ccupied with training cruises and fleet maneuvers in her early career.

She served with the High Seas

Fleet throughout the first two years of World War I, saw brief action at the Battle of Jutland, and
became a training ship in 1917. The Treaty of Versailles permitted the German navy to keep eight
obsolete battleships, including Schlesien, to defend the German coast. Modernized in the mid-1920s,
the ship saw limited combat during World War II, briefly bombarding Polish forces during
the invasion of Poland in September 1939. After escorting minesweepers during the invasion of
Norway and Denmark in April 1940, she primarily served as a training ship and icebreaker. She was
sunk by a mine in 1945 while tasked with providing fire support off the