Germany’s World War II surface forces were notably unsuccessful— unsuccessful, that is, if their purpose was to meet the enemy head-on in a great Jutland. Almost all of the major units such as the Bismarck and the Scharnhorst failed to do more than disrupt temporarily enemy lines of communications and were eventually destroyed by superior enemy forces. But all this would have been different had the German Navy—and in particular its U-boat arm—not had to play second- and even third- fiddle to the favored German Army and Luftwaffe. So runs the general impression of the casual observer of the German Navy’s World War II record.
Some of these impressions are perhaps valid, but only when the observer knows and understands the problems facing the German Navy’s High Command can the entire picture approach proper focus. The purpose of this article is to present one German Navy Captain’s views of some of those problems as they were viewed from what Wellington called “the other side of the hill.”
First let it be said that never did the German Navy entertain any illusions as to the numerical superiority of its naval adversaries. We contemplated no great Jut- lands where our own out-numbered surface forces would meet and destroy the enemy. What then was the basic purpose of Germany’s having a surface fleet? Simply this: our naval planners believed that these naval forces could seriously challenge our enemies’ control of the sea and thereby disrupt his vital lines of communications or lessen his ability to harass our own communications even though the latter be far from the specific scenes where our surface craft might be attacking. Even the mere existence of the German surface force would have far-reaching effects on Allied strategy both nearby and afar.
The German Naval Staff’s fundamental strategic concept was to obtain the most significant returns possible from its available forces but to avoid decisive battles with equal or superior enemy units. At any given time the surface units had to be so disposed that, with a minimum of delay, they could reach the enemy’s weakest points. As soon as the enemy began to concentrate superior forces our units still had to be able to reach safe bases or disappear in the vast expanses of the oceans. We knew well that we were operating against a well-trained and experienced opponent, the Royal Navy. But our careful analysis of his historic and current strategies and tactics caused us to consider him as orthodox and conservative. Thus, during the first part of the war we endeavored to do the unusual and the surprising. This planning was, in part, based on the well-founded assumption that the heavy administrative machinery of the British Admiralty could adjust to surprise actions only with difficulty and hesitation. The over-all validity of that assumption can only be determined by a careful and intense study of the entire history of the Anglo-German war at sea.
When war came in September, 1939, the German Navy’s long-range construction program was far from completion, and one of the initial decisions to be reached was whether to devote a substantial portion of our allotted finances to the continued construction of the German Navy, or whether, in view of Britain’s numerical superiority and shipbuilding capacity, the naval race should be abandoned for the sake of the other Wehrmacht services. Without rendering any personal judgment as to the correctness of the decision, I can state unequivocally that the German Navy came out on the short end of the plan which gave obvious preference to the German Army and Luftwaffe—a decision based too much, I fear, on the delusion that the war would last no more than two years, and in a war of such duration only those capital ships already built or near completion could possibly be available to participate. The decision to build no more capital ships but instead to devote the armament allocations of the Navy to U-boat and small craft construction, strongly influenced our surface ship strategy.
The German Naval Command was never able to undertake an offensive operation with the confidence that adequate replacements were immediately available or even on the building ways. On the contrary, losses beyond destroyers were irreplaceable, and even destroyers could not be replaced at a faster rate than four a year. The effect? Simply that our strategic planning risk played a greater role than is considered acceptable in war. In every venture, total loss of the heavy units committed had to be hazarded against the possibility of a great success, however decisive either outcome might loom in the war’s outcome. From these peculiar circumstances, there emerged within German planning groups frank recognition of the need for all-out action, action that was admittedly feasible, however, only on rare occasion. In all less favorable circumstances, the safety and battle worthiness of our major fleet units could not be disregarded. As will be demonstrated, this restriction had a most important effect on operational planning, to the chagrin of young “activists” within the officer corps.
To complete this consideration of factors which influenced German surface ship strategy, one more may be added—the question of fuel oil, by which we were repeatedly hamstrung. Oil had always been in short supply for the Navy; in pre-war years our torpedoboat and destroyer commanders had often been compelled to limit their cruising severely in the interests of fuel economy. But the full impact of this oil shortage was not felt until 1942, after which the expenditure of thousands of tons of fuel for one major surface operation could be favorably considered only if prospects appeared promising. Although the Navy might conserve its shrinking monthly oil quota, the savings thus effected could not be utilized during the following month, for the next allocation often proved more niggardly. Owing to the previously-noted bias of the Wehrmacht command, faulty supply management by the other services led to recurrent plundering of naval provisions; beyond the absolute dearth of fuel, the Navy faced a constant threat, particularly from enemy aircraft, to all transports serving its outlying bases.
The absolute insufficiency of fuel gravely hampered German strategic planning, and if we fully comprehend this oil shortage and the difficulties of distribution, we discover a second major consideration scarcely less weighty than that of relative strength: geographical position and the problem of enemy bases. If we examine a chart of the North Sea and German coast, we immediately perceive that this sea frontier is blockaded on all sides by the British Isles and neutral Scandinavia—in short, the exact exit picture that existed in 1939. Yet if our naval strategy be aimed at disrupting British supply lines with surface ships as well as U- boats, this mission had to be accomplished in those focal shipping areas west and southwest of the British Isles known as the “Western Approaches.” We fully recognized that it could not be the German Navy’s aim to destroy the British Home Fleet prior to the attack on England’s sea lanes. On the basis of relative strengths, this solution was absolutely precluded. It was believed, however, that through the action of our own capital ships against the weakest points along Britain’s import routes, a desirable multiple effect might be expected. Aside from a number of isolated successes, it was anticipated that our adversary would be obliged to escort his convoys with battleships, thereby lengthening the convoy cycle and using up the merchantmen. The commitment of battleships to escort duty would, in turn, require destroyers for their protection, thus improving the opportunities of German submariners. Through this dispersion effect and the using up of both fleet and merchant tonnage, the British might well be deprived of any opportunity to undertake offensive operations against German-held coasts. Thus ran the basic German surface ship strategy.
Glancing again at our chart of the North Sea approaches, we observe that in order to reach areas fruitful for operations against shipping, it was necessary to break through the British blockade at two critical points, the 150-mile broad strait between Norway and the Shetlands and the straits north or south of Iceland. Departing from Helgoland, a task group or single raider faced the prospect of steaming some four thousand nautical miles through enemy-dominated waters even before reaching the theater of operations, some 300 miles southwest of Iceland. Furthermore, high speed would be needed, especially in passing the Narrows, costing additional fuel. Thus it was reckoned that after writing off transit time, scarcely a day and a half of steaming was available for the operations area, with no allowance for battle reserves. Finding a target along the stormy Halifax-Scotland route under such circumstances could be nothing but blind luck, far outweighed by the high risk in twice negotiating British-controlled waters. For, while the sortie might be effected under cover of nightfall and weather, the return passage, particularly after a successful foray into the Atlantic, would inevitably prove a gauntlet-running affair, further complicated by fuel shortages.
As demonstrated by the Bismarck and other raiders, the critical factor was far less that of passing the Narrows than the fact that once beyond the Iceland passages, there was no base available for fuel or other emergencies in the Western Atlantic. Replenishment from tankers, which was later to play a major role in raider operations, also involved transit difficulties for those furtive auxiliaries on which the lives of combat vessels depended in the operating area. The net result was that, in expectation of an improvement of the base situation, the German naval command limited itself to activity up to the Narrows on either side of Iceland. We thereby gained valuable experience and obtained significant knowledge of our adversary’s reactions, which later proved of great significance.
The occupation of Norway in April, 1940, did not essentially alter this situation. While it is true that the outbound Atlantic transit had been reduced to 1,500 miles if Trondheim were used as a base, the Norse seaports had the disadvantage of intense enemy espionage activity, while their harbors possessed only inadequate facilities. In conclusion, even after taking Norway, Germany remained separated from the mid-Atlantic operations area by a twofold security belt and possessed no reserve support beyond these barriers. Accordingly, a major offensive in this theater could not be considered sound strategic planning.
The entire situation changed with one stroke when, after the collapse of French resistance in July, 1940, the entire Biscay coast, with Brest and the Gironde, fell into our hands. Henceforth to either side of the British protective barrier, a door stood open —open not only for our warships but also for their necessary auxiliaries, the slow-moving tankers. Full advantage was taken of this situation as soon as the French Atlantic harbors were ready to accommodate a part of the fleet. It must be said, however, that the favorable aspect of this situation could be overestimated. Brest lay in a hostile region, so that every German activity was certain to reach the ears of British intelligence. Then too, this ancient port lay well within the Royal Air Force’s radius of action. The transit route running west of Brest some six hundred miles was flanked to the north by Bristol Channel and to the south by Gibraltar. Thus, although sorties into the Western Approaches had been happily shortened, the other problem of refueling during such undertakings had not been simplified.
American readers must never forget that it was always possible for the British to concentrate superior battle forces, reinforced with aircraft carriers, against German task groups that ventured into the Atlantic. Therefore the Reich’s naval command had to reckon exactly as a tactical commander on his bridge, meaning practically that after action and a high-speed run, either the French coast or a tanker must be reached. This was a fundamentally different situation from that of a superior fleet, blessed with bases, when it runs short of fuel after battle operations. Thanks to its superiority, such a force could call up fuel or even have its exhausted units towed, provided that command had been maintained at the scene of action.
With us Germans it was far different. Lacking overseas bases, not only in the Western Atlantic but also north and south of our operations area, we had to create artificial supply points with our furtive tankers. One never knew whether these “floating milk bottles” were still afloat until, approaching the rendezvous with empty bunkers, one sighted the refueler’s masts on the horizon. Even then, fueling at sea in the wintry North Atlantic was a far different proposition than in the Pacific. Attempted in howling blizzards by ships heavily encrusted with ice, this hazardous coupling operation made the utmost demands on all hands. It was always thus, for the southerly fueling rendezvous were seldom sought, owing to their remoteness.
Considering the situation of a German task unit commander at sea and recognizing the degree of his concern for fuel, owing to the vulnerability of tankers, it becomes evident why destroyers did not participate in these Atlantic undertakings. Such escorts were heavy oil users yet chronically shortlegged. Their replenishment would have been a recurrent headache, for the possibility of an encounter with superior enemy forces made it imperative to keep them fully topped off at all times. The American observer who remembers the astonishing performance of U. S. task forces in the Pacific must not overlook the strategic difficulties of the German operations areas and the relative strengths of the opposing forces. In the Pacific a greatly preponderant American fleet, threatened primarily by submarines and aircraft and usually favored by fair weather, enjoyed a far more reasonable situation. Here in the Atlantic, where good weather is literally measured in hours, our small German task groups had constantly to be ready to evade superior enemy forces and could not be encumbered with destroyers, which were more of a liability than a protection. It would lead too far afield to attempt to calculate the fuel requirements of, say, four destroyers. But any conclusion that our losses on such mid-Atlantic forays could have been reduced by the presence of destroyers unhappily loses sight of the question of whether destroyer participation was at all feasible.
For purposes of illustration, let us take a German task group of two battleships, one heavy cruiser, and four destroyers; a force, according to our calculations, which had a capacity of 14,000 tons of fuel. Without coming to combat, this force would use some 2,000 tons daily, thus possessing a life expectancy of no more than six days. Its destroyers would have to be oiled every two days, because of their relatively high consumption and in order that the force not be completely dependent on a tanker. This consideration reduces the task group’s radius of action considerably and necessitates its replenishment every four days, an operation that would require some thirty-three hours of pumping time provided only one tanker were available. Such calculations do not include an additional ten hours of necessary maneuvering, even under the most favorable weather conditions in the North Atlantic. If one adds to these two days of refueling the necessary day-and-a-half running time to and from a tanker rendezvous, it becomes clear that the effectiveness of such a group is greatly limited by its shortlegged destroyers. Requiring almost two days for fueling and from two to four days for transit, such an encumbered force would find barely twelve hours out of a week available for operations in its patrol area.
In concluding our consideration of the fuel problem, it becomes apparent that the question ultimately resolves itself into the German Navy’s geographic situation. While this had been substantially improved with the fall of France, the operational disadvantages aforementioned still held true, owing to the lack of secure bases in the vicinity of the Halifax route. The situation created by the collapse of France was, nevertheless, exploited to its limits. In the broad Atlantic our task groups disengaged when they met superior forces and utilized refueling tankers with relative impunity until British picket vessels and task units were equipped with radar, a technical device which we had used with great success since 1939, albeit only for tactical purposes. Through this far-reaching, virtually weatherproof device, the geographic situation changed so unfavorably for us that long-range operations could no longer be justified.
The dramatic Bismarck operation in the spring of 1941 demonstrated with grim clarity that the narrows on either side of Iceland could no longer be negotiated unnoticed and that the possibility of shaking off superior British stalkers had virtually disappeared. Henceforth our tanker bases were no longer secure. It may be said that our Atlantic operating area had shrunk in inverse ratio to the growth of British radar scouting activity. Assuming that German naval leaders had kept in mind the problem of relative strength and thus agreed not to undertake the impossible, then only operations could be planned for which no fueling at sea was contemplated, that is, in areas which could be penetrated independently. The loss of the Bismarck was a high price to pay for this realization, yet it had not come as a surprise. Grave risk was foreseen, and the fact that the Bismarck happened to become the high price lay in an unlucky torpedo hit that rendered the battleship helpless. With the end of this brief period of operations utilizing the Biscay transit route, the geographic situation again became predominant in influencing the further commitment of surface forces.
In examining the extent to which military developments in areas unreachable by German task forces influenced our strategic planning, one finds the period from 1940 to 1941 of great significance. To the previous statement that the Wehrmacht's occupation of the Biscay coast alone made possible major surface actions against British convoys in the Western Approaches, one must add that these forays were actually necessitated by the course of events in the Mediterranean. These mid-Atlantic operations were designed in no small part to divert British surface forces based at Gibraltar in order that they could not interfere with Axis supply lines to North Africa. As long as German task groups were active in the Atlantic or could threaten from Brest, Britain’s celebrated “Force H” had to be held at Gibraltar, ready to deal with these commerce raiders.
Only through the aggressive activity of the Hipper, Scharnhorst, and Gneisenau during the winter of 1940-411 was it possible to build up the Afrikakorps and meet operational requirements in North Africa. Naval command of the waters between Sicily, Tripoli, and Benghazi was won in the Atlantic, less through battle perhaps than by sheer strategic pressure. It may be added that the decision to withdraw our surface units from Brest was facilitated by the successes of General Rommel that stabilized the Mediterranean theater during the summer of 1941. Thus it was that the need to contribute to the Reich's offensive against Russia in 1942, by aggravating the Allied supply problem to Murmansk, soon outweighed the concern for the Mediterranean.
The idea of evacuating Brest as a naval base had meanwhile been strongly recommended by increasing air attacks from nearby England. A decision to move our heavy surface units north was suggested by the aforementioned fact that Russia now needed Allied help in increasing quantity. As greater and greater amounts of war goods were now negotiating the narrow Bear Island Passage off North Cape (a passage only 120 miles wide in winter), it thus appeared logical to exploit the geographic advantages which our occupation of Norway had brought. It was anticipated that a threat by Norwegian- based surface units against the North Russian convoy route might force the British to make a drastic shift in their covering operations, which heretofore had been required only against German aircraft and U-boats in those arctic waters. If our adversaries could be obliged to commit heavy forces to these Murmansk convoys, more destroyers would inevitably be entailed, thus easing the task of our own submariners and perhaps relieving such other theaters as the Far East. Such were the considerations that lead to the Brest group’s famous Channel Dash2 and the subsequent assembly of German surface forces in northern Norway during the summer of 1942. It hardly needs to be mentioned that ensuing operations revealed the deficiencies of the Norwegian bases, particularly Altenfjord, lying east of North Cape. Virtually none of these numerous anchorages possessed adequate repair facilities; indeed, the nearest capital ship dock was a thousand miles distant. As was amply demonstrated by Tirpitz’s fate, these arctic anchorages were too weakly defended against surface ship, submarine, and air attack; effective counterintelligence was beset with great difficulties; and the great distance from Germany rendered refueling a constant worry, especially in view of the increasing success of Royal Air Force strikes against the Norwegian coastal trade. In the final event, Norway became the graveyard of the Reich's surface fleet.
By way of summary, it is now apparent that relative fleet strength and geographic situation precluded Germany’s bid for naval dominance during World War II. The impossibility of replacing our initial losses made it prudent to avoid engagement with superior enemy forces. Allied naval predominance was further emphasized by German lack of overseas bases. The commitment of our own surface forces and the selection of their combat areas were strongly influenced by the strategic demands of still other war theaters. The strategic objective of our task groups always remained the enemy’s sea transport. Combat with Allied warships was considered only when unavoidable or if it led to the destruction of enemy shipping space.
No German naval officer will assert that the German Navy was anywhere nearly prepared for war when it came in September, 1939. Even the target date for the “completion” of the new German Navy was 1948. But we already possessed a number of new surface ships and were building several which were completed early in the war.
Whether or not our High Command made the best use of these surface units in attempting to fulfill the intended purpose for which they were built is a matter requiring detailed study and reflection. But in all fairness, the judges should attempt to comprehend well and always keep before them the basic problems with which the German Navy was confronted.
1. See “The Scharnhorst-Gneisenau Team at Its Peak,” page 852, August, 1956 Proceedings.
2. See Captain Reinicke’s “The German Side of the Channel Dash,” page 637, June, 1955 Proceedings.