Schiffe Menschen Schicksale (abbreviated SMS; English: Ships – People – Fates) is a German-language monthly popular periodical dedicated to naval and maritime history.
History The maritime magazine has been published since 1993. It is edited by Klaus Gröbig (b. 1956), who has also authored many volumes. The publication with extensive illustrations is aimed at readers with a historical interest in a popularized form. It was initially issued by Koehler (Hamburg) and DBM-Media (Berlin), later by Maximilian-Verlag Schober (Hamburg, until 1999), and subsequently by SMS Verlag für Marinegeschichte UG, based in Berlin (previously located in Kiel and Stade). Its first volume (Heft) is Glück und Ende der „Bremen“ (Fortune and Fate of the "Bremen") about the fate of Germany's most famous passenger ship between 1928 and the Second World War. After an adventurous return to Germany in 1939, the ship met its end in a fire in 1941. The reader is informed about the fate of aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, explorers, torpedo boats, fast attack craft, destroyers, submarines, auxiliary cruisers, passenger ships, liners, armored cruisers, sailing ships, and related subjects of all classes and eras, particularly about the backgrounds and causes of spectacular shipwrecks and accidents, as well as about memorable events at sea in both peacetime and wartime. As of September 2025, the series comprises 378 volumes and several special issues:
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