 Commander ( Fregattenkapitän ) Hans Dominik assumed command in January 1943 and the ship escorted the damaged Admiral Hipper and Köln down to Kristiansand at the end of the month . She began escorting convoys between that port and Aarhus , Denmark before she escorted the battleship Scharnhorst to Altafjord in early March . The following month she screened Nürnberg during the latter 's return to the Baltic and began a refit at Swinemunde that lasted until October . Returning to the Arctic , she ran aground in the Karmsund on 27 October that extensively damaged her . Richard Beitzen was refloated on 5 November and towed to Haugesund for emergency repairs . She reached Bergen on 26 November for temporary repairs that took until 18 December to effect . The ship arrived at Stettin five days later , but repairs , which included fitting a new bow , did not begin until 17 January as the dry dock was already occupied . The repairs were completed in June , but machinery problems meant that she was not operational again until 5 August when she reached Horten , Norway . 
