Eider Canal conservation areas. Eider Canal The Eider Canal (also called the Schleswig-Holstein Canal) was an artificial waterway in southern Denmark (later northern Germany) which connected the North Sea with the Baltic Sea by way of the rivers Eider and Levensau. Constructed between 1777 and 1784, the Eider Canal was built to create a path for ships entering and exiting the Baltic that was shorter and less storm-prone than navigating around the Jutland peninsula. In the 1880s the canal was replaced by the enlarged Kiel Canal, which includes some of the Eider Canal's watercourse. The canal's watercourse followed the border between the
Baltic Sea campaigns (1939–45) had signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which allowed it to expand considerably. The name "Kriegsmarine" was adopted the same year. Though a large, powerful, and professional force, it had to divide its assets between several theaters of war, severely limiting the number and size of the ships it was able to deploy in the Baltic Sea. At the start of the Operation Barbarossa on 21 June 1941 German naval forces in the Baltic Sea consisted of In September 1941 Germany formed the provisional "Baltenflotte", which consisted of the battleship , cruisers , , , and , destroyers , , and