Everything about Kriegsmarine totally explained
The
Kriegsmarine (English: "War navy") was the name of the
German Navy between 1935 and 1945, during the
Nazi regime, superseding the
Reichsmarine, and the
Kaiserliche Marine of
World War I. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the
Wehrmacht.
Command structure
The Führer,
Adolf Hitler, was commander-in-chief of all German armed forces, including the Kriegsmarine. His authority was exercised through the
Oberkommando der Marine, or OKM, with a Commander-in-Chief (Oberbefehlshaber der Kriegsmarine), a Chief of Naval General Staff (Chef der Stabes der Seekriegsleitung) and a Chief of Naval Operations (Chef der Operationsabteilung).
Below these were regional, squadron and temporary flotilla commands:
Regions
These covered significant naval regions (commanded by a
Generaladmiral or
Admiral) and were themselves sub-divided, as necessary. There was a
Marineoberkommando for the
Baltic Fleet, Nord, Nordsee, Norwegen, Ost/Ostsee (formerly Baltic), Süd and West.
Squadrons
Each type of ship also had a command structure with its own
Flag Officer. The commands were Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers, Submarines, Torpedo Boats, Minesweepers, Reconnaissance Forces, Naval Security Forces, Big Guns and Hand Guns, and Midget Weapons.
Flotillas
Major naval operations were commanded by a Flottenchef. The commands were, by their nature, temporary.
History
Post-World War I origins
Under the terms of the
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. However, even before the Nazi takeover German naval rearmament had begun with the launching of the first
pocket battleship,
Deutschland in 1931.
When the Nazis came to power in
1933,
Adolf Hitler soon began to ignore many of the Treaty restrictions and accelerated German rearmament. The
Anglo-German Naval Agreement of
18 June 1935 then allowed Germany to build a navy equivalent to 35% of
British surface ship tonnage and 45% of British submarine tonnage; battleships were to be limited to no more than 35,000 tons. That same year the
Reichsmarine was renamed as the Kriegsmarine.
Build-up during the interwar period
Following the 1938 crisis caused by the
German occupation of Czechoslovakia, Germany abandoned all pretensions of adherence to treaty limitations on its navy.
Plan Z, the blueprint for the German naval construction program finalized in 1938, envisaged building a navy of approximately 800 ships between the period 1939 — 1947. The building programme was to include:
- ten new design battleships and battlecruisers,
- four aircraft carriers, fifteen armored ships (Panzerschiffe),
- five heavy cruisers, forty-four light cruisers,
- 158 destroyers and torpedo boats, and
- 249 submarines, as well as numerous smaller crafts.
Personnel strength was planned to rise to over 200,000.
Since the simultaneous and rapid build-up of the German army and airforce demanded substantial effort and resources, the planned naval program wasn't very far advanced by the time
World War II began. Implementation only began in January 1939 when three H-class battleships and two M-class light cruisers were laid down. On
September 1,
1939, the navy still had a total personnel strength of only 78,000, and it wasn't at all ready for a major role in the war. With expectations in Germany of a quick victory by land, Plan Z was essentially shelved and the resources initially allocated for its realization were largely redirected to the construction of
U-boats.
Spanish Civil War
The first military action of the Kriegsmarine came during the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the outbreak of hostilities in July 1936 several capital ships of the German fleet were sent to the region. The
Deutschland,
Admiral Scheer, and light cruiser
Köln were the first to be sent in July 1936. These capital ships were accompanied by the 2nd Torpedo-boat Flotilla. Ostensively, the German presence was used to covertly support
Franco's Nationalists although the immediate involvement of the
Deutschland was humanitarian relief operations and the rescuing of 9,300 refugees from the fighting, including 4,550 Germans. Following 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
Oropesa. Numerous vessels served as part of these duties including
Admiral Graf Spee. Uboats also participated in covert action against Republican shipping as part of
Operation Ursula. At least eight uboats engaged a small number of targets in the area throughout the conflict. By way of comparison the Italian Navy,
Regia Marina, operated fifty-eight submarines in the area as part of
Sottomarini Legionari. On
29 May 1937 the
Deutschland was attacked in the
Deutschland incident off
Ibiza by two bombers from the
Republican Airforce. Total casualties from the Republican attack were 31 dead and 110 wounded, 71 seriously, mostly burn victims and in retaliation the
Admiral Scheer shelled the harbour of Almeria on
31 May. Following further attacks by Republican submarine forces against the
Leipzig off port of
Oran between 15 —
18 June 1937 Germany withdrew from the Non-Intervention Patrol although maintained a continuous presence in the area until the end of the conflict.
World War II
The major events for the
Kriegsmarine during the first year of the war were the
Battle of the River Plate, the sinking of the battleship
HMS Royal Oak and the aircraft carrier
HMS Courageous by submarines. The
Battle of the Atlantic started this year, although the German submarine fleet was hampered by the lack of good ports from which to attack Allied shipping.
In April 1940, the main action the navy was involved in was the
invasion of Norway, where it suffered quite heavy losses, including the heavy cruiser
Blücher sunk by
Oscarsborg Fortress in the
Oslofjord, ten destroyers lost in the
Battles of Narvik and two light cruiser lost elsewhere during the campaign. The Kriegsmarine did however sink a number of British ships, including the aircraft carrier
HMS Glorious.
The losses in the
Norwegian Campaign meant that only a handful of heavy ships were ready for action for the planned, but never executed, invasion of Britain (
Operation Sealion) in the summer of 1940. There were serious doubts that the invasion sea routes could have been protected against British naval action. After the
fall of France and the conquest of Norway, the German submarine fleet was brought much closer to the British shipping lanes in the
Atlantic. At first, the British merchant convoys lacked
radar equipped escorts; as such, the submarines were very hard to detect during their nighttime surface attacks. This year was for these reasons one of the most successful, as measured in terms of merchant shipping sunk compared to submarines lost.
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 sunk 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 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, the
Bismarck sank
HMS Hood while breaking out into the Atlantic for commerce raiding. However, the
Bismarck was in turn hunted down by much superior British forces after receiving crippling damage from a torpedo plane and scuttled after taking a heavy beating from two British battleships.
Throughout the war the Kriegsmarine was responsible for
coastal artillery protecting major ports and important coastal areas and also anti-aircraft batteries protecting major ports.
During 1941, the Kriegsmarine and the United States Navy became de facto belligerents, although war wasn't formally declared, leading to the sinking of the
USS Reuben James. The Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent German declaration of war against the
USA 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 American coast as the Americans hadn't 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 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.
The
Battle of the Barents Sea was an attempt by a German naval force to attack an Allied
Arctic convoy. However, the advantage wasn't 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 the U-boats, and the surface fleet became a lesser threat to the Allies.
After 1943 when the
Scharnhorst had been sunk in the
Battle of North Cape by
HMS Duke of York, most of the German surface ships were pent up 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 ship of these ships, the battleship
Tirpitz, was stationed in Norway as a threat to Allied shipping and also as a defense against a potential Allied invasion. When she was sunk by British bombers in late 1944 (
Operation Catechism), several British capital ships could be moved to the Pacific.
From late 1944 until the end of the war, the surface fleet of
Kriegsmarine 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 parts of Germany (
Lübeck,
Hamburg) in large rescue operations. Large parts of the population of
eastern Germany fled the approaching
Red Army out of fear for Soviet retaliation and mass rapes and killings. The Kriegsmarine evacuated large numbers of civilians in the
evacuation of East Prussia and
Danzig in January 1945. It was during this activity that the catastrophic sinking of several large passenger ships occurred: the
Wilhelm Gustloff and the
Goya was sunk by Soviet submarines, while the
SS Cap Arcona was sunk by British bombers, each sinking claiming thousands of civilian lives. The Kriegsmarine also provided important assistance in the evacuation of the fleeing German civilians of
Pomerania and
Stettin in March and April 1945. In the last stage of the war, the Kriegsmarine also organized a number of divisions of infantry from its personnel (submarine crews and so on).
During 1943 and 1944, due to Allied
anti-submarine tactics and better equipment the U-boat fleet started to suffer heavy losses.
Radar, longer range air cover, improved tactics and new weapons all contributed. German technical developments, such as the
Schnorchel, attempted to counter these. New U-boat types, the
Elektroboote, were in development and, had these become operational in sufficient numbers, the Allied advantage would have been eroded.
Between 1943 and 1945 a group of U-boats (the "Monsun boats" or
Monsun Gruppe) operated in the
Indian Ocean from Japanese bases in occupied
Indonesia. As the Allied merchant convoys hadn't yet been organized in those waters, the initial sinkings were plentiful. This situation was soon remedied, however. During the later war years, U-boats were also used as a means of exchanging vital war supplies with Japan.
Epilogue
After the war, the German surface ships that remained afloat (only two large warships were operational) were divided among the victors. Some (like the unfinished aircraft carrier
Graf Zeppelin) were used for target practice, while others (mostly destroyers and torpedo boats) were put into the service of Allied navies that lacked surface ships after the war. The British, French and Soviet navies received the destroyers, and some torpedo boats went to the Danish and Norwegian navies. The destroyers were all retired by the end of the 1950s, but some of the torpedo boats were returned to the new West German navy in the 1960s.
In 1956, with
West Germany's accession to
NATO, 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 some time after the war. With the reunification of Germany in 1990, it was decided to simply use the name
Deutsche Marine (
German Navy).
Major Kriegsmarine wartime operations
Wikinger (1940) — foray by destroyers into the North Sea
Weserübung ("Exercise Weser") (1940) — invasion of Denmark and Norway
Juno (1940) — operation to disrupt Allied supplies to Norway
Nordseetour (1940) — first Atlantic operation of Admiral Hipper
Berlin (1941) — Atlantic cruise of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau
Rheinübung ("Exercise Rhine") (1941) — breakout by Bismarck and Prinz Eugen
Doppelschlag ("Double blow") (1942) — anti-shipping operation off Novaya Zemlya by Admiral Scheer and Admiral Hipper
Sportpalast (1942) — aborted operation (including Tirpitz) to attack Arctic convoys
Rösselsprung ("Knights Move") (1942) — operation (including Tirpitz) to attack Arctic convoy PQ-17
Wunderland (1942) — anti-shipping operation in Kara Sea by Admiral Scheer
Paukenschlag ("Drumbeat" ("Beat of the Kettle Drum")); "Second Happy Time") (1942) — U-boat campaign off the United States east coast
Regenbogen ("Rainbow") (1942) — failed attack on Arctic convoy JW-51B, by Admiral Hipper and Lützow
Cerberus (1942) — movement of capital ships from Brest to home ports in Germany (Channel Dash)
Ostfront ("East front") (1943) — final operation of Scharnhorst, to intercept convoy JW-55B
Domino (1943) — second aborted Arctic sortie by Scharnhorst, Prinz Eugen and destroyers
Zitronella ("Lemon extract") (1943) — raid upon Allied-occupied Spitsbergen (Svalbard)
Deadlight (1945) — postwar scuttling of U-boats
Ships
See also: List of Kriegsmarine ships
By the start of World War II, much of 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. Although 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. A number of captured ships from occupied countries were added to the German fleet as the war progressed.
Some ship types don't fit clearly into the commonly used ship classifications. Where there's argument, this has been noted.
Surface ships
The main combat ships (not U-boats) of the Kriegsmarine:
Aircraft carriers
Construction of the Graf Zeppelin was started in 1936 with an unnamed sister ship started two years later in 1938, but neither ship was completed. In 1942 conversion to auxiliary carriers was begun on three German passenger ships and two unfinished cruisers—the captured French light cruiser De Grasse and the German heavy cruiser Seydlitz—but by 1943 all the conversion work was halted for lack of materials and the deteriorating military situation. (External Link
) With no carriers in train, orders for the Fieseler Fi 167 ship-borne biplane torpedo and reconnaissance bomber were canceled.
Battleships
Bismarck and Tirpitz
Battlecruisers
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. The classification of these ships is problematic. The "battlecruiser" designation is largely a British and Royal Naval usage (arguing that 11" armament wouldn't be adequate) while the Germans in particular describe them as "battleships" or "Schlachtschiff".
Pre-dreadnought battleships
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. Hessen was converted into a radio-guided target ship in 1930.
Pocket battleships (Panzerschiff)
The "Pocket battleships" Deutschland / Lützow, Admiral Scheer, and Admiral Graf Spee. Modern commentators favour classifying these as "heavy cruisers" and indeed the Kriegsmarine itself reclassified these ships as such (Schwere Kreuzer) in 1940.
Heavy cruisers
Admiral Hipper, Blücher, and Prinz Eugen
Light cruisers
The term "light cruiser" is a shortening of the phrase "light armoured cruiser." Light cruisers were defined under the Washington Naval Treaty by gun calibre. Light cruiser describes a small ship that carried armour in the same way as an armoured cruiser. In other words, like standard cruisers, light cruisers possessed a protective belt and a protective deck. Prior to this, smaller cruisers tended to be of the protected cruiser model and possessed only an armoured deck. Germany's light cruisers are as follows:
Emden
Königsberg
Karlsruhe
Köln
Leipzig
Nürnberg
Auxiliary cruisers
During the war, nine merchant ships were converted into "auxiliary cruisers" and used as commerce raiders, particularly in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The German auxiliary cruisers were:
Orion (HSK-1)
Atlantis (HSK-2)
Widder (HSK-3)
Thor (HSK-4)
Pinguin (HSK-5)
Stier (HSK-6)
Komet (HSK-7)
Kormoran (HSK-8)
Michel (HSK-9)
Coronel (HSK-10)
Hansa (HSK-11)
Destroyers
Although the German World War II destroyer (Zerstörer) fleet was modern and the ships were larger than conventional destroyers of other navies, they'd problems. Early classes were unstable, wet in heavy weather, suffered from engine problems and had short range. Some problems were solved with the evolution of later designs, but further developments were curtailed by the war and, ultimately, by Germany's defeat. In the first year of World War II, they were used mainly to sow offensive minefields in shipping lanes close to the British coast.
Torpedo boats
These vessels evolved through the 1930s from small vessels, relying almost entirely on torpedoes, to what were effectively small destroyers with mines, torpedoes and guns. Two classes of fleet torpedo boats were planned, but not built, in the 1940s.
Troop ships
Cap Arcona, Goya, Steuben, Wilhelm Gustloff.
Miscellaneous
Minelayers, Minesweepers, Gunboats, E-boats and Watchboats. Catapult-launched spotter planes: Arado Ar 196.
Submarines (U-boat)
At the outbreak of war, the Kriegsmarine had a relatively small fleet of submarines (U-boats) - 57. This was increased, particularly after Hitler lost patience with the large surface ships. It is arguable that, had more resources been put more into U-boats earlier, then Britain wouldn't have been able to defend its convoys quickly enough to avoid defeat. In fact after a year of war, production of new ships had only kept up with losses.
The principal types were the Type IX, a long range type used in the western and southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans; and the Type VII, the most numerous type, used principally in the north Atlantic. Type X was a small class of mine-layers and Type XIV was a specialised type used to support distant U-boat operations - the "Milchkuh" (Milkcow).
Types XXI and XXIII, the "Elektroboot", would have negated much of the Allied anti-submarine tactics and technology, but they were never deployed in sufficient numbers. Post-war, they became the prototypes for modern submarines, in particular, the Soviet W-class.
During World War II, about 60% of all U-boats commissioned were lost in action; 28,000 of the 40,000 U-boat crewmen were killed during the war and 8,000 were captured. The remaining U-boats were either surrendered to the Allies or scuttled by their own crews at the end of the war.
| Top 10 U-Boat Aces in World War II |
| 274,333 tons (47 ships sunk) |
Otto Kretschmer |
| 225,712 tons (43 ships) |
Wolfgang Luth |
| 193,684 tons (34 ships) |
Erich Topp |
| 186,064 tons (29 ships) |
Karl-Friedrich Merten |
| 171,164 tons (34 ships) |
Victor Schütze |
| 171,122 tons (26 ships) |
Herbert Schultze |
| 167,601 tons (28 ships) |
Georg Lassen |
| 166,596 tons (22 ships) |
Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock |
| 162,333 tons (30 ships) |
Heinrich Liebe |
| 160,939 tons (28 ships), plus the British battleship Royal Oak inside Scapa Flow |
Günther Prien |
Captured ships
The military campaigns in Europe yielded a number of captured vessels, many of which were under construction. Nations represented included Soviet Union, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Italy (after the armistice), Yugoslavia and Greece. Few of the incomplete ships were actually commissioned; they were abandoned, wrecked or broken up.
Major warships sunk by the Kriegsmarine
Comparative ranks (during World War II)
Uniforms
Many different types of uniforms were worn by the Kriegsmarine, here's a list of the main ones:
| German |
English |
| Dienstanzug |
Service Suit |
| kleiner Dienstanzug |
Small Service Suit |
| Ausgehanzug |
Suit for Walking Out |
| Sportanzug |
Sports Suit |
| Tropen-und Sommeranzug |
Tropical and Summer Suit |
| große Uniform |
Parade Uniform |
| kleiner Gesellschaftsanzug |
Small Party Suit |
| großer Gesellschaftsanzug |
Parade Party Suit |
Further Information
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