replace the battleship . Her keel was laid on 1 October 1932, under construction number 125. The ship was launched on 30 June 1934; at her launching, she was christened by the daughter of Admiral Maximilian von Spee, after whom the ship was named. She was completed slightly over a year and a half later on 6 January 1936, the day she was commissioned into the German fleet. Possible conversion After Hitler had given the order in late January 1943 for the two remaining ships to be scrapped, the possibility of instead converting them into aircraft carriers was discussed. The hulls would have been lengthened by approximately , which would have used 2,000 tons of steel and employed 400 workmen. Conversion time was estimated at two years. Their flight deck would have been only shorter than that of the Hipper-class heavy cruiser , which had been prepared for conversion in 1942, and they would still have attained 28 knots. This plan was not pursued. Ships in class Deutschland Deutschland saw significant action with the Kriegsmarine, including several non-intervention patrols, during which she was attacked by Republican bombers. At the outbreak of World War II, she was cruising the North Atlantic, prepared to attack Allied merchant traffic. Bad weather hampered her efforts, and she sank or captured only three vessels before returning to Germany, after which she was renamed Lützow. She then participated in Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway. Damaged at the Battle of Drøbak Sound, she was recalled to Germany for repairs. While en route, she was torpedoed by a British submarine and seriously damaged. Repairs were completed by March 1941, and in June Lützow steamed to Norway. While en route, she was torpedoed by a British bomber, necessitating significant repairs that lasted until May 1942. She returned to Norway to join the forces arrayed against Allied shipping to the Soviet Union. She ran aground during a planned attack on convoy PQ 17, which necessitated another return to Germany for repairs. She next saw action at the Battle of the Barents Sea with the heavy cruiser , which ended with a failure to destroy the convoy JW 51B. Engine problems forced a series of repairs culminating in a complete overhaul at the end of 1943, after which the ship remained in the Baltic. Sunk in the Kaiserfahrt in April 1945 by Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers, Lützow was used