Consolidating
When the missions off Spain ended in late 1938, the ships of the Kriegsmarine spent the remainder of the time before the outbreak of WWII on training cruises, exercises and official visits around the North Sea, Mediterranean and Atlantic. The Panzerschiffe, cruisers, destroyers, torpedo boats and U-boats were tested alone and together in various scenarios, attacking ‘convoys’ of auxiliaries in the North Sea, the Baltic and the Bay of Biscay. In a series of large-scale exercises in April and May 1939, Gneisenau and a number of the Zerstörer also participated. Tactics were developed, officers and men trained and at least some of the teething troubles of the new ships were ironed out. For some reason it seems that the Royal Navy paid very little, if any, attention to these activities.
Admiral Scheer off Spain in 1938. (Author’s collection)
Raeder (second left) at his happiest, among his men on board Scharnhorst. (Author’s collection)
During the early period of Nazi rule, Raeder managed to keep the Kriegsmarine isolated from the politicisation that permeated the other services, even if he in public speeches declared his full support for the Nazi regime and its ‘battle against Bolshevism and international Jewishness’. Raeder was not blind to reality, but it seems that he wanted to avoid a war with Britain so much that he readily accepted Hitler’s word that a fleet to fight Britain would not be needed for many years. Nevertheless, in May 1938, during the first Czechoslovak crisis, Raeder was called to the Chancellery and informed by Hitler that from now on Britain would have to be considered as a potential future enemy. The navy would have to accelerate the completion of Bismarck and Tirpitz and develop a plan for increased warship construction to meet the new situation. Reluctantly, Raeder tasked Fregattenkapitän Helmuth Heye of the OKM’s Operational Department to assess the options for a naval war against Britain.
The forty-three-year-old Heye was an intelligent and outspoken officer with unorthodox views on naval warfare. He composed a memorandum that strongly advocated preparing for ‘cruiser’-warfare against British supply lines rather than spending resources building battleships for another Jutland-style encounter.52 The admirals of the OKM were horrified. No navy would be complete without battleships! Their alternative was a fleet of fast, powerful battleships capable of taking on the Royal Navy as well as operating against convoys and merchant ships in the Atlantic. Neither of the proposals considered the U-boat as a decisive weapon on its own. Heated discussions followed, but in the end the battleship alternative won and was presented to Raeder on 31 October 1938. Raeder, believing he had at least eight years to build, accepted the concept for the so-called Z Plan and forwarded it to the Führer, recommending a balanced capital fleet, customised for merchant war, with a moderate number of U-boats. Hitler agreed, but the Z Plan would never be more than a dream. Building such a fleet would have been a massive drain on Germany’s military resources, even in peacetime, and Raeder simply did not carry the weight in the German system to divert sufficient amounts of high-quality steel or skilled workers to the shipyards. Guns, tanks and aircraft would have priority.
In November 1938, Raeder ended up in a disagreement with Hitler over the design and fighting capabilities of the Bismarck-class battleships shortly to be launched. Raeder threatened to resign and Hitler backed down, but a critical gap had been opened between the two men. At the launch ceremony of the battleship Tirpitz in Wilhelmshaven on 1 April 1939, Raeder was promoted to Grossadmiral, Grand Admiral, but it still appears that he, and thus the Kriegsmarine, increasingly lost touch with Nazi reality in this period. To Raeder’s bafflement, Hitler in a speech to the Reichstag on 28 April 1939 unilaterally annulled the Anglo-German Naval Treaty without any discussion whatsoever. The Kriegsmarine had been excluded from the inner circles of the Third Reich and Raeder would from then on only be invited to meetings that had naval affairs on the agenda. Critically, he would be without a liaison officer in the Chancellery until Konteradmiral Karl-Jesko von Puttkamer was appointed Adjutant der Kriegsmarine beim Führer und OKW, Naval Liaison Officer, at the outbreak of the war.53
On 27 January 1938, Hitler issued a decree announcing himself Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. The authority would be exercised through a new High Command, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW, to which the army, navy and air force would be subordinated. Generaloberst Wilhelm Keitel was appointed head of the OKW, while Generalmajor Alfred Jodl was given charge of the Operations Staff (Führungsstab). The OKW, reporting directly to Hitler through Keitel and Jodl, was intended to coordinate the activities of the three fighting services, the civil administration and the production authorities, combining strategic, operational and ministerial functions. In effect, though, it became Hitler’s personal staff, manned by advisers picked mainly for their loyalty, with no responsibilities outside the OKW and not representing the services in a normal sense.
The headquarters of the OKM and Admiral Raeder, now Oberbefehlshaber der Marine and Chef der Seekriegsleitung, were at Tirpitzufer in Berlin, next to the Landwehr Canal.54 The Seekriegsleitung (SKL) or Naval Warfare Command was directly subordinated to the OKM, and the Chief of Staff of the SKL was responsible for naval operations as well as intelligence, administration and construction. Konteradmiral Otto Schniewind, a reserved, analytical and always correct officer, would be the first officer to have this key position; he would become Raeder’s right hand in the first phase of the war. Kapitän zur See (later Konteradmiral) Kurt Fricke, an impulsive extrovert, very different from Schniewind, was given the position of Chief of Naval Operations (Chef der Operations-Abteilung – 1.Abtl.SKL).
Generaladmiral Alfred Saalwächter in charge of Marinegruppenkommando West – Naval Group Command West.
Konteradmiral Otto Schniewind, Chief of Staff of the SKL. (Author’s collection)
The Fleet Headquarters was established at the naval base in Kiel. The C-in-C Fleet (Flottenchef) was originally in charge of capital ships, cruisers and submarines. Generaladmiral Hermann Boehm was appointed Flottenchef in October 1938. A year later, he was replaced by Admiral Wilhelm Marschall when Boehm fell out with Admiral Saalwächter over how to conduct the mine-laying operations on the British east coast.55 At the same time, the command of the Flottenchef was limited to the capital ships. Konteradmiral Günther Lütjens, in the position of C-in-C Reconnaissance Forces (Befehlshaber der Aufklärungsstreitkräfte – BdA), controlled all cruisers.56 Flag Officer Torpedo Boats and Destroyers (Führer der Torpedoboote – FdT) and Flag Officer Minesweepers (Führer der Minensuchboote – FdM) were at first subordinated to the BdA. Initially, the position of FdT covered both torpedo boats and destroyers, but in November 1939 Kapitän zur See Friedrich Bonte was appointed Flag Officer Destroyers (Führer der Zerstörers – FdZ), subordinated to the Flottenchef, while Kapitän zur See Hans Bütow was appointed FdT, remaining subordinated to BdA.57
October 1937: Konteradmiral Lütjens, newly appointed Führer der Torpedoboote coming onboard his lead destroyer Z1 Leberecht Maass. Two years later, in October 1939, Lütjens was appointed Befehlshaber der Aufklärungsstreitkräfte, commanding cruisers and torpedo boats. (Author’s collection)
Naval Group Command West – Marinegruppenkommando West – was in charge of operations in the Heligoland Bight, the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. It