Conditions signed in 1919 in the Versailles peace Treaty that ended the First world war, the German Navy was devastating. The winners, especially the British, insisted on almost total elimination of the fleet once the second naval power of the world. The Germans were allowed to have mine force, consisting of only twelve destroyers and an equal number of destroyers. The latter can be attributed to this squadron destroyers only conditionally: they all belonged to the pre-war series had weak arms and worn-out mechanisms. It is significant that the newest unit of the fleet of the Weimar Republic was the destroyer S-23, which came into operation six months before the start of the war.
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