SMS Gneisenau
"Gneisenau" was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, Germany in 1904, under construction number 144. She was launched on 14 June 1906, and commissioned into the fleet nearly two years later on 6 March 1908. The ship cost the German government 19,243,000 goldmarks. The ship had been designed for service with the High Seas Fleet, though it was found to be too weak for service with the battle fleet; instead it was deployed overseas, a role in which it performed well.
German battleship Gneisenau
On 12 January 1942, the German Naval Command, in a conference with Hitler, made the decision to return "Gneisenau", "Scharnhorst", and the heavy cruiser to Germany. The intention was to deploy the vessels to Norway to interdict Allied convoys to the Soviet Union. The so-called "Channel Dash", codenamed Operation "Cerberus", would avoid the increasingly effective Allied radar and patrol aircraft in the Atlantic. Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax was given command of the operation. In early February, minesweepers swept a route through the English Channel, though the British failed to detect the activity.