The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 18 June 1935 allowed Germany to build a navy equivalent to 35% of the British surface ship tonnage and 45% of British submarine tonnage battleships were to be limited to no more than 35,000 tons. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Adolf Hitler soon began to more brazenly ignore many of the Treaty restrictions and accelerated German naval rearmament. Nazi control Erich Raeder, commander of the Kriegsmarine until 1943 By using innovative construction techniques, the Germans had built a heavy ship suitable for offensive warfare on the high seas while still abiding by the letter of the treaty. The building of the Deutschland caused consternation among the French and the British as they had expected that the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles would limit the replacement of the pre-dreadnought battleships to coastal defence ships, suitable only for defensive warfare. The launching of the first pocket battleship, Deutschland in 1931 (as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought battleship Preussen) was a step in the formation of a modern German fleet. Įven before the Nazi seizure of power on 30 January 1933 the German government decided on 15 November 1932 to launch a prohibited naval re-armament program that included U-boats, airplanes and an aircraft carrier. The Germans continued to develop U-boats through a submarine design office in the Netherlands ( NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw) and a torpedo research program in Sweden where the G7e torpedo was developed. All the ships allowed and personnel were taken over from the Kaiserliche Marine, which was renamed the Reichsmarine.įrom the outset, Germany worked to circumvent the military restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. Under the treaty Germany could only build new ships to replace old ones. Military aircraft were also banned, so Germany could have no naval aviation. ![]() Under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, Germany was only allowed a minimal navy of 15,000 personnel, six capital ships of no more than 10,000 tons, six cruisers, twelve destroyers, twelve torpedo boats and no submarines or aircraft carriers. Some were loaded with superfluous chemical weapons and scuttled. However, the adoption of convoy escorts, especially in the Atlantic, greatly reduced the effectiveness of surface commerce raiders against convoys.įollowing the end of World War II in 1945, the Kriegsmarine's remaining ships were divided up among the Allied powers and were used for various purposes including minesweeping. Along with the U-boats, surface commerce raiders (including auxiliary cruisers) were used to disrupt Allied shipping in the early years of the war, the most famous of these being the heavy cruisers Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer and the battleship Bismarck. Wolfpacks were rapidly assembled groups of submarines which attacked British convoys during the first half of the Battle of the Atlantic but this tactic was largely abandoned by May 1943 when U-boat losses mounted. The Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine (as for all branches of armed forces during the period of absolute Nazi power) was Adolf Hitler, who exercised his authority through the Oberkommando der Marine ('High Command of the Navy').Īmong the Kriegsmarine's most significant ships were its U-boats, most of which were constructed after Plan Z was abandoned at the beginning of World War II. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z was shelved in favour of a crash building program for submarines ( U-boats) instead of capital surface warships, and land and air forces were given priority of strategic resources. In January 1939, Plan Z, a massive shipbuilding program, was ordered, calling for surface naval parity with the British Royal Navy by 1944. Kriegsmarine ships were deployed to the waters around Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) under the guise of enforcing non-intervention, but in reality supporting the Nationalists against the Spanish Republicans. The 1919 treaty had limited the size of the German navy and prohibited the building of submarines. ![]() ![]() In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the Kriegsmarine grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. ![]() 'War Navy') was the navy of Germany from 1935 to 1945. The Kriegsmarine ( German pronunciation:, lit.
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