by David Wragg
‘No people have more right to the idea of world mastery than the German people,’ declared Hitler at a speech at Mannheim on 5 November 1930. ‘No other nation has had such a right to claim world mastery on the grounds of ability and numbers. We have come in short to this first world partition and stand at the beginning of a new world revolution …’
By April 1934, with a German military budget that forced the French to withdraw from discussing military issues with Germany, it was clear that the country was embarked on a course of military expansion of a degree that had not been seen for some years. Until 1934, most foreign observers could remain blissfully unaware of German intentions, but that time onwards, the course was set. Individual projects could be hidden or their full extent disguised, as when one new battlecruiser was laid down officially, but two, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, were actually built. Airliners were developed that had a concealed military role, with the Junkers Ju52 trimotor originally being intended to double up as a transport and as a bomber, although it was obsolescent by the time the opportunity came. Until the mid-1930s, this means of aircraft development was none too difficult to sustain or conceal, as it was not until the late 1930s that the basic designs of bomber and transport aircraft began to diverge significantly, and many air forces, including the Royal Air Force, had operated bomber-transports. As the bombers became slimmer and leaner, some of the Dornier airliners produced during the 1930s must have been extremely uncomfortable for the passengers of Deutsche Luft Hansa (now Lufthansa), the national airline, so cramped and slender were their ‘bomber’ fuselages.
Hitler planned a two stage development of Germany’s ambitions. The first stage would be continental hegemony, with the emphasis on the colonisation of Eastern Europe by Germans. This could only be achieved while maintaining good relations with the United Kingdom, which would protect his western flank. It would not only provide the Lebensraum that Germany craved, it would also provide the oil and other resources needed to give Germany security of supplies and also end the ever returning balance of payments problems that afflicted the country between the two world wars. The second stage was to be a struggle with the English-speaking world, essentially the United Kingdom and the United States, for world domination.
It is clear that at this time Hitler accepted the rationale that war on two fronts would be beyond even rearmed Germany’s abilities. The trick would be to keep the British and the Americans quiet while Germany moved east. This was not completely unrealistic. The Munro Doctrine meant that the United States would be reluctant to intervene in Europe, although they had done so in 1917 and a long time before this in 1816, when they joined the British and Dutch in finally disposing of the Barbary pirates. All that would be expected would be that Germany would not interfere with the Americas. It could even be that the United States would welcome the opportunity to extend her influence over British, French and Dutch Caribbean and South American territories, and perhaps incorporate the Canadian provinces as states of the Union. US support for Britain would not be automatic, he reasoned.
The same reasoning continued to argue that the British would be reluctant to become involved in yet another European war. This was still the time when a country such as Czechoslovakia could be described by a British statesman as a ‘far off country of which we know little.’ Nor was there any love lost between the British, or at least the British establishment, and the Soviet Union. There was a shared fear of Bolshevism in both Britain and Germany. Initially, the proposal would be that the United Kingdom could have a free hand in the wider world in return for Germany having a free hand in Europe. The fact that by this time the warning signs that the British Empire’s days were numbered, and meant that many even in the United Kingdom would not necessary favour their country having a free hand, escaped the Germans. Already, Canada and South Africa, and to a lesser extent Australia, were showing signs of increasing independence, while many in India were actively agitating for independence.
Many senior officers in the German armed forces maintained after the Second World War that they could not have foreseen where Hitler’s ambitions would have led. This is nonsense. Not only did they have his speeches and briefings to senior officers passed on to them, but there were many in Germany, such as a member of Field Marshal von Moltke’s family, Helmuth, who even before Hitler came to power maintained that ‘whoever votes for Hitler votes for war.’
THE NAVY BACKS HITLER
Despite the way in which Dönitz’s department had dealt with the Reichstag over matters such as the new military penal code, most senior naval officers had little time for democratic institutions, even less understanding, and for the most part contempt for those in the mainstream political parties. As early as May 1933, an important figure in the Reichsmarine, none other than the leader of the staff officer training scheme established by Raeder, addressed a joint meeting of members of the SS, SA, Stahlhelm and Nazi Party.
Now the forces which in the last fourteen years were splintered through struggles in Parliament, are free to overcome … all the infamous sabotage attempts of Social Democrats, doctrinaires and pacifists … Now we must again awake and strengthen the understanding, the love of the sea and the will of the nation and never again allow the life veins to be cut, which for a free, great people lie on the free oceans.1
The old prewar concept of Weltpolitik was clearly alive and well in the Reichsmarine.
The wider ambitions of the German people were aided to a minor extent by a scheme initiated by von Hindenburg, under which a travel grant was awarded annually to an outstanding officer in one of the two armed services to enable him to travel abroad and broaden his knowledge. In 1933, Dönitz was the lucky recipient, and chose to visit the British and Dutch colonies in the Far East. Leaving Germany in February 1933, he was away when the Nazis began their brutal campaign against their enemies and began to extinguish democracy.
Hitler’s actions were those of a mad man who would brook no opposition, but Dönitz was also viewed by some as being unbalanced. One of those who viewed him in this way was Canaris, under whom he served during the early 1930s. A single officer’s report can sometimes be discounted, especially since Canaris himself was something of an enigma, but the US Consul General in Berlin during the early 1930s swore an affidavit which was read out at the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, saying that he ‘was not always well balanced mentally.’ Yet, even his own writings suggest that he was also something of a fantasist.
Some of the fantasies can be discounted as exaggerated tales of wartime to enliven the dinner table conversation. He admitted to talking about his experience as a U-boat commander during the First World War when a lady at the same table aboard the ship taking him to the east demanded to hear about the war as it really happened. He then related a completely fabricated story about a time when he was on watch aboard U-39. According to his account, they chased a small British merchantman through a smoke screen and when they reached the other side, found her drifting with her flaps open and four guns trained on them. U-39 escaped because she was too close for the guns to be trained on her, and Dönitz ordered a crash dive, saving his boat.
Another story concerned when he had his own command, UC-25, in the Mediterranean, and had attempted a submerged night attack on a convoy off Cape Bon on the coast of Tunisia. Finding himself too far from the convoy for a torpedo attack, he surfaced and headed at top speed in bright moonlight towards the convoy, but as UC-25 closed on the ships, the escorting destroyers opened fire and he was forced to dive. Once he was submerged, the destroyers steamed overhead making a depth charge attack.
He also related a story about his time as a prisoner of war in Malta, maintaining that when he refused to tell his interrogator, an admiral, the identity of his own vessel, a British staff officer immediately handed the correct information to the admiral.
There is absolutely no record of any of these events having occurred. In any event, it would have been unlikely for a U-boat commander to be interviewed by
such a senior officer. In any case, he had survived the sinking of UB-68, yet related that the staff officer described him as the commander of UC-25, one of his earlier craft. In this last tale, he also maintained that he had sunk a large British merchantman in a Sicilian harbour, when in fact he had simply sent a coaling hulk to the bottom. His language in describing these events was also fantasist, describing his moonlight attack on the convoy as ‘charging like a blind madman …’ It was not surprising that Canaris found him not only unbalanced but immature.
One story that he did not recount was the loss of the submarine UB-68, sunk in the Mediterranean on 4 October 1918. He was amongst the survivors, with the engineer staying on board and three others being drowned. On his homeward voyage, he had the steamer stop at the point where the boat had gone down and saluted the dead from the stern rail.
Amongst the places visited were Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, India, Netherlands East Indies, including Java and Bali, and Singapore.
Dönitz returned home to find that not only was the internal security situation much calmer, with the Communists and others in detention camps, but that Hitler had launched a five year programme for the Navy. In October, he was promoted to Fregattenkapitan, a rank that does not exist in the Royal Navy but equates to a captain, second class or junior, and the following year returned to sea as commanding officer of a light cruiser.
The German five year shipbuilding plan was limited in two ways. The first was that the country could not afford to expand the Army and develop an air force at the same time as engaging in a major expansion of the Navy. It was also important not to antagonise the United Kingdom until Hitler’s eastern ambitions had been realised, so the fleet was deliberately planned not to be of a size that would alarm the British. By offering the British a treaty that would confirm German naval inferiority, it would break the shackles of Versailles and separate the British from the French, while leaving Germany free to start on rebuilding the fleet. The Japanese had already attempted to overcome the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty at the London Naval Conference in 1930.
Hitler meanwhile had realised that the SA had become an embarrassment, and was attempting to infiltrate the officer corps. He reached an agreement with Blomberg, head of the Army, that the SA and its leaders would be liquidated under the pretext that they were planning a coup d’etat, in return for Army support for Hitler as successor to President Hindenburg, by this time in poor health. Hindenburg died and the office of President and Chancellor were combined on 1 August 1934, while the next day, the commanders of both services reaffirmed their oath as ‘unconditional obedience to Adolph Hitler, Fuhrer of the Reich and of the German people, Supreme Commander of the armed forces …’ and every member of the Army and the Navy followed in a series of local ceremonies. The next step was to incorporate Nazi Party insignia into the uniforms.
Meanwhile, the expatriate engineers and designers who had been working outside Germany on the banned aircraft, armoured vehicles and U-boats, had returned home. The USSR was increasingly being presented as the enemy, while Polish fears about German intentions were allayed by a non-aggression pact. French fears over German rearmament meant that they realigned their foreign policy to seek an accommodation with the Soviet Union.
THE LONDON NAVAL AGREEMENT, AND BEYOND
The planning for the London Naval Agreement started in 1934. Anxious to expand the fleet without setting alarm bells ringing in the London, Raeder’s staff worked out that Germany should seek displacement tonnage amounting to a third of that of the Royal Navy for the three largest types of warship, battleships, aircraft carriers and cruisers. Such a ratio would mean that a rerun of the Battle of Jutland would not be possible and the British would not feel threatened. For smaller ships, such as torpedo-boats and U-boats, the ratio sought was almost 100 per cent, justified on the grounds that as these were short-range vessels, they would not be perceived as a threat, but in case of sustained British objections, for U-boats ratios of 50 per cent, 35 per cent and 33.3 per cent were also considered as a negotiating ploy. The expansion of the fleet thus proposed also marked a considerable increase on the Navy’s five year programme.
Such a fleet would be large enough to defend the Baltic and the North Sea. But it was to be no more than the first step in the expansion needed to confront the British Empire. Nevertheless, some of the vessels envisaged were far larger than anything that needed to be used against the French or the Russians, and in any event, war with these two countries would revolve around invasion and ground battles supported by overwhelming air power.
The year of the London Naval Conference, 1935, was the one during which the German Navy changed its name from Reichsmarine, ‘State Navy’, to Kriegsmarine, ‘War Navy’, suggesting a more aggressive role. The resulting Anglo-German Naval Treaty laid the foundation for the reconstruction of the German fleet, with a surface fleet of up to 35 per cent of that of the Royal Navy, based once again on tonnage rather than warship numbers, and given the impact of the German U-boat fleet on the United Kingdom during the First World War, what was surprising was that the negotiators allowed the Kriegsmarine to have parity in submarines with the Royal Navy if the extra submarine tonnage was subtracted from the tonnage allowed for surface vessels. While hindsight is generally credited with perfect 20:20 vision, in this case it seems that the negotiators were blind to the potential of the submarine and ignored the lessons of what was at the time the still recent history of the First World War.
It was strange that the British Admiralty, which was already worried about a German-Italian-Japanese alliance, should have allowed the negotiators to be so relaxed. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, believed that nothing could stop German rearmament, while others thought that giving Germany what she asked for limited the European end of arms expansion. There was also the feeling that if they agreed to Germany’s proposals, she would abide by them, but if they denied Germany her rights, she would go ahead and exceed the limits. No one discussed the agreement with any of the other wartime Allies, although by this time the United States was not interested and Italy was already being seen as a role model by Hitler.
Hitler could hardly believe that the London Naval Treaty was so generous, telling Raeder that it was the happiest day of his life. He felt that the British position at the negotiations came as a clear indication that Germany and the United Kingdom would not be at war, and that any future conflict would be with France or the Soviet Union. It was not until 1938 that war between Britain and Germany became inevitable in the eyes of the Fuhrer.
The problem that faced the commanders of the German armed forces is that Hitler would not allow effective coordination between them. He feared that a committee comprised of his chiefs of staff would in effect become a pressure group with its own policies. Instead, they had to report directly to him. This has become widely known as the ‘Fuhrer System’. It left Hitler vulnerable since his own knowledge was completely inadequate and he had no conception of military command. It also meant that the individual service chiefs had to time their conversations with the Fuhrer so that none of the others, who had to be regarded as rivals, would be present.
During one of these conversations in June 1934, Raeder raised the question of the planned battlecruisers, which eventually entered service as Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and was told by Hitler that they must be described as improved 10,000-ton ships with a speed of 26 knots rather than the planned 25,000-tons and speed of 30 knots. This was ridiculous, as the first ship, Scharnhorst, had already been announced and declared as a counter to the French Dunkerque-class. Her sister, Gneisenau, was laid down in secret. In one sense, both ships were less than expected, for while their displacement was 31,800 tons, their armament was just 11-in calibre, using gun turrets ordered for the second batch of three panzerschiff, which were never built. The intention was that these would be replaced later by 15-in guns, but this never happened. The British classed them as battlecruisers, but the Germans always listed them as battleships.
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During this meeting with Hitler, Raeder took the opportunity of asking whether all future heavy ships should have 35-cm (14-in) guns, to match the latest British ships, to which the Fuhrer gave his agreement. This meant that the next class of battleships, Bismarck and Tirpitz, were more heavily armed, although in the end they had guns that equated to 15-in rather than 14-in. The official German record preserved in the archives noted:
Commander-in-Chief of the Navy stated his opinion that the fleet would have to be developed later against England, that therefore from 1936 the great ships would have to be armed with 35-cm guns (as King George-class).
Raeder continued with his meeting with the Fuhrer, moving on to U-boats. Orders had been placed for the first fifteen, although construction had still to start, which would be mainly of a smaller type, and the first batch of executive officers and engineers as well as some seventy ratings had completed the first U-Schule long course, which had run from October 1933. Hitler’s orders were that the entire U-boat scheme was to remain secret until after a referendum in the Saarland, which was under League of Nations Control, whose inhabitants were to decide whether or not they wished to be part of the Reich.
There were other pressures that were hampering the arms build up. The German economy was still relatively weak, and the rearmament programme was already feeling the strain. When Dönitz was introduced to Hitler for the first time as commanding officer of the light cruiser Emden, about to depart on a foreign cruise, Raeder was present and once again sought the Fuhrer’s ear. He complained that the funds available to the armed forces for 1935 were inadequate for the new plans and would affect the Navy’s schedule. Hitler’s reaction was that he did not believe that the funds would be reduced by too much. If problems did arise, Hitler would order funds to be diverted from the works programme because of the need to rebuild the Navy as quickly as possible. Without a strong Navy, ore supplies shipped from Sweden through Norwegian ports, could not be guaranteed. Swedish ore had to be transport by rail to Norway rather than direct from Swedish ports because the Gulf of Bothnia froze in winter. At the same meeting, Hitler also agreed with Raeder that he could go ahead and have the first six U-boats completed for the first quarter of 1935.