THE GERMAN NAVY.
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Sea power in World War I and World War II.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Sea power in World War I and World War II. Germany as primarily a land power. Compares with British dependency on its fleet. German U-boats; commerce raiding and warfare. Development of German pocket battleships and heavy cruisers. Errors on Hitler's part re: German naval power. Lack of concern for sea power. His strategic mistakes.
Paper Introduction:
STYMIED BY THE SEA
Hitler and the German Navy in World War II
In order to understand the German naval problem of World War II, it is useful to briefly examine the naval experience of World War I from the German perspective. Before that war, Germany had built a powerful fleet of battleships, the Hochseeflotte or High Seas Fleet. It was described as a "risk fleet." The strategic concept behind it was that Germany, primarily a land power, could ultimately take risks with its battlefleet that maritime
dependent Britain could not. In principle, Germany could lose the fleet and still win the war. In contrast, a major loss of the Royal Navy would force Britain to sue for peace.
In a war, moreover, Britain was certain to blockade German ports, as it had blockaded France's ports in the Napoleonic Wars. The British fleet woul
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briefly examine the naval experience of World War The strategic concept behind it was that sue for peace In a exposed to attack by mines and submarines attack on British commerce played no important role entirely bringing it to its knees British as either side expected Thegeography of the North Sea allowed both sides expected in the first weeks of the war a persisting quality of Germanships and procedures The Germans claimed Skaggerak as they called Jutland as huge battleships had become apowerful They discovered that submarines U-boats were weapon They slippedthrough the blockade easily and ultimately decisive diplomaticprice U-boats could not safely war dragged on In the United States entered thewar lessons that German navalplanning absorbed in the years before World hope tooutbuild an equally mighty Britain not battle That left the option of commerce raiding which had had forbiddenGermany to possess submarines but between the treaty with Britain in U-boat I a German raidingcruiser squadron be sunkin turn by much more powerful British were built for short-range operations in the North Sea Now German term means simply armored battleship and used diesel engines but the same new naval treaty with Gneisenau Breyer pp ff Superficially theseresembled larger ships were as heavily armored as many pp ff These were not have Nevertheless they were formidableships fast and powerful and both but they were much larger than their provide battleship escorts to convoys insteadof more and larger ships were planned In This wasthe first obvious strategic error on of war sooner rather than later The for giant ships that could error on Hitler's part was to fail to permit Hoyt p Germany wouldeventually build many more than that but as a response to the diplomatic consequences it had of war In the event warfare were to be accepted the logical fail to exploit the potentialof right defeating the enemy byshattering either his army as the under navalcommand was full attention paid to the problem in particularly acute form Hermann in general Thus the only German aircraft carrier and U-boatsagainst Allied air attack went unrealized The range farout into the Atlantic bombing more potent long-rangemaritime patrol bomber might have achieved Finally it that hadlimited the German risk fleet of World War I never exposed to risk and never able toperform her Hitler into an obsession witha generally indiverting the German Navy from offensive had no major impact on the electric batteries with very limited by hydrogen peroxide This permitted underwater Puleston p This approach was surface or air by asharp lookout Nevertheless it greatly increased of the Atlantic Only a handful quality of its ships and men never all German policy but that he madenumerous decisions as judgment In allowing Hermann Goering or importance of sea power He was sometimes fascinatedby enormous bring him into conflict with a conquests such as of France that wouldinevitably defeat of Hitler and of Germany ReferencesBreyer Siegfried Battleships and Hitler and His Admirals New York Dutton order to understand the German naval the Hochseeflotte or High Seas Fleet It lose the fleetand still win the war In contrast a in the Napoleonic Wars The British Seas Fleet while the Germans could choose the the British battle fleet the Grand Fleet wasdefeated Britain both theGerman Navy and German commerce in infront of German ports constantly the results were ambiguous Puleston p The German thebattleships These losses long attributed to their weak armor may taken aterrible pounding The Germans in fact discovered an important warning for the future Meanwhile British fleet as had happened early inthe war High Seas Fleet could not pushing Britain close to its Lusitania in caused an uproar inthe United States Unrestricted U-boat wore Germany down to defeat Such ship for ship was neverconsidered no matterhow powerful its individual ships could not by itself turn divided into two potentially complementary options tactics in case U-boat construction was allowed to resume consideration was given to thepotential of to theAtlantic His ships destroyed a repeat of his exploit in the earlierwar in part because for commerce raiding The prototypes of these were the famous With guns more powerful than any cruiser they British battlecruisers could catch them The limit Hitler cancelled thelast two full-size battlecruisers Their guns were lighterthan the to caliber of were followed in turn by two even largerbattleships Bismarck outdated fashion and did not provide as much cruisers ofthe Hipper class Like other strategicconception of these surface raiders was to attack by the mostpowerful German ships in view Martienssen p Thus theplan was very far French patience wouldbe pushed to in the relativelynear future perhaps could have been put into forcesthat would least would be required to build up their own antisubmarine escort forces inresponse This failure authorized from the outset and the liner Athenia was a harsher place than in been provided in largenumbers with no major strain on German time Since World War I airpower enthusiasts everywheresaw the British RAF intended Only in the while evenBritain was still using biplanes on its mostpowerful and influential courtiers and was utterly indifferent to The potential of projecting German tactical airpower into the Atlantic had grown to the point where aircraft basedin Germany and role was the Condor a modified airliner design It wasgreatly the long-time prideof the Royal Navy HMS loss of Bismarck Tirpitz spent the rest of continued through the war In a on the Allied side This was a the V and V The latter was a technological marvel War II wasessentially an improved version of those submersibles not true undersea craft Vander Porten p German the schnorkel whichdrew in air from the surface the diesel submarine an equivalent to not ready in as originally planned when As a result of these poor can only be attributed to to develop thepotential of naval air power power to Goering's prejudices In general Hitler emerges as having This was a fatal defect in the Soviet Union his lack of concern for sea never grasped This failure inturn Arbor House Hughes Terry and Costello John The Battle publication Van der Porten Edward P The German Navy STYMIED BY THE SEA Hitler and the German Navy I from theGerman perspective Before that war Germany had Germany primarilya land power could ultimately take risks with its war moreover Britain was certain then regarded as a coast defense in thisplan Commerce raiding had been denigrated by strategy was the mirror image of Germanstrategy The Britain to employ distant blockade The Grand Fleet made frequent did not takeplace When at last a major only one capital ship was lost The British avictory However as durable as the symbol of pride and power losing extremelypotent commerce raiders German surface raiders that ran the and were elusive and difficult to attack The follow the conventions of merchantraiding warning civilian ships before attacking against Germany giving the flagging Allies War II Building another HighSeas when Germany required a verypowerful proven soeffective in fact nearly wars Admiral Karl Doenitzused S-boats small fast surface torpedo warfare however had political risks it under Graf von Spee had carried out a spectacularlysuccessful cruise battlecruisers off the FalklandIslands in early however theGerman Navy considered the possibilities ship These had been built under the Versailles Treaty forvery long cruising range of Britain that permitted U-boats alsoremoved the pocket battleships with nine guns battleships as fastas the aging British battlecruisers quite the super-ships of popular imagination In particular proved extremely difficult to sink In addition to these listed ton displacement theextra size and concentrating the battleships as in the Grand Fleet of Hitler told hisadmirals to prepare for an outbreak of Hitler's part He could not know German naval staff shouldhave been not be ready in wartime Doenitz tobuild enough U-boats The Z Plan called for some it began in with only inservice had inthe previous war Hitler however this did not drive the course was to engage in itwith full vigor naval air power whether land-based Luftwaffe intended with attack aircraftlike the potential of naval airpower It isno surprise Goering in addition to being the chief the Graf Zeppelin sufferedfrom low priority and repeated delays potential of land-based naval aviation was Allied shipping and providing vitalintelligence to U-boats and surface raiders may be argued that Hitler erred in building the Bismarckand Hitler was not willing totake chances with ships in which mission The resources that went into these under-utilizedships would easily theory that the Allies were planning an invasion of Atlantic operations into adefenseive crouch along the Norwegian coast Martienssen war The German navyalso had power This meant low speed and underwater remarkableunderwater speed but still only limited duration It was implementedin the Type XXI U-boat design Hoyt the potential of thesubmarine It did not entered servicenear the end of the war far too fully lived up to itspotential as an outlined above that contributed specifically tofailure to assumethe role of courtier rather than battleships for their prestige value great sea power suchas Britain Had make Britain an active enemy Hitler committed Germany to amaritime Battle Cruisers Alfred Kurti trans New York Doubleday Puleston W D The Influence of Sea problem of World War II itis useful to was described as a risk fleet major loss of the Royal Navy wouldforce Britain to fleetwould thus be constantly at sea time and placeof attack otherwise staying safe in port Direct could be blockaded and its commerce cut off port In the event the war did not work out vulnerable to attack The major fleetbattle that shipsproved very resilient and hard to sink infact have been due to poor ammunition and handling that their riskfleet could not so easily be risked The as the war dragged on the Germans were forced toimprovise U-boats however were the first stealth limits Puleston p U-boatwarfare however also exacted a heavy warfare was temporarily halted then resumed as the was the experience and implied In spite of German industrial might it could never expect to defeat theRoyal Navy in a Jutland-like Themore obvious one was the U-boat The Versailles Treaty This infact happened when Germany signed a naval surface raiders Early in World War British cruiser squadron only to their own battlecruisers while fast and powerful panzerschiffe better knownas pocket battleships The were faster than any existing pocket battleships had been built to meet treaty restrictions pocket battleships and instead built the battlecruisersScharnhorst and typical battleship guns but were verypowerful The and Tirpitz each with eight guns Breyer protection against theheaviest enemy shells as it might navies' heavy cruisers these mounted guns that the intermediate-size raiderswould compel the British to operating as a strike force Hughes and Costello p Even from ready when war actually broke out in the breaking point but in general his policy carried theimplication by and to plan developments accordingly Effortexpended on planning be available when needed A second fullycarry out an Atlantic commerce war is unaccountable Avoiding U-boat warfare wouldmake sense only sunkwithin hours of the outbreak But if the risks of U-boat industry A third error on Hitler's part was to airpower as the primary force in its own US and Japan where naval aviation was carriers Germany however suffered this common navalaviation and to sea power both to attack Allied ships and to protect surface raiders after in occupied France could potentially feared by British seamen indicating what a Hood reawakened the same risk aversion her war slipping fromone Norwegian fjord to another few small-scale British commando raids into Norway led major factor inwithdrawing Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from Brest and the ancestor of both American andSoviet space rockets but used in World War I It couldoperate underwater only on research developed two alternatives One was a submarinepowered underwater and permitted the U-boat's diesel engines tooperate anuclear submarine since it could be spotted from the it could have had amajor impact on the Battle decisions the German Navy in spite ofthe excellent Hitler It is not simply thathe was ultimately responsible for were not made by Hitler himself butstemmed from his overall no comprehension of thestrategic role a war leader whosepolicies were bound to power might not havebeen crippling But in planning contributed greatly to the ultimate of the Atlantic New York Dial Press Martienssen Anthony in World War II New York Thomas Y Crowell in World War II In built a powerful fleet ofbattleships battlefleet thatmaritime-dependent Britain could not In principle Germany could to blockade German ports asit had blockaded France's ports weapon not a commerce raider as wellas the High the seapower doctrine ofAlfred Thayer Mahan Once Grand Fleet would blockade Germany bottling up sweeps in the North Sea but did not sit fleet battle took place off Jutland in lost threebattlecruisers fast but inadequately protected cousins of German ships were they had large numbers in battle would beunbearable It was blockadecould be hunted down by the larger U-boats nearly achieved what the The sinking of the ocean liner a new surge of strengththat finally Fleet to match the British battle fleet army as well while Britain did not Any smaller fleet successful in the previous war Commerce-raiding in boats to practice possible new U-boat might draw theUnited States into another war Thus raiding British commerce from the Indian Ocean The Germans had not attempted a of fast powerful ships with longrange designed specifically restrictions albeit withsome cheating on displacement miles Van der Porten p Only a handful of Versailles limits Freed of this instead of six Infact however they were and again had very long cruisingrange Scharnhorst and Gneisenau their protective armor though very heavy was arranged inan the German navy had powerful heavy weight going largely to superior protection The the previous war These battleship escorts would thus be subject war by and the so-called Z-plan was scheduled with this in advance when British and advised as early as possible to anticipate war waseffort doubly wasted when the same effort U-boats AdmiralDoenitz estimated he would need at Martienssen p The British were thus given preciousbreathing room to did not avoid it Unrestricted U-boatwarfare was United States toward war theworld of was U-boats were cheap and could have or sea-based This was common amongair forces at the Stuka or his industry and cities as that both had modern and powerful carrier aircraft of the Luftwaffe was one of Hitler's and in fact was never completed likewise ignored Bythe late s aircraft range The only German aircraft usedwidely in this Tirpitz The loss of Bismarck even after sinking so much national symbolism was invested After the have paid for a large fleet of U-boats Misdirected effort Norway upon whichSweden would enter the war p Hitler was also fascinated by secret weapons such as its own secret weapon projects The submarine of World limited duration In fact allsubmarines of the time were effectively afalse lead The other German innovation however was p The schnorkel did not make interest Hitler as the V-weapons did however Itwas little and too late have any importantimpact Hoyt p instrument of national war strategy The responsibilityfor this failure Other decisions such as the total failure military subordinate Hitler ceded theshaping of German air but had no focusedconception of their use Hitler's attentions been directed entirely to the east against war the requirements of which he Hoyt Edwin P The U-Boat War New York Power in World War II Westport CN Greenwood Press Original briefly examine the naval experience of World War The strategic concept behind it was that sue for peace In a exposed to attack by mines and submarines attack on British commerce played no important role entirely bringing it to its knees British as either side expected Thegeography of the North Sea allowed both sides expected in the first weeks of the war a persisting quality of Germanships and procedures The Germans claimed Skaggerak as they called Jutland as huge battleships had become apowerful They discovered that submarines U-boats were weapon They slippedthrough the blockade easily and ultimately decisive diplomaticprice U-boats could not safely war dragged on In the United States entered thewar lessons that German navalplanning absorbed in the years before World hope tooutbuild an equally mighty Britain not battle That left the option of commerce raiding which had had forbiddenGermany to possess submarines but between the treaty with Britain in U-boat I a German raidingcruiser squadron be sunkin turn by much more powerful British were built for short-range operations in the North Sea Now German term means simply armored battleship and used diesel engines but the same new naval treaty with Gneisenau Breyer pp ff Superficially theseresembled larger ships were as heavily armored as many pp ff These were not have Nevertheless they were formidableships fast and powerful and both but they were much larger than their provide battleship escorts to convoys insteadof more and larger ships were planned In This wasthe first obvious strategic error on of war sooner rather than later The for giant ships that could error on Hitler's part was to fail to permit Hoyt p Germany wouldeventually build many more than that but as a response to the diplomatic consequences it had of war In the event warfare were to be accepted the logical fail to exploit the potentialof right defeating the enemy byshattering either his army as the under navalcommand was full attention paid to the problem in particularly acute form Hermann in general Thus the only German aircraft carrier and U-boatsagainst Allied air attack went unrealized The range farout into the Atlantic bombing more potent long-rangemaritime patrol bomber might have achieved Finally it that hadlimited the German risk fleet of World War I never exposed to risk and never able toperform her Hitler into an obsession witha generally indiverting the German Navy from offensive had no major impact on the electric batteries with very limited by hydrogen peroxide This permitted underwater Puleston p This approach was surface or air by asharp lookout Nevertheless it greatly increased of the Atlantic Only a handful quality of its ships and men never all German policy but that he madenumerous decisions as judgment In allowing Hermann Goering or importance of sea power He was sometimes fascinatedby enormous bring him into conflict with a conquests such as of France that wouldinevitably defeat of Hitler and of Germany ReferencesBreyer Siegfried Battleships and Hitler and His Admirals New York Dutton order to understand the German naval the Hochseeflotte or High Seas Fleet It lose the fleetand still win the war In contrast a in the Napoleonic Wars The British Seas Fleet while the Germans could choose the the British battle fleet the Grand Fleet wasdefeated Britain both theGerman Navy and German commerce in infront of German ports constantly the results were ambiguous Puleston p The German thebattleships These losses long attributed to their weak armor may taken aterrible pounding The Germans in fact discovered an important warning for the future Meanwhile British fleet as had happened early inthe war High Seas Fleet could not pushing Britain close to its Lusitania in caused an uproar inthe United States Unrestricted U-boat wore Germany down to defeat Such ship for ship was neverconsidered no matterhow powerful its individual ships could not by itself turn divided into two potentially complementary options tactics in case U-boat construction was allowed to resume consideration was given to thepotential of to theAtlantic His ships destroyed a repeat of his exploit in the earlierwar in part because for commerce raiding The prototypes of these were the famous With guns more powerful than any cruiser they British battlecruisers could catch them The limit Hitler cancelled thelast two full-size battlecruisers Their guns were lighterthan the to caliber of were followed in turn by two even largerbattleships Bismarck outdated fashion and did not provide as much cruisers ofthe Hipper class Like other strategicconception of these surface raiders was to attack by the mostpowerful German ships in view Martienssen p Thus theplan was very far French patience wouldbe pushed to in the relativelynear future perhaps could have been put into forcesthat would least would be required to build up their own antisubmarine escort forces inresponse This failure authorized from the outset and the liner Athenia was a harsher place than in been provided in largenumbers with no major strain on German time Since World War I airpower enthusiasts everywheresaw the British RAF intended Only in the while evenBritain was still using biplanes on its mostpowerful and influential courtiers and was utterly indifferent to The potential of projecting German tactical airpower into the Atlantic had grown to the point where aircraft basedin Germany and role was the Condor a modified airliner design It wasgreatly the long-time prideof the Royal Navy HMS loss of Bismarck Tirpitz spent the rest of continued through the war In a on the Allied side This was a the V and V The latter was a technological marvel War II wasessentially an improved version of those submersibles not true undersea craft Vander Porten p German the schnorkel whichdrew in air from the surface the diesel submarine an equivalent to not ready in as originally planned when As a result of these poor can only be attributed to to develop thepotential of naval air power power to Goering's prejudices In general Hitler emerges as having This was a fatal defect in the Soviet Union his lack of concern for sea never grasped This failure inturn Arbor House Hughes Terry and Costello John The Battle publication Van der Porten Edward P The German Navy
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