Plan Z
Development of the plan began in 1938, but it reflected the evolution of the strategic thinking of the Oberkommando der Marine (Naval High Command) over the two decades following World War I.
The need to shift manufacturing capacity to more pressing requirements forced the Kriegsmarine to abandon the construction program, and only a handful of major ships—all of which had been ordered before Plan Z—were completed during the war.
[2] At the same time, the Germans created a dummy corporation, NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (IvS), in the Netherlands to secretly continue development of submarines.
[5] The Treaty also stipulated that Germany could replace its pre-dreadnought battleships after they reached twenty years of age, but new vessels could displace no more than 10,000 long tons (10,160 t).
[10] In 1935, Hitler signed the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, which permitted Germany to build up to 35 percent of the strength of the Royal Navy in all warship categories.
[14] This view remained the established orthodoxy until the mid-1930s, when then-Kapitän zur See (Captain at Sea) Karl Dönitz came to command the U-boat arm.
When Vizeadmiral (Vice Admiral) Erich Raeder became the head of the Reichsmarine in 1928, he fully endorsed the concept of long-range surface raiders.
This was in large part due to his service in World War I as the chief of staff to Vizeadmiral Franz von Hipper, where he saw the fleet rendered impotent by the crushing British naval superiority.
The path toward a major fleet expansion was paved shortly thereafter, on 14 October, when Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) Hermann Göring announced a colossal armament program to dramatically increase the size and power of the German armed forces.
The initial version of his plan was based on the assumption that the fleet should be centered on panzerschiffe, long-range cruisers, and U-boats to attack British commerce.
In addition to the six new battleships Hitler demanded, the plan called for eight new panzerschiffe of the Deutschland type and 249 U-boats, with construction spread over the following nine years.
By 1948, the German fleet was to include a total of 797 ships; the cost of the program amounted to 33 billion reichsmarks spent over the span of nine years.
[11] To complete the core of the Plan Z fleet, six H-class battleships, three O-class battlecruisers, twelve P-class panzerschiffe, and two Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers with two more of a new design, were to be built.
[23] The plan also called for extensive upgrades to Germany's naval infrastructure to accommodate the new fleet; larger dry docks were to be built at Wilhelmshaven and Hamburg, and much of the island of Rügen was to be removed to provide a large harbor in the Baltic.
[27] Work on Graf Zeppelin was cancelled definitively in 1943 when Hitler finally abandoned the surface fleet after the Battle of the Barents Sea debacle.
Two of the panzerschiffe, Deutschland and Graf Spee, were already at sea at the outbreak of war; the former found little success and the latter was ultimately trapped and forced to scuttle after the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939.
[36][37] The loss of Bismarck led Hitler to prohibit further sorties into the Atlantic; the remaining capital ships were concentrated in Norway for use as a fleet in being and to threaten convoys to the Soviet Union on the Murmansk Run.
And the navy would have to construct some 9.6 million tons worth of storage facilities for enough fuel reserves to allow for just a year of wartime operations; longer conflicts would of course necessitate an even larger stockpile.
