Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy

Patrick J. Kelly

Description

The man who transformed the German navy before the outbreak of WWI

Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) was the principal force behind the rise of the German Imperial Navy prior to World War I, challenging Great Britain's command of the seas. As State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office from 1897 to 1916, Tirpitz wielded great power and influence over the national agenda during that crucial period. By the time he had risen to high office, Tirpitz was well equipped to use his position as a platform from which to dominate German defense policy. Though he was cool to the potential of the U-boat, he enthusiastically supported a torpedo boat branch of the navy and began an ambitious building program for battleships and battle cruisers. Based on exhaustive archival research, including new material from family papers, Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy is the first extended study in English of this germinal figure in the growth of the modern navy.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

1. Introduction
2. Tirpitz's Early Life
3. The Aspirant, 1865–1870
4. The Young Officer, 1870–1877: A Taste of War
5. The Creation of the German Torpedo Arm, 1877–1889
6. Interim, 1889–1891
7. Oberkommando der Marine, 1892–1895
8. On the Verge of Power, 1895–1897
9. Tirpitz Ascendant, 1897–1898
10. The Second Navy Law, 1899–1900
11. The "Quiet" Years, 1900–1906
12. Sow the Wind, 1906–1908
13. The Whirlwind Rises, 1908–1911
14. Denouement, 1911–1914
15. Tirpitz at War, August 1914–March 1916
16. Uncommon Recessional, 1916–1930
17. Conclusion

Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• World War I
• Military
• Naval
• Première Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 03 mai 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253001757
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

PATRICK J. KELLY
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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2011 by Patrick J. Kelly
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelly, Patrick J., [date]-
Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy / Patrick J. Kelly.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35593-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Tirpitz, Alfred von, 1849-1930. 2. Admirals-Germany-Biography. 3. Germany. Kriegsmarine-History-19th century 4. Germany. Kriegsmarine-History-20th century. 5. Germany-History, Naval-19th century. 6. Germany-History, Naval-20th century. I. Title.
DD231.T5K45 2011
359.0092-dc22
[B]
2010035369
1 2 3 4 5 16 15 14 13 12 11
This book is dedicated to my parents, Robert and the late Evelyn Kelly .
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1 Introduction
2 Tirpitz s Early Life
3 The Aspirant, 1865-1870
4 The Young Officer, 1870-1877: A Taste of War
5 The Creation of the German Torpedo Arm, 1877-1889
6 Interim, 1889-1891
7 Oberkommando der Marine, 1892-1895
8 On the Verge of Power, 1895-1897
9 Tirpitz Ascendant, 1897-1898
10 The Second Navy Law, 1899-1900
Illustrations
11 The Quiet Years, 1900-1906
12 Sow the Wind, 1906-1908
13 The Whirlwind Rises, 1908-1911
14 Denouement, 1911-1914
15 Tirpitz at War, August 1914-March 1916
16 Uncommon Recessional, 1916-1930
17 Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the preparation and writing of this work I owe great thanks to many people and institutions. These include Dr. Dean C. Allard, Bernard Cavalcante, and Harry Reilly of the former U.S. Naval History Office in Washington, D.C.; Robert Hanshew and Chuck Haberlein, photo archivists of its successor organization, the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command; Robert Wolfe of the U.S. National Archives; the archivists and staffs of the Bundesarchiv-Milit rarchiv (Freiburg), particularly the late Dr. Gerd Sandhofer; the Bundesarchiv (Koblenz); the Deutsches Zentralarchiv (Merseburg, now at Potsdam); the Bundesarchiv (Potsdam); the Ausw rtiges Amt Archiv (Bonn); the Nieders chsisches Staatsarchiv (B ckeburg); the Landesarchiv (Speyer); and the Milit rgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (MGFA) (Freiburg, now at Potsdam), where I was the recipient of encouragement and wise advice from the late Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Deist. The late Professors John Zeender of Catholic University and Thomas Helde of Georgetown University helped greatly in the early stages of this project.
I am very grateful to the late Ambassador Wolf Ulrich von Hassell for his personal account of his grandfather Tirpitz, and to his son, Augustino von Hassell, who gave me untrammeled access to important Tirpitz correspondence and illustrations that are in the possession of the von Hassell family. Dr. Terrell Gottschall kindly provided me with material from the papers of Admiral Otto von Diedrichs. Prof. Dr. Michael Epkenhans, now Research Head of the MGFA, generously shared ideas and documents with me while we both, as friendly competitors, wrestled with the mysteries of Tirpitz s life. Dr. Raffael Scheck helped me unravel the twisted strands of Tirpitz s life in the 1920s, and shared friendship and archival comradeship with me in Freiburg. Dr. Keith Bird, a friend of many decades, helped with his unrivaled knowledge of the bibliography of the German Navy. Thanks also to Prof. Eric C. Rust for many valuable suggestions. Robert Sloan of Indiana University Press provided patient and cordial help. Eliz Alahverdian, Art Curator at Adelphi University gave indispensable help with maps and illustrations.
In the fall of 1990, on my second visit to Freiburg, I had the good luck and great pleasure to meet Dr. Rolf Hobson of the Norwegian Defence Studies Institute. We became and remain close personal and family friends. The author of a pioneering work on Tirpitz s naval strategy, he read the entire manuscript with a keen and critical eye, to my immense benefit.
My wife Lorraine Kelly, my son Matthew Kelly, and my longtime friend Edward Case read the manuscript as non-experts, improved my writing and thinking, and somehow tolerated my preoccupation with Tirpitz. I owe them much. All errors in the book are mine.
Patrick J. Kelly
Adelphi University
October 2010
ABBREVIATIONS
BEF
British Expeditionary Force
CIGS
Chief of the Imperial General Staff
DDP
German Democratic Party
DNVP
German National People s Party
DVP
German People s Party
E
Etatsabteilung (Estimates Department of the RMA)
GHQ
General Headquarters
HAPAG
Hamburg-Amerika shipping line
K
Konstruktionsabteilung (Construction Department of the RMA)
KPD
Communist Party of Germany
MK
Marinekabinett (Naval Cabinet)
N
Nachrichtenb ro (Press Bureau of the RMA); Nachrichtenabteilung (Press Agency of the RMA)
OHL
Oberste Heeresleitung (Army High Command)
OK
Oberkommando (Naval High Command)
RMA
Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Naval Office)
V
Verwaltungsabteilung (Administrative Department of the RMA)
W
Waffenabteilung (Weapons Department of the RMA)
Z
Zentralabteilung (Central Department of the RMA)

MAP 1 The North Sea. Courtesy of Eliz Alahverdian .

MAP 2 Wilhelmshaven. Courtesy of Eliz Alahverdian .

MAP 3 The Baltic Sea. Courtesy of Eliz Alahverdian .

MAP 4 Kiel Harbor and the eastern terminus of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. Courtesy of Eliz Alahverdian .
1
INTRODUCTION
OVERTURE: THE WATCH ON THE NORTH SEA
On 3 August 1914 gray-clad German troopers crossed the Belgian and Luxemburg frontiers to begin, in that theater, the greatest conflagration Europe had ever seen. Nestled in the fenlands of the North Sea coast, the small, drab German city of Wilhelmshaven overnight became a household word. In its harbor and in the nearby Jade, a lagoon-like body of water, sheltered from the stormy North Sea by a great sand bar, there gathered the most powerful fleet ever assembled in continental Europe, the mighty German High Seas Fleet. Fifteen of the most modern (Dreadnought-type) battleships, soon joined by two more in trials, and four speedy battlecruisers lay poised for an expected Armageddon with the even mightier British Grand Fleet, which then had twenty-two Dreadnoughts and ten powerful battlecruisers.
A few dozen leagues to the north, on the small island of Helgoland, lookouts scanned the horizon in wary anticipation of the British Armada. Smaller warships, based in Helgoland, formed a picket line to the north and west, ready to wireless the alarm.
To the south, the presence in an Austrian Adriatic base of the German battlecruiser Goeben alarmed the British Mediterranean command. Halfway around the world, in the German colony of Tsingtau on the Chinese Shantung Peninsula, 1 a small squadron of older German cruisers excited the same fears for British forces in the Pacific. This impressive array of German naval might was, in large measure, the life s work of Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.
As recently as 1897 most ships of the Imperial German Navy were obsolescent museum pieces, many of them foreign-built. Depending on how one measured, Germany, an industrial giant, had a fleet that ranked only fifth or sixth among the world s navies, with just a handful of modern ships. As the French Revolution proved, nations could create, train, and arm huge military forces over a short period of time; navies, however, were another matter. To construct and maintain a formidable navy required vast amounts of coal and steel, large numbers of skilled workers, highly sophisticated machine tools and engineering, and complex organizational entities to manage the process. Failing heroic measures, a large modern ship needed at least three or four years to complete, and usually another year for trials. Some of the essential fleet-building elements were in place in Germany by 1897, but a master organizer was needed to initiate and direct such a complex systematic undertaking.
The naval zeal of William II (r. 1888-1918) was an indispensable prerequisite for a large fleet, but his mercurial temperament and erratic work habits provided little progress on naval matters during the first nine years of his reign. To finance a first-class navy required vast sums of money. Absent were a plausible program, public enthusiasm, and parliamentary support from a society not previously noted, except in a few coastal cities, for its maritime interests.
Alfred Tirpitz, who brought the German Navy to second in the world by 1914, was the son of a respected Prussian country judge. In 1865, at age sixteen, he joined the navy to escape the rigors of the clas