The Deutschland class was a series of three Panzerschiffe ("armoured ships"), a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the German Reichsmarine more or less in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The class is named after the first ship of this class to be completed (the Deutschland). She and her sister ships, the Admiral Scheer and the Admiral Graf Spee, were all launched between 1931 and 1934 and served in Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. The British began referring to the vessels as pocket battleships ("a battleship that fits into a pocket"), in reference to the heavy firepower of the relatively small vessels. They were considerably smaller than a true battleship and their armor and guns were far inferior to those of battleships and battlecruisers; however, they could outgun any contemporary cruiser. The ships were actually two feet longer than the American Pennsylvania-class battleships, and superficially resembled contemporary battleships due to their massive main gun turrets, unusually high conning tower/bridge and the masts of the Admiral Scheer and Admiral Graf Spee.

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