 Hindenburg was commissioned late in the war and as a result had a brief service career . The ship took part in a handful of short fleet operations as the flagship of the I Scouting Group in 1917 – 18 , though saw no major action . The proposed final sortie of the fleet in the last weeks of the war came to nothing when the crews of the capital ships mutinied . Hindenburg was subsequently interned with the rest of the German battlecruisers at Scapa Flow in November 1918 . Rear Admiral Ludwig von Reuter ordered the ships be scuttled on 21 June 1919 . Hindenburg was the last of the ships to sink . She was raised in 1930 and broken up for scrap over the following two years . 
