Erich Steinbrinck, named after the commander of the
torpedo boat killed during the
Battle of Jutland in 1916, was ordered on 19 January 1935 from
Blohm & Voss. She was
laid down at their shipyard in
Hamburg on 30 May 1935 as yard number B504,
launched on 24 September 1936 and completed on 31 May 1938. She was commissioned under the command of
Korvettenkapitän Rolf Johannesson, later promoted to
Fregattenkapitän, who commanded her until January 1942. The ship participated in the August 1938 Fleet Review as part of the 3rd Destroyer Division. She participated in the Spring fleet exercise in the western Mediterranean and made several visits to Spanish and Moroccan ports in April and May 1939. When World War II began,
Erich Steinbrinck was initially deployed in the Baltic to operate against the
Polish Navy and to enforce a
blockade of Poland, but she was soon transferred to the
German Bight where she joined her
sister ships in laying defensive minefields. She also patrolled the
Skagerrak to inspect neutral shipping for contraband goods in October. to the
Humber Estuary that claimed seven ships of , including the Polish
ocean liner . On the night of 12/13 December, German destroyers
sortied to lay minefields off the British coast. Under the command of Commodore (
Kommodore)
Friedrich Bonte in his
flagship Hermann Künne,
Steinbrinck,
Bruno Heinemann,
Richard Beitzen, and
Friedrich Ihn laid 240 mines off the mouth of the
River Tyne, where the navigation lights were still lit. The British were unaware of the minefield's existence and lost eleven ships totaling 18,979 GRT. The destroyers were later ordered to escort the crippled
light cruisers and which had been torpedoed by the submarine while covering the destroyers' withdrawal.
Ihn and
Steinbrinck had machinery problems en route and were forced to return to port before they reached the cruisers.
Steinbrinck and her sisters
Friedrich Eckoldt and
Ihn sortied again on the night of 18 December, but the British had turned off the navigation lights off
Orfordness and the German were forced to abandon the attempt because they could not locate themselves precisely enough to lay the minefield in the proper position.
1940–1941 Another minefield of 170
magnetic mines was laid by
Steinbrinck,
Ihn and
Eckoldt on the night of 6–7 January 1940 off the
Thames Estuary. The destroyer and six merchant ships totalling 21,617 GRT were lost to this minefield as well and another ship was damaged as well. The ship was under repairs during
Operation Weserübung in April and did not leave the dockyard until May when she began
working up as part of the
5th Destroyer Flotilla. Her work up was cut short to escort the
battleships and , as well as the
heavy cruiser participating in
Operation Juno, a planned attack on
Harstad, Norway, to relieve pressure on the German garrison at
Narvik. The ships sortied on 8 June and sank the
troop transport , the
oil tanker and the
minesweeping trawler en route. The German commander,
Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, then ordered the
Admiral Hipper and all four destroyers to
Trondheim because of the heavy weather, where they arrived in the morning of 9 June. The two battleships continued the sortie and sank the
aircraft carrier and her two escorting destroyers, although
Scharnhorst was badly damaged by a torpedo from the destroyer in the engagement. The battleship was escorted home by the destroyers
Steinbrinck,
Lody and
Hermann Schoemann for repairs.
Steinbrinck and
Lody then returned to Trondheim to escort
Gneisenau home, after she been torpedoed by a British submarine. The flotilla laid defensive minefields in the North Sea in August and early September before it was transferred to the Atlantic Coast of France in mid-September. Now based at
Brest the flotilla laid a minefield in
Falmouth Bay during the night of 28/29 September. Five ships totalling only 2,026 GRT were sunk by this minefield. Led by
captain (
Kapitän zur See)
Erich Bey,
Steinbrinck and four other destroyers sortied for the
Southwest Approaches on 17 October and were intercepted by a British force of two light cruisers and five destroyers. The British opened fire at extreme range and were forced to disengage in the face of long-range torpedo
volleys and attacks by Luftwaffe bombers without having hit any of the German ships.
Steinbrinck returned home on 7 November for a refit in
Stettin. Her refit was completed in late January 1941, but she was trapped by thick ice so that she could not reach
Gotenhafen to work up until mid-February.
Steinbrinck returned to France in April where she was based at
La Pallice. There she was primarily occupied with escorting returning commerce raiders, warships and supply ships through the
Bay of Biscay to bases in France. These included the raider
Thor on 22 April, the supply ship
Nordland, and the
fleet oiler Ermland in late May. The heavy cruiser was escorted to Brest in early June after separating from the
battleship during
Operation Rheinübung. By the late summer,
Steinbrinck was well overdue for a refit and was suffering from boiler problems but her refit was postponed to allow her to escort the raider
Orion on 21 August. Her departure was delayed when she
ran aground at the beginning of the next month and she did not depart for Germany until 6 September. Sometime in 1941, the destroyer received a
FuMO 21 search radar that was mounted above her
bridge.
1942–1943 Steinbrinck only briefly operated in northern Norway where she participated in
Operation Wunderland in August, where she and her sisters
Eckoldt and
Beitzen escorted the pocket battleship at the beginning and end of its mission to attack Soviet shipping in the
Kara Sea. They also escorted the
minelayer as it departed to lay a minefield off
Cape Zhelaniya in mid-August.
Steinbrinck ran aground at the beginning of September and was sent home after temporary repairs were made at Trondheim. The ship returned to Norway in January 1943 where she was slightly damaged by a practice torpedo fired by the submarine . In early March she escorted
Scharnhorst through the Skaggerak to Trondheim in heavy weather that washed two men overboard. By mid-month,
Steinbrinck was the flagship of Captain (
Kapitän zur See), commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. In September the ship participated in
Operation Zitronella, ferrying troops of the
349th Grenadier Regiment to destroy Norwegian facilities on the island of
Spitzbergen, together with the battleships and
Scharnhorst, escorted by eight other destroyers. After unloading her troops, she bombarded targets on the island until her
fire main broke from the shock of shooting and partially flooded one of her compartments. While successful, the operation was primarily intended to boost the morale of the ships stationed in the Arctic when fuel shortages limited their activities and the Allies reestablished the bases five weeks later.
Steinbrinck and two other destroyers escorted the pocket battleship back to Germany in September and returned to Narvik. On 25 November she was ordered to return to Germany for an
overhaul, but accidentally collided with a small Norwegian steamer en route later that night. The collision severely damaged her bow and she had to sail slowly to Trondheim for emergency repairs lest the forward
bulkhead collapse. The ship then received temporary repairs in Oslo before departing for Germany on 18 December.
1944–1945 After her refit was completed on 18 January 1944,
Steinbrinck and her sister
Theodor Riedel spent the first half of the year laying minefields at the entrance to the Skaggerak and escorting convoys to and from Norway. Sometime in 1944, the ship had her radar replaced by a
FuMO 24 search radar and her
foremast was rebuilt in a
goal-post shape to allow the antenna to fully rotate. A
FuMO 63 K Hohentwiel radar replaced the searchlight on its platform
abaft the rear
funnel. On 3 May the ship passed through the
Kiel Canal en route to Hamburg for a lengthy refit. While in the dockyard, she was struck by a bomb in the
diesel generator room on 18 June. Despite the extent of the damage, the dockyard reported that her refit would be completed as scheduled on 20 November. On 4 November another bomb detonated alongside
Steinbrinck and caused extensive flooding and shock damage from the explosion. The ship was patched up and towed to
Wesermünde for more thorough repairs, but her completion was seriously delayed. By 1 April 1945, only a single engine was operable and the Kriegsmarine made the decision to strip her crew for combat duties ashore after she was moved to
Cuxhaven. She was still there in May when the Germans surrendered.
Post-war The ship was moved to
Wilhelmshaven over the summer under British control while the division of the surviving warships was decided among the victorious Allies. While this was being argued the ships were overhauled with a small maintenance crew aboard to preserve their value. The
Allied Tripartite Commission allocated
Steinbrinck to the
Soviet Union at the end of 1945 and she sailed for
Libau on 2 January 1946. She was commissioned into the
Soviet Navy under the name
Pylky () and assigned to the Soviet 4th Fleet, based at
Rostock, through 1948. Renamed
PKZ-2, she served as a
barracks ship until 19 February 1958, when she was struck from the list. On 18 April 1958, she was sold for scrap and
broken up afterwards. ==Notes==