High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! SMS Lothringen was the fifth of five pre-dreadnought battleships of the Braunschweig class in the German Imperial Navy laid down in 1902 and commissioned 1906. She was named for the then German province of Lothringen, now Lorraine, a region of France. Her sister ships were Braunschweig, Elsass, Hessen, and Preussen.