The warships of the World War II German Navy are among the most popular subjects in naval history, and one of the best collections is the concise but authoritative six volume series written by Gerhard Koop and illustrated by Klaus-Peter Schmolke. Each book contains an account of the development of a particular class, a detailed description of the ships, with full technical details, and an outline of their service, and are heavily illustrated with plans, battle maps and a substantial collection of photographs. The first five volumes of this much sought after series are now available in paperback, with the sixth volume German Light Cruisers of World War II, planned for release in the fall of 2014.
This volume covers the three ships of a design so revolutionary that it defied conventional categories. Deutschland (later renamed Lützow), Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee were simply termed panzerschiffe (armored ships) by the Germans, but they were known to their opponents by the far more evocative term Pocket Battleships.