Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!texsun!sun-barr!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: willner%cfa183@harvard.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: re: The Kriegsmarine in WWII Message-ID: <6496@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 12 May 89 02:47:26 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 49 Approved: military@att.att.com From: willner%cfa183@harvard.harvard.edu (Steve Willner) Bill Thacker writes: > Hitler had little love for capital ships, to begin with, and probably > didn't want to wait patiently for Tirpitz' completion; he demanded results. Are you sure? My memory is that Hitler specifically ordered the battleships built (the "Z-plan") and rejected shorter-term naval buildups that would have emphasized submarines (the "X-plan") or surface commerce raiders like Graf Spee (the "Y-plan"). Further, Doenitz claims (if my memory serves) that Hitler was enamored of the details of construction of the battleships and, for example, was greatly impressed by their firepower. Doenitz' criticism is that Hitler was unmindful of the strategic issues. [For those who don't remember, Adm. Karl Doenitz was the U-boat Commandant before and through most of the war. He followed Adm. Raeder as Chief of Staff, and after Hitler's suicide, Doenitz headed the brief interim government that actually surrendered. His memoirs have been translated into English and should be available at any good library.] [mod.note. Yes, I worded that very poorly. Hitler did like to dabble in battleship construction, much as he did in tank development. The Z-plan was indeed a far-sighted proposal, which would have made the Atlantic an interesting place if the war hadn't started until 1946, as was planned. However, the Navy got little from him, as a whole; they received lower priority on materials than did the Army and Luftwaffe (which is why no new major combattants were constructed during the war, save Tirpitz). Basically, Raeder and later Doenitz had to prove to Hitler that large ships were worthwhile, and neither succeeded. - Bill ] Of course, the Hitler's fascination with battleships ended sometime early in the war. Later in the war, Hitler indeed showed contempt for the surface navy. Didn't he at one point order - or maybe just threaten to order - Tirpitz broken up for scrap? But all that was, I believe, after Bismarck's sortie (and at least partly a result of that sortie). On the more general issue of strategic doctrine, there is a very interesting claim that German strategy was essentially a bureaucratic way to justify the existence of the surface navy. (My reference is at home, and I'm leaving for a week, but the study may have been by Eccles.) The argument goes that the Germans realized that they could never achieve sea control (a la Mahan), so they argued instead that the important thing was really the direct attack upon the enemy's sea commerce. Seen in this light, many of the strategic decisions make sense, though I don't know whether the historical evidence really can support this point of view.