Plan Z: The Nazi Bid for Naval Dominance

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by

Pen & Sword Maritime

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

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Copyright © David Wragg 2008

ISBN 978 1 84415 727 3

eISBN 9781844685400

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Contents

List of Plates

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Glossary

Appendix I

Comparison of Commissioned Ranks – Reichsmarine/Kriegsmarine and Royal Navy

Chronology of the Reichsmarine/Kriegsmarine

Bibliography

Plan Z was drafted under Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, but he was one of many German naval officers who regarded the U-boats as being at risk from improved Allied counter measures, especially Asdic.

(IWM No A 14906)

Karl Donitz was an enthusiastic proponent of the U-boat, and increased the numbers allowed under Plan Z – here he is congratulating the crew of a returned U-boat.

(IWM No HU 40217)

German ideas on carrier design were dated, and were not too dissimilar from that of the British sisters, HMS Glorious, seen here, and Courageous.

Except briefly at the height of the war, the Germans also ignored the potential of the escort carrier, such as Avenger, seen here, which could at least have provided reconnaissance and fighter cover for their surface ships.

(IWM No FL1268)

The only aircraft carrier laid down by Germany was the Graf Zeppelin, seen here on the slipway.

(US Naval Historical Records Centre)

The concept of the corsair or cruiser submarine, armed with larger calibre guns, was also considered, but never built. The best example of this type of submarine during the war was the French Surcouf, which was seized by the Royal Navy at Portsmouth in 1940.

(IWM No A410)

Instead the Germans placed great faith in their Panzerschiffe, daubed ‘pocket battleships’ by the British media, such as Deutschland, seen here, but reality had them change her name to Lutzow after the start of hostilities.

(US Naval Historical Records Centre)

Scharnhorst showed just how unprepared for war the Kriegsmarine really was – the intention had been to replace her 11-in guns with 15-in, the usual armament for a battlecruiser, but this never happened. Here she is under construction.

(US Naval Historical Records Centre)

A group of U-boats at an anchorage, with the larger one in the right foreground clearly meant to provide anti-aircraft cover.

(US Naval Historical Records Centre)

A more familiar base for U-boats after the fall of France was in heavy protected pens, which were impervious to Allied bombing until the advent of the heavy earthquake bombs, the RAF’s 12,000-lbs ‘Tallboy’ and 22,000-lbs ‘Grand Slam’, which undermined the sides of the pens.

(US Naval Historical Records Centre)

The mighty Tirpitz safe in a Norwegian fjord, with Scharnhorst bottom left, almost hidden. Torpedo nets are deployed.

(IWM No C 5627)

Bismarck, the only other German battleship to be completed, at the start of her first, and last, cruise, ‘Operation Rhine Exercise’.

(IWM No HU 374)

Concerned over the safety of his major warships, Hitler ordered them home and took the daring decision to bring them on the most direct route through the English Channel. Here are Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during the famous ‘Channel Dash’ with Prinz Eugen.

(IWM No MH 4981)

While the Germans made extensive use of captured French artillery and railway rolling stock, the real prize could have been the French fleet, although these ships at Alexandria were safely out of way. In the foreground is the cruiser Tourville with the destroyer Forebin alongside.

(IWM No A9937)

When the Germans belatedly tried to seize those ships in French waters in late 1942, they were scuttled or blown up, here is the battlecruiser Strasbourg with a scuttled cruiser lying alongside at Toulon. The Germans simply gained a small number of French submarines.

(IWM No A25666)

The biggest wasted Axis asset was the Italian fleet, with three of the six battleships put out of action by the Fleet Air Arm at Taranto on the night of 11/12 November 1940. Here is the battleship Littorio, down by the bows after the attack.

(IWM No HU 52334)

Acknowledgements

In writing any book such as this, an author is always indebted to those who have left personal accounts of their experiences and those who safeguard the archives, whether they be of written records or of photographic material, including of course, to the Photographic Archive team at the Imperial War Museum in London. This is not an economic history, but economics and the often overlooked poor financial situation of Germany, in the days immediately before the Second World War had an impact on the plans for rearmament, so anyone interested in this aspect of Germany’s preparations for war must be grateful to Adam Tooze for his work, The Wages of Destruction – The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, a highly readable account that I can recommend without hesitation.

David Wragg

Edinburgh

October 2007

Introduction

If the outbreak of the Second World War found the United Kingdom and France ill-prepared, the German Navy, the Kriegsmarine, was also caught wrong-footed. In contrast to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War, there had been no naval construction race during the 1930s that involved Germany, although there had been one between France and Italy. Germany undoubtedly wanted a far larger navy than that allowed by the Treaty of Versailles, or even by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, but this was still some time away. The senior officers and planners of the Kriegsmarine did not expect war with the British Empire until 1944–45, Grossadmiral Raeder foresaw a major battle with the Royal Navy, one that would settle the issues left unresolved at Jutland, in 1948. This was not just wishful thinking, even Hitler had assured Raeder that there would be no war with England before 1943.

In September 1939, the Kriegsmarine had a number of major warships under construction, but only 59 submarines. It even included two elderly battleships of little use other than for coastal defence, the remnants of the small fleet permitted by the Treaty of Versailles.

At its best, this was a modern navy, but it lacked what was to prove to be essential for any blue water navy in the war that lay ahead, aircraft carriers and naval aviation. Priority had been given in the period immediately before the outbreak of war to the development of the air force, the Luftwaffe, and while the army had massively expanded, it also suffered weaknesses, with artillery and most supplies still depending upon horses. The Kriegsmarine was last in the queue for modernisation and expansion.

Looking ahead, the Germans had plans to create a navy that would be able to match that of the United Kingdom. These had started with Plan X, which had been followed by Plan Y, and finally emerged as Plan Z. This would have given Germany the balanced fleet essential for the war that lay ahead, albeit with more than 200 U-boats, later increased to 300.

Plan Z is often referred to by naval historians, but does not seem to have received serious consideration. Several have written it off on the grounds that Germany could not produce sufficient fuel for such a large fleet, but this was a problem that Hitler tried to address in his thrust eastwards. On the other hand, German aircraft carrier design was badly outdated, while operational questions over naval air power had not been resolved by the Germans. Plan Z also seemed to overlook the resumption of naval construction by the British, which would have rendered the proposed surface fleet as inadequate. The real questions over Plan Z have to be:

• How realistic would the plan have been given Germany’s other military goals?

• How long could Britain and France have held back from war as Germany flexed her muscles?

• How would the ships have compared with those operated by the British and French navies?

• Could the Germans have made use of Japanese expertise?

• How long could Germany have afforded the manpower, materials and money that her massive arms build-up was already costing?

There are answers to some at least of these questions. There was a strong ‘peace faction’ in the UK that might have become more influential had Germany stalled over Poland for a year or two longer. The same effect could have been achieved had the League of Nations, or at least the UK and France, taken action against Italy when that country invaded Abyssinia in 1935 – closing the Suez Canal to Italian shipping would have been easy and highly effective, while plans for an attack on the Italian port of Taranto date from this time.

PLAN Z – GERMANY’S BID FOR MASTERY OF THE SEAS begins with a history of the Kriegsmarine and the impact of defeat in the First World War. This is followed by a look at the reconstruction of the navy and the rivalry between Raeder and Dönitz, and between these two and Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. The ships involved in Plan Z are then examined, along with the potential for a naval race between Germany, Britain and France in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The question over just how long Britain and France might have held off declaring war is also considered. An emergency alternative to Plan Z involving taking over units of the Vichy French and Italian fleets is also examined. Finally, a look at some of the major naval battles of the Second World War considers what might have happened at the River Plate, in Norway and in the hunt for the Bismarck, as well as the Battle of the Atlantic and the Arctic convoys, had Plan Z’s fleet been in place. This, of course, begs the question of whether Germany could have become a maritime power, and of course the impact of such a large U-boat fleet on the convoys at the outset of the war.

Glossary

Allies – originally used for the Triple Entente during the First World War – the United Kingdom, France and Russia, but during the Second World War initially used for just the UK and France, and then later adding the Soviet Union and finally the United States of America.

Asdic – Derived from the initials for the Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee, and now known as sonar. Asdic or sonar equipment emits audible pings and then traces submerged objects through their echoes.

Auxiliary Cruiser – Merchant vessel taken up from trade and armed, with a naval crew. In British use, these ships were used as convoy escorts, while in German use, they were surface raiders. In neither case were they successful when confronted by purpose-built major warships.

Axis Powers – The alliance formed by Germany, Italy and Japan. Nevertheless, unlike the Allies, there was very little coordination at times, especially between Japan and Germany or Italy, or cross-fertilisation of ideas or technical developments.

Barbarossa – Code name given to Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union.

Battlecruiser – a warship generally with battleship calibre armament, but in which armour was sacrificed to give a greater speed. The German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau nevertheless had guns of just 11-in, and although these were supposed to have been replaced by 15-in guns, this never happened.

Battleship – designation given to large heavily armed and heavily armoured ship. Second World War battleships generally had guns of 15-in calibre, but some had 14-in or 16-in, and the Japanese had a class with 18-in calibre guns.

CAM-ship – Catapult armed merchantman, a merchant vessel with a fighter aircraft that could be catapulted off to shoot down enemy aircraft. The fighter pilot was usually from the RAF, but a number of Fleet Air Arm personnel also flew such aircraft. Problems were that the aircraft had to be sacrificed at the end of a single sortie, unless within range of land, and because of this, there was always reluctance to use the aircraft in case a more pressing need came later.

Case White – Code name given to the Invasion of Poland.

Coastal Command – A command within the Royal Air Force that provided maritime-reconnaissance and antisubmarine patrols and also search and rescue in the open seas, generally meant to be tasked by the Admiralty.

Corvette – During the Second World War, this referred to a warship designed for convoy escort duties, usually smaller than a frigate or destroyer, and also slower and of broader beam than the latter, as well as less heavily armed.

Cruiser – A warship smaller than a battleship or battlecruiser, but much larger than a destroyer. The Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 laid down that light cruisers had a main armament of 6-in guns and heavy cruisers a main armament of 8-in guns (displacement tonnage had nothing to do with it), but the British Town-class with up to twelve 6-in guns in four turrets were classified as ‘heavy’ by the Royal Navy. There were also merchant cruisers, although usually referred to as auxiliary cruisers (see above), and anti-aircraft cruisers, usually much older ships converted to allow their continued use.

Cruiser War – term also applied to commerce raiding.

Destroyer – Small warship, generally fast, and by the Second World War much larger than its First World War counterpart. Armament varied between 4-in and 4.5-in on British ships, but some German and French vessels were larger and the latter had armament in the contre-torpilleur classes of 5.5-in.

E-boat – enemy boat, usually a German fast motor gunboat or motor torpedo boat, but known to the Kriegsmarine as S-Boot, for Schnellboot, or ‘fast boat’.

Electro-U-Boats – German U-boat development that appeared from 1943 onwards, with an enlarged hull to enable additional batteries to be fitted to give higher underwater speeds.

Enigma – The code used by all of the German armed forces, but broken once a machine and code-books fell into British hands. The breaking of the Enigma codes was a major factor in the Allied victory and especially in countering the U-boat threat to Atlantic and Arctic convoys.

Escort Carrier – Small aircraft carrier sometimes converted from a merchant vessel, but later increasingly using merchant vessel hulls to allow conversion to a merchant vessel post-war. Limited in the number of aircraft that could be carried, and in speed. Originally intended for convoy escort duties, but eventually also acted as aircraft transports and also acted in the combat role supporting invasion forces.

Felix – code name for a planned invasion of Gibraltar, abandoned when it became clear that Spain would not and could not cooperate.

Fleet Air Arm – Originally that part of the Royal Air Force that was deployed aboard Royal Navy warships, but it reverted to Admiralty control in May 1939, and naval airmen steadily took over from their RAF counterparts.

Frigate – Originally a general purpose sailing warship much smaller than the ships of the line, predecessors of the battleship, which disappeared from the world’s navies during the late nineteenth century. These were reinvented during the Second World War as a convoy escort larger than a corvette and slower than a destroyer, and usually were dedicated antisubmarine or anti-aircraft ships. In more modern times, they have reverted to their general purpose function.

Kaiserliche Marine – official name for the Imperial German Navy.

Kriegsmarine – ‘War Navy’, the official name for the German Navy given by Hitler in 1935 to replace the old Reichsmarine or ‘State Navy’.

Luftwaffe – German air force, which controlled all German service aviation after the outbreak of the Second World War. Although autonomous, it nevertheless developed as a primarily tactical air force without long-range strategic bombers until it was too late in the war, and therefore was hard pushed to maintain the attack on British targets.

MAC-ship – Merchant aircraft carrier, a ship that continued as a grain carrier or oil tanker, with a Merchant Navy crew, but had a wooden flight deck built over the cargo areas and the superstructure moved to starboard so that naval personnel could fly Fairey Swordfish on antisubmarine patrols around a convoy. Most were British manned, but two ships were manned by Dutch personnel, including aircrew and aircraft maintainers from the Royal Netherlands Navy.

Reich – The state.

Reichsmarine – official name for the German Navy after the abdication of the Kaiser and the creation of a republic or ‘Reich’.

U-boat – strictly, in German, U-boot, or Untersee Boot, a submarine.

Wolf Pack – a group of submarines deployed against a convoy.

CHAPTER ONE

Germany Inherits Prussia’s Ambitions

Germany has loomed as such a major presence politically, economically, industrially and, at times, militarily for so much of the twentieth century that it takes a moment’s thought to recall that, like Italy, the country ranks amongst the younger European states. The country was originally a collection of independent kingdoms, with the strongest, Prussia, dating from 1618. Unification of Germany first came in 1806, when the Emperor Napoleon unified the country as the Confederation of the Rhine, but Prussia remained independent of this, situated to the east of the Confederation on the Baltic coast. This was part of the so-called Continental System, a type of enforced trading area and protection enforced by Napoleon and intended to exclude Great Britain from European trade. The Continental System was used as a form of economic warfare. Nevertheless, the reforms introduced by Napoleon were largely adopted in Prussia.

Prussia, or more correctly Brandenburg-Prussia, had begun its rise as the dominant military power during the seventeenth century, and under Frederick II, who reigned from 1740 to 1786, it reached an early peak. In 1740, Frederick attacked Austria and started the War of the Austrian Succession, one of the fruits of which was that his territory expanded to include Silesia under the peace agreed in 1745. Hostilities resumed with the Seven Years’ War, which broke out in 1756 and lasted until 1763. In 1772, West Prussia was acquired and Poland partitioned for the first time. By the time he died, Frederick had established Prussia as the strongest German state militarily. Despite the seeming inability of his state to live in peace with its neighbours, Frederick’s rule was no harsh dictatorship, and he was generally credited with being not only a just and enlightened ruler, but was also a patron of the arts, encouraged education and reformed the legal system, established religious tolerance and did much to encourage agriculture and industry.

BISMARCK – THE IRON CHANCELLOR

The collapse of the Continental System in 1813 and the end of French dominance in Western Europe created a vacuum, and in 1848, many German states were swept by revolutions aimed at establishing democracy and unifying the country. The revolutions were poorly coordinated and unsuccessful, with that in Prussia suppressed by Prince Otto von Bismarck, marking the start of his rise to increasing power. A step towards unity came with the establishment of the North German Confederation in 1867, in which the dominant state was Prussia. War with France followed in 1870–1871, which meant that France had to cede its provinces of Alsace and Lorraine to Prussia and then to Germany, which finally established itself as a single unified nation in 1871, under the leadership of the austere and authoritarian first Chancellor, Bismarck, with Wilhelm I of Prussia becoming the first German Emperor or Kaiser.

Born just two years after the collapse of the Continental System, Otto Bismarck pursued an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy. He went to war against Denmark in 1863–64, gaining the disputed state of Schleswig-Holstein and giving Germany a North Sea coast and ports for the first time, then with Austria in 1866, excluding the country from a future Germany, and in 1870–71 with France. It was the last conflict that led to the unification of Germany, while to the south, Austria and Hungary combined to form the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a political entity founded on weakness as Austria had lost the war with Prussia and ceded Venetia to Italy. Despite the fighting with Austria, in 1881 Bismarck attempted to embrace Austro-Hungary and Italy in a Triple Alliance, but failed. In 1890, he was forced to resign by Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Bismarck had ruled as a virtual dictator, not for nothing was he known as the ‘Iron Chancellor’. His schemes for German unification and expansion were popular, but it took a strong and more liberal-minded Kaiser to keep him in check. His lack of tolerance brought him into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church and with the increasingly powerful socialists. Nevertheless, he was clear-headed and far-sighted, and amongst the first modern statesmen to appreciate the value of strategic alliances. He ensured that the new unified Germany was from the start a strong country able to withstand the pressures from neighbouring France and Poland, and the not so far distant but mighty Russia. It was not for nothing that a British cartoonist described his departure as ‘Dropping the Pilot’.

MORE THAN A CONTINENTAL POWER

With Prussia as the foremost continental military power, a country able to challenge France even before unification, Germany inherited an enviable position in 1871. The new state was strong and viable from the start. It looked as if nothing could stop Germany from achieving whatever ambitions it might entertain. France had not only fallen from its powerful position during Napoleon’s rule, it had been humbled during the Franco-Prussian War. Italy, united ten years earlier than Germany (although it had also been united by Napoleon, only for unity to end along with his rule), did not pose a serious military challenge. With characteristic energy and dedication, the Germans began to establish themselves as a major industrial power, and