Misplaced Pages

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81-581: In 1926, the position adopted the name Flottenchef , but was declared defunct one year later and left vacant with no assigned officer. The title became a position within the Kriegsmarine in 1936. The following naval officers served in the position as Fleet commander of the Kriegsmarine. From December 1940 to June 1941, a deputy to the fleet commander was established known by the title 2. Admiral der Flotte . The only officer to hold this position

162-581: A dozen destroyers were operational) were divided among the victors by the Tripartite Naval Commission . The US used the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll in 1946 as a target ship for the Operation Crossroads . Some (like the unfinished aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin ) were used for target practice with conventional weapons, while others (mostly destroyers and torpedo boats) were put into

243-661: A heavy ship suitable for offensive warfare on the high seas while still abiding by the letter of the treaty. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Hitler soon began to more brazenly ignore many of the Treaty restrictions and accelerated German naval rearmament. 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 35,000 tons. That same year

324-554: A legitimate military target, resulting in the deaths of 117 civilians. Germany did not admit responsibility for the incident until after the war. Lemp was killed in action in 1941. U-247 was alleged to have shot at sunken ship survivors, but as the vessel was lost at sea with its crew, there was no investigation. In 1945, U-boat Commander Heinz-Wilhelm Eck of U-852 was tried along with four of his crewmen for shooting at survivors. All were found guilty, with three of them, including Eck, being executed. In 1946, Hellmuth von Ruckteschell

405-484: A major re-armament of the navy (Plan Z) was planned, and initially begun, the start of the war in 1939 meant that the vast amounts of material required for the project were diverted to other areas. The sheer disparity in size when compared to the other European powers navies prompted Raeder to write of his own navy once the war began "The surface forces can do no more than show that they know how to die gallantly." A number of captured ships from occupied countries were added to

486-568: A new capital ship for that era. In regard to technical design, however, the Kirov is simply a supersized guided-missile cruiser with nuclear propulsion. It took until late 1942 for aircraft carriers to be universally considered capital ships. Only full-size fleet carriers (whether purpose built, or converted from battleship/battlecruiser hulls) were regarded as capital ships, while light carriers (often using cruiser hulls) and escort carriers (often using merchant ship hulls) were not. The U.S. Navy

567-543: A new navy was established and was referred to as the Bundesmarine (Federal Navy). Some Kriegsmarine commanders like Erich Topp and Otto Kretschmer went on to serve in the Bundesmarine . In East Germany the Volksmarine (People's Navy) was established in 1956. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, it was decided to use the name Deutsche Marine ( German Navy ). By the start of World War II, much of

648-821: A result, the submarines had much success for few losses (this period was dubbed the First Happy Time by the Germans). Italy entered the war in June 1940, and the Battle of the Mediterranean began: from September 1941 to May 1944 some 62 German submarines were transferred there, sneaking past the British naval base at Gibraltar . The Mediterranean submarines sank 24 major Allied warships (including 12 destroyers, 4 cruisers, 2 aircraft carriers, and 1 battleship) and 94 merchant ships (449,206 tons of shipping). None of

729-691: A small number of targets in the area throughout the conflict. (By comparison the Italian Regia Marina operated 58 submarines in the area as part of the Sottomarini Legionari .) The Kriegsmarine saw as her main tasks the controlling of the Baltic Sea and winning a war against France in connection with the German army, because France was seen as the most likely enemy in the event of war. But in 1938 Hitler wanted to have

810-784: A telegram to the German Navy's Baltic Command in Kiel , which stated that he wanted 100 SS and fifty Schutzpolizei (protective police) men sent to Liepāja for "quick implementation Jewish problem". Kawelmacher hoped to accelerate the killings, complaining: "Here about 8,000 Jews... with present SS-personnel, this would take one year, which is untenable for [the] pacification of Liepāja." Kawelmacher telegram on 27 July 1941 read: "Jewish problem Libau largely solved by execution of about 1,100 male Jews by Riga SS commando on 24 and 25.7." In September 1939, U-boat commander Fritz-Julius Lemp of U-30 sank SS Athenia (1922) after mistaking it for

891-593: A torpedo research program in Sweden where the G7e torpedo was developed. Even 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 launching of the first pocket battleship , Deutschland in 1931 (as a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought battleship Preussen )

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972-624: Is a useful concept in naval strategy; for example, it permits comparisons between relative naval strengths in a theatre of operations without the need for considering specific details of tonnage or gun diameters. A notable example of this is the Mahanian doctrine , which was applied in the planning of the defence of Singapore in World War II , where the Royal Navy had to decide the allocation of its battleships and battlecruisers between

1053-441: Is argument, this has been noted. The main combat ships of the Kriegsmarine (excluding U-boats): Construction of Graf Zeppelin was started in 1936 and construction of an unnamed sister ship was started two years later in 1938, but neither ship was completed. In 1942 conversion of three German passenger ships ( Europa , Potsdam , Gneisenau ) and two unfinished cruisers, the captured French light cruiser De Grasse and

1134-700: The German Mine Sweeping Administration (GMSA), which consisted of 27,000 members of the former Kriegsmarine and 300 vessels. The destroyers and the Soviet share light cruiser Nürnberg were all retired by the end of the 1950s, but five escort destroyers were returned from the French to the new West German Navy in the 1950s and three 1945 scuttled type XXI and XXIII U-boats were raised by West Germany and integrated into their new navy. In 1956, with West Germany's accession to NATO ,

1215-697: The Gneisenau was heavily damaged by a British air raid in 1942 and the Scharnhorst was sunk in the Battle of the North Cape in late 1943. The second pair were the 15-inch gun Bismarck class , consisting of the Bismarck and Tirpitz . The Bismarck was sunk on her first sortie into the Atlantic in 1941 ( Operation Rheinübung ) although she did sink the battlecruiser Hood and severely damaged

1296-515: The Kriegsmarine in Norway were seldom involved in these attacks, because of the inferiority of German radar technology, and because Hitler and the leadership of the Kriegsmarine feared losses of these precious ships. The most effective of these attacks was the near destruction of Convoy PQ 17 in July 1942. Later in the war German attacks on these convoys were mostly reduced to U-boat activities and

1377-414: The Kriegsmarine were modern ships: fast, well-armed, and well-armoured. This had been achieved by concealment but also by deliberately flouting World War I peace terms and those of various naval treaties. However, the war started with the German Navy still at a distinct disadvantage in terms of sheer size with what were expected to be its primary adversaries – the navies of France and Great Britain. Although

1458-612: The Reichsmarine was renamed as the Kriegsmarine . In April 1939, as tensions escalated between the United Kingdom and Germany over Poland , Hitler unilaterally rescinded the restrictions of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement. The building-up of the German fleet in the time period of 1935–1939 was slowed by problems with marshaling enough manpower and material for ship building. This was because of

1539-499: The Royal Navy 's rating system of a ship of the line as being of the first , second , third or fourth rates: Frigates were ships of the fifth rate ; sixth rates comprised small frigates and corvettes . Towards the end of the Napoleonic Wars and into the late 19th century, some larger and more powerful frigates were classified as fourth rates. The term "capital ship" was coined in 1909 and formally defined in

1620-729: The Weimar Republic . 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. In violation of the Treaty of Versailles , the Kriegsmarine grew rapidly during German naval rearmament in the 1930s. The 1919 treaty had limited the size of the German navy and prohibited

1701-414: The evacuation of East Prussia and Danzig from January to May 1945. It was during this activity that the catastrophic sinking of several large passenger ships occurred: Wilhelm Gustloff and Goya were sunk by Soviet submarines, while Cap Arcona was sunk by British bombers, each sinking claiming thousands of civilian lives. The Kriegsmarine also provided important assistance in the evacuation of

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1782-1086: The " Sea Control Ship " configuration to the light VSTOL carriers operated by other nations. Nuclear submarines , while important ships and similar in tonnage to early battleships, are usually counted as part of a nation's nuclear deterrent force and do not share the sea control mission of traditional capital ships. Nevertheless, many navies, including the Royal Navy and the United States Navy , consider these ships to be capital ships and have given some of them names previously used for battleships, e.g. Dreadnought and Vanguard , Oklahoma and Iowa . Some navies reserve specific names for their capital ships. Names reserved for capital ships include chiefs of state (e.g. Bismarck ), important places, historically important naval officers or admiralty (e.g. De Ruyter ), historical events or objects (e.g. USS  Constitution ), and traditional names (e.g. HMS  Ark Royal ). However, there are some exceptions to

1863-539: The 20th century, especially in World Wars I and II, typical capital ships would be battleships and battlecruisers . All of the above ships were close to 20,000 tons displacement or heavier, with large caliber guns and heavy armor protection. Cruisers, despite being important ships, were not considered capital ships. An exception to the above in World War II was the Deutschland -class cruiser . Though this class

1944-612: The Atlantic and Pacific theatres. The Mahanian doctrine was also applied by the Imperial Japanese Navy , leading to its preventive move to attack Pearl Harbor and the battleships of the U.S. Pacific Fleet . The naval nature of the Pacific Theater of Operations , more commonly referred to as the Pacific War , necessitated the United States Navy mostly deploying its battleships and aircraft carriers in

2025-471: The Atlantic coast at Brest were evacuated back to German ports for deployment to Norway. The ships had been repeatedly damaged by air attacks by the RAF , the supply ships to support Atlantic sorties had been destroyed by the Royal Navy, and Hitler now felt that Norway was the "zone of destiny" for these ships. The two battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen passed through

2106-728: The Battle of the Barents Sea, which convinced Hitler that large warships were useless. All engineering of the aircraft carriers like catapults, arresting gears and so on were tested and developed at the Erprobungsstelle See Travemünde (Experimental Agency Sea in Travemünde) including the airplanes for the aircraft carriers, the Fieseler Fi 167 ship-borne biplane torpedo and reconnaissance bomber and

2187-585: The Denmark Strait . Lütjens was later killed on the Bismarck , making him the only fleet commander to die in active combat. The fleet commander was not, by design, an operational officer, and thus could only advise the Navy group commanders who served as the operational heads of the various at-sea German forces. For this reason, there was significant jurisdictional conflict between the fleet commander and

2268-830: The English Channel ( Channel Dash ) on their way to Norway despite British efforts to stop them. Not since the Spanish Armada in 1588 had any warships in wartime done this. It was a tactical victory for the Kriegsmarine and a blow to British morale, but the withdrawal removed the possibility of attacking allied convoys in the Atlantic with heavy surface ships. With the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 Britain started to send Arctic convoys with military goods around Norway to support their new ally. In 1942 German forces began heavily attacking these convoys, mostly with bombers and U-boats. The big ships of

2349-649: The German Navy was heavily involved in the invasion of Norway , where it suffered significant losses, which included the heavy cruiser Blücher sunk by artillery and torpedoes from Norwegian shore batteries at the Oscarsborg Fortress in the Oslofjord . Ten destroyers were lost in the Battles of Narvik (half of German destroyer strength at the time), and two light cruisers, the Königsberg which

2430-427: The German fleet as the war progressed. Though six major units of the Kriegsmarine were sunk during the war (both Bismarck -class battleships and both Scharnhorst -class battleships, as well as two heavy cruisers), there were still many ships afloat (including four heavy cruisers and four light cruisers) as late as March 1945. Some ship types do not fit clearly into the commonly used ship classifications. Where there

2511-573: The German fleet at the beginning of the war was not even 20% of Plan Z. On 1 September 1939, the navy still had a total personnel strength of only 78,000, and it was not at all ready for a major role in the war. Because of the long time it would take to get the Plan Z fleet ready for action and shortage in workers and material in wartime, Plan Z was essentially shelved in September 1939 and the resources allocated for its realisation were largely redirected to

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2592-453: The German heavy cruiser Seydlitz , to auxiliary carriers was begun. In November 1942 the conversion of the passenger ships was stopped because these ships were now seen as too slow for operations with the fleet. But conversion of one of these ships, the Potsdam , to a training carrier was begun instead. In February 1943 all the work on carriers was halted because of the German failure during

2673-427: The Mediterranean submarines made it back to their home bases, as they were all either sunk in battle or scuttled by their crews at the end of the war. In 1941, one of the four modern German battleships, Bismarck sank HMS  Hood while breaking out into the Atlantic for commerce raiding. The Bismarck was in turn hunted down by much superior British forces after being crippled by an air-launched torpedo. She

2754-461: The Navy'). Among 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. 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. Along with

2835-614: The Pacific. The war in Europe was primarily a land war; consequently, Germany's surface fleet was small, and the escort ships used in the Battle of the Atlantic were mostly destroyers and destroyer escorts to counter the U-boat threat. Before the advent of the all-steel navy in the late 19th century, a capital ship during the Age of Sail was generally understood as a ship that conformed to

2916-780: The Republican attack were 31 dead and 110 wounded, 71 seriously, mostly burn victims. In retaliation the Admiral Scheer shelled Almeria on 31 May killing 19–20 civilians, wounding 50 and destroying 35 buildings. Following further attacks by Republican submarines against the Leipzig off the port of Oran between 15 and 18 June 1937 Germany withdrew from the Non-Intervention Patrol. U-boats also participated in covert action against Republican shipping as part of Operation Ursula . At least eight U-boats engaged

2997-485: 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 . However, the adoption of convoy escorts , especially in the Atlantic, greatly reduced the effectiveness of surface commerce raiders against convoys. Following

3078-641: The U.S. Navy has never named aircraft carriers after U.S. states. Today, U.S. aircraft carriers are usually named after politicians and other individuals notable in US naval history such as Gerald R. Ford and Chester W. Nimitz except Enterprise . Beginning with the first class of Trident -equipped ballistic missile submarines (i.e. the Ohio class ), state names have been applied to U.S. nuclear submarines. Previous ballistic missile submarines (e.g. Poseidon missile-equipped submarines) had not been named for states. After

3159-478: The United Kingdom ( Operation Sea Lion ) in the summer of 1940. There were serious doubts that the invasion sea routes could have been protected against British naval interference. The Fall of France and the conquest of Norway gave German submarines greatly improved access to British shipping routes in the Atlantic . At first, British convoys lacked escorts that were adequate either in numbers or equipment and, as

3240-682: The United States in December 1941 led to another phase of the Battle of the Atlantic. In Operation Drumbeat and subsequent operations until August 1942, a large number of Allied merchant ships were sunk by submarines off the US coast as the Americans had not prepared for submarine warfare, despite clear warnings (this was the so-called Second Happy Time for the German Navy). The situation became so serious that military leaders feared for

3321-652: The battleship Tirpitz , was stationed in Norway as a threat to Allied shipping and also as a defence against a potential Allied invasion. When she was sunk, after several attempts, by British bombers in November 1944 ( Operation Catechism ), several British capital ships could be moved to the Far East. From late 1944 until the end of the war, the surviving surface fleet of the Kriegsmarine (heavy cruisers: Admiral Scheer , Lützow , Admiral Hipper , Prinz Eugen , light cruisers: Nürnberg , Köln , Emden )

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3402-686: The battleship Prince of Wales , while the Tirpitz was based in Norwegian ports during most of the war as a fleet in being, tying up Allied naval forces, and subject to a number of attacks by British aircraft and submarines. More battleships were planned (the H-class), but construction was abandoned in September 1939. The World War I-era pre-dreadnought battleships Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein were used mainly as training ships, although they also participated in several military operations, with

3483-582: The brokering of the International Non-Intervention Patrol to enforce an international arms embargo, the Kriegsmarine was allotted the patrol area between Cabo de Gata (Almeria) and Cabo de Oropesa . Numerous vessels served as part of these duties including Admiral Graf Spee . On 29 May 1937 the Deutschland was attacked off Ibiza by two bombers from the Republican Air Force . Total casualties from

3564-740: The building of submarines . 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 . In January 1939, Plan Z , a massive shipbuilding programme, was ordered, calling for surface naval parity with the British Royal Navy by 1944. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z

3645-399: The commander of submarine forces ( Befehlshaber der U-Boote ); however, in this capacity Karl Dönitz operated with near total independence, including the tactical deployment of his U-boats with little regard for the wishes of either the fleet or group commanders. The position of fleet commander was disbanded upon the defeat of Nazi Germany in May 1945. In the modern day German Navy ,

3726-402: The construction of U-boats, which would be ready for war against the United Kingdom more quickly. The Kriegsmarine took part in the Battle of Westerplatte and the Battle of the Danzig Bay during the invasion of Poland . In 1939, major events for the Kriegsmarine were the sinking of the British aircraft carrier HMS  Courageous and the British battleship HMS  Royal Oak and

3807-519: The development and deployment of midget submarines like the Molch and Seehund . In the last stage of the war, the Kriegsmarine also organised a number of divisions of infantry from its personnel. Between 1943 and 1945, a group of U-boats known as the Monsun Boats ( Monsun Gruppe ) operated in the Indian Ocean from Japanese bases in the occupied Dutch East Indies and Malaya . Allied convoys had not yet been organised in those waters, so initially many ships were sunk. However, this situation

3888-591: 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 . Some were loaded with superfluous chemical weapons and scuttled. 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 . Military aircraft were also banned, so Germany could have no naval aviation . Under

3969-419: The fleeing German civilians of Pomerania and Stettin in March and April 1945. A desperate measure of the Kriegsmarine to fight the superior strength of the Western Allies from 1944 was the formation of the Kleinkampfverbände (Small Battle Units). These were special naval units with frogmen , manned torpedoes, motorboats laden with explosives and so on. The more effective of these weapons and units were

4050-400: The group commanders. In mid 1943, the Kriegsmarine leadership attempted to solve this problem by merging the office of fleet commander with that of a group commander. A new position, Marinegruppenkommando Nord und Flottenchef was then created giving the fleet commander operational control over deployed forces in the North Sea . The fleet commander was also technically the senior officer to

4131-446: The heavy cruisers being built by their naval rivals, have been described as "super cruisers", "large cruisers" or even "unrestricted cruisers", with some advocating that they even be considered battlecruisers; however, they were never classified as capital ships. During the Cold War , a Soviet Kirov -class large missile cruiser had a displacement great enough to rival World War II-era battleships and battlecruisers, perhaps defining

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4212-455: The latter bearing the distinction of firing the opening shots of World War II. Zähringen and Hessen were converted into radio-guided target ships in 1928 and 1930 respectively. Hannover was decommissioned in 1931 and struck from the naval register in 1936. Plans to convert her into a radio-controlled target ship for aircraft was cancelled because of the outbreak of war in 1939. Three O-class battlecruisers were ordered in 1939, but with

4293-401: The limitation treaties of the 1920s and 1930s, in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty , 1930 London Naval Treaty , and 1936 Second London Naval Treaty . This applied mainly to ships resulting from the dreadnought revolution; dreadnought battleships (also known first as dreadnoughts and later as battleships) and battlecruisers. The term is defined in the 1936 Montreux Convention as well. In

4374-498: The loss of Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate . Submarine attacks on Britain's vital maritime supply routes ( Battle of the Atlantic ) started immediately at the outbreak of war, although they were hampered by the lack of well placed ports from which to operate. Throughout the war the Kriegsmarine was responsible for coastal artillery protecting major ports and important coastal areas. It also operated anti-aircraft batteries protecting major ports. In April 1940,

4455-457: The mass of the allied freighters reached their destination in Soviet ports. The Battle of the Barents Sea in December 1942 was an attempt by a German naval surface force to attack an Allied Arctic convoy. However, the advantage was not pressed home and they returned to base. There were serious implications: this failure infuriated Hitler, who nearly enforced a decision to scrap the surface fleet. Instead, resources were diverted to new U-boats, and

4536-414: The naval versions of two key early war Luftwaffe aircraft: the Messerschmitt Bf 109 T fighter and the Junkers Ju 87 C Stuka dive bomber. The Kriegsmarine completed four battleships during its existence. The first pair were the 11-inch gun Scharnhorst class , consisting of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau , which participated in the invasion of Norway in 1940, and then in commerce raiding until

4617-438: The number of Allied ships sunk started to decrease. Radar, longer range air cover, sonar , improved tactics, and new weapons all contributed. German technical developments, such as the Schnorchel , attempted to counter these. Near the end of the war a small number of the new Elektroboot U-boats (types XXI and XXIII ) became operational, the first submarines designed to operate submerged at all times. The Elektroboote had

4698-415: The position of Inspector of the Navy is somewhat equivalent to that of fleet commander. Kriegsmarine The Kriegsmarine ( German pronunciation: [ˈkʁiːksmaˌʁiːnə] , lit.   ' War Navy ' ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of

4779-489: The possibility of winning a war against Great Britain at sea in the coming years. Therefore, he ordered plans for such a fleet from the Kriegsmarine . From the three proposed plans (X, Y and Z) he approved Plan Z in January 1939. This blueprint for the new German naval construction program envisaged building a navy of approximately 800 ships during the period 1939–1947. Hitler demanded that the program be completed by 1945. The main force of Plan Z were six H-class battleships . In

4860-425: The potential to negate the Allied technological and tactical advantage, although they were deployed too late to see combat in the war. Following the capture of Liepāja in Latvia by the Germans on 29 June 1941, the town came under the command of the Kriegsmarine . On 1 July 1941, the town commandant Korvettenkapitän Stein ordered that ten hostages be shot for every act of sabotage, and further put civilians in

4941-456: The region. The heavy cruisers Deutschland and Admiral Scheer , and the light cruiser Köln were the first to be sent in July 1936. These large ships were accompanied by the 2nd Torpedo-boat Flotilla. The German presence was used to covertly support Francisco Franco's Nationalists although the immediate involvement of the Deutschland was humanitarian relief operations and evacuating 9,300 refugees, including 4,550 German citizens. Following

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5022-465: The rule. Beginning with USS  Texas (the first U.S. battleship), U.S. capital ships were traditionally named after U.S. states. Cruisers are typically named after U.S. territories (e.g. Alaska-class cruisers just before and during World War II) or U.S. cities. Prior to and during World War II, the Imperial Japanese Navy also followed the practice of naming battleships after provinces (e.g. Yamato ). Despite their significance to modern fleets,

5103-491: The service of Allied navies that lacked surface ships after the war. The training barque SSS Horst Wessel was recommissioned USCGC Eagle and remains in active service, assigned to the United States Coast Guard Academy . The British, French, and Soviet navies received the destroyers, and some torpedo boats went to the Danish and Norwegian navies. For the purpose of mine clearing, the Royal Navy employed German crews and minesweepers from June 1945 to January 1948, organised in

5184-413: The simultaneous and rapid build-up of the German Army and Air Force which demanded substantial effort and resources. Some projects, like the D-class cruisers and the P-class cruisers , had to be cancelled. The first military action of the Kriegsmarine came during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the outbreak of hostilities in July 1936 several large warships of the German fleet were sent to

5265-417: The start of the war the same year there were not enough resources to build the ships. Capital ship The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet . There is usually no formal criterion for the classification, but it

5346-424: The surface fleet became a lesser threat to the Allies. After December 1943 when Scharnhorst had been sunk in an attack on an Arctic convoy in the Battle of North Cape by HMS  Duke of York , most German surface ships in bases at the Atlantic were blockaded in, or close to, their ports as a fleet in being , for fear of losing them in action and to tie up British naval forces. The largest of these ships,

5427-437: The treaty Germany could only build new ships to replace old ones. All the ships allowed and personnel were taken over from the Kaiserliche Marine , which was renamed the Reichsmarine . From the outset, Germany worked to circumvent the military restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. The Germans continued to develop U-boats through a submarine design office in the Netherlands ( NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw ) and

5508-453: The version of Plan Z drawn up in August 1939, the German fleet was planned to consist of the following ships by 1945: Personnel strength was planned to rise to over 200,000. The planned naval program was not very far advanced by the time World War II began. In 1939 two M-class cruisers and two H-class battleships were laid down and parts for two further H-class battleships and three O-class battlecruisers were in production. The strength of

5589-436: The whole Allied strategy. The vast American ship building capabilities and naval forces were however now brought into the war and soon more than offset any losses inflicted by the German submariners. In 1942, the submarine warfare continued on all fronts, and when German forces in the Soviet Union reached the Black Sea , a few submarines were eventually transferred there. In February 1942, the three large warships stationed on

5670-454: The zone of targeting by declaring that Red Army soldiers were hiding among them in civilian attire. On 5 July 1941 Korvettenkapitän Brückner, who had taken over from Stein, issued a set of anti-Jewish regulations in the local newspaper, Kurzemes Vārds . Summarized, the regulations were as follows: On 16 July 1941, Fregattenkapitän Dr. Hans Kawelmacher was appointed the German naval commandant in Liepāja. On 22 July, Kawelmacher sent

5751-409: Was Konteradmiral Leopold Siemens . The fleet commander, by practice, was typically most closely associated with the German battleship branch. Most fleet commanders would make their flagship on-board one of Germany's larger capital ships. Günther Lütjens, while serving as fleet commander, embarked on board the battleship Bismarck and also tactically commanded the ship during the Battle of

5832-521: Was a step in the formation of a modern German fleet. 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. By using innovative construction techniques, the Germans had built

5913-601: Was bombed and sunk by Royal Navy aircraft in Bergen, and the Karlsruhe which was sunk off the coast of Kristiansand by a British submarine. The Kriegsmarine did in return sink some British warships during this campaign, including the aircraft carrier HMS  Glorious . The losses in the Norwegian Campaign left only a handful of undamaged heavy ships available for the planned, but never executed, invasion of

5994-591: Was forced to rely primarily on its aircraft carriers after the attack on Pearl Harbor sank or damaged eight of its Pacific-fleet battleships. In the 21st century, the aircraft carrier is the last remaining capital ship, with capability defined in decks available and aircraft per deck rather than in guns and calibers . The United States possesses supremacy in both contemporary categories of aircraft carriers, possessing 11 active duty supercarriers each capable of carrying and launching nearly 100 tactical aircraft, and nine amphibious assault ships which are equivalent in

6075-554: Was heavily engaged in providing artillery support to the retreating German land forces along the Baltic coast and in ferrying civilian refugees to the western Baltic Sea parts of Germany ( Mecklenburg , Schleswig-Holstein ) in large rescue operations. Large parts of the population of eastern Germany fled the approaching Red Army out of fear for Soviet retaliation (mass rapes, killings, and looting by Soviet troops did occur ). The Kriegsmarine evacuated two million civilians and troops in

6156-517: Was not formally declared, leading to the sinking of the USS ; Reuben James . This course of events were the result of the American decision to support Britain with its Lend-Lease program and the subsequent decision to escort Lend-Lease convoys with US war ships through the western part of the Atlantic. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent German declaration of war against

6237-462: Was sentenced to 10 years in prison, reduced to 7 years on appeal, for the illegal sinking of ships and criminal negligence for failing to protect the downed crew of the SS Anglo Saxon . Ruckteschell died in prison in 1948. After the war, the German surface ships that remained afloat (only the cruisers Prinz Eugen and [Nürnberg] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |4= ( help ) , and

6318-484: Was shelved in favour of a crash building programme for submarines ( U-boats ) instead of capital surface warships, and land and air forces were given priority of strategic resources. The Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine (as for all branches of the armed forces during the period of absolute Nazi power) was Adolf Hitler , who exercised his authority through the Oberkommando der Marine ('High Command of

6399-521: Was soon remedied. During the later war years, the Monsun Boats were also used as a means of exchanging vital war supplies with Japan. During 1943 and 1944, due to Allied anti-submarine tactics and better equipment, the U-boat fleet started to suffer heavy losses. The turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic was during Black May in 1943, when the U-boat fleet started suffering heavy losses and

6480-423: Was subsequently scuttled after being rendered a burning wreck by two British battleships. In November 1941 during the Battle of the Mediterranean, German submarine U-331 sank the British battleship Barham , which had a magazine explosion and sank in minutes, with the loss of 862, or 2/3 of her crew. During 1941, the Kriegsmarine and the United States Navy became de facto belligerents , although war

6561-476: Was technically similar to a heavy cruiser , albeit slower but with considerably heavier guns, they were regarded by some as capital ships (hence the British label "Pocket battleship") since they were one of the few heavy surface units of the Kriegsmarine . The American Alaska -class cruiser , Dutch Design 1047 battlecruiser and the Japanese Design B-65 cruiser , planned specifically to counter

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