The German school ship Segelschulschiff Niobe, a three-masted barque, capsized on July 26, 1932 in the Baltic Sea near Fehmarn due to a sudden squall, killing 69. The loss prompted the German Navy to order a new training vessel built. The contract went to the shipyard of Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, where construction began on December 2, 1932. She was completed in only 100 days. On May 3, 1933 the ship was launched and baptized Gorch Fock in honor of German writer Johann Kinau who wrote under the pseudonym "Gorch Fock". Kinau had died in the 1916 Battle of Jutland aboard the cruiser SMS Wiesbaden.