier.”

The model shows the Rhein during its transfer back to Germany in January 1944.