The German destroyer Z2 Georg Thiele was one of four Type 1934-class destroyers built for the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during the mid-1930s. She was named after Georg Thiele, a Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) who commanded the Seventh Half Flotilla of torpedo boats. Completed in 1937, two years before the start of World War II, the ship spent most of her time training although she did participate in the occupation of Memel in early 1939. At the beginning of World War II, the ship was initially deployed to blockade the Polish coast, but she was quickly transferred to the German Bight to lay minefields in German waters. During the early stages of the Norwegian Campaign, in April 1940, Z2 Georg Thiele fought in both naval Battles of Narvik, on 10 and 13 April, and had to be beached to allow her crew to abandon ship safely after she had been severely damaged by British fire. The ship, having broken up, is now a popular diving site. Design and description Design work on the Type 34-class destroyers began in 1932, around the time that Weimar Germany renounced the armament limitations of the Versailles Treaty that had ended World War I. Initial designs for the new destroyers were for large ships more powerful than the French and Polish destroyers then in service, but the design grew further as the Kriegsmarine now expected it to serve as a small cruiser. The design work appears to have been rushed and not well-thought out as the short forecastle and lack of flare at the bow compromised the ships' seakeeping ability and their stability was inadequate. The only substantial innovative part of the design, the high-pressure boilers, were an over-complicated system that received almost no shipboard testing before being installed in the Type 34s and frequently broke down throughout the life of the ships. The class had an overall length of and were long at the waterline. The ships had a beam of , and a maximum draft of . They displaced at standard load and at deep load. The two Wagner geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller shaft, were designed to produce using steam provided by six Wagner boilers. The ships had a designed speed of , but attained an actual maximum speed of . The Type 34s carried a maximum of of fuel oil which was intended to give a range of at a