Rolf Hans Wilhelm Karl Carls (29 May 1885 – 24 April 1945) was a high-ranking German admiral and deputy to Kriegsmarine commander-in-chief Erich Raeder during much of World War II.

Carls joined the Imperial German Navy as a sea cadet on 1 April 1903 and received his shipboard training on the corvette, SMS Stein.

After the Breslau was handed over to the Ottoman Navy, Carls remained on board the cruiser, which was renamed Midilli, serving as First Artillery Officer.

On 1 October 1930 Carls served as Chief of Staff of the Naval Command, where he became one of Admiral Erich Raeder's closest aides.

As Fleet Commander, the highest ranking administrative officer of the Kriegsmarine and member of the Oberkommando der Marine, Carls was instrumental in drafting Germany's pre-war naval war plans.

In a top-secret appraisal of Adolf Hitler's aggressive foreign policy in the summer of 1938, Carls envisaged German hegemony over Europe, the reestablishment of a colonial empire in Africa, and the securing of the major Atlantic sea lanes.

Specifically, Carls argued, that such a national policy would entail war with France and the Soviet Union as well as with "a large number of overseas states; in other words, perhaps with 1/2 or 2/3 of the entire world.

As a result, Raeder and his Naval War Staff from the start anticipated that any conflict between Berlin and London would once more bring the United States in on the side of Britain.

[4] Following war games by the Navy High Command in 1938, Carls expressed scepticism about operations in the depths of Soviet territory.

[6] Carls succeeded Vice Admiral Conrad Albrecht as Commander-in-Chief of Marine Group Command East on 31 October 1939.

When the commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine, Großadmiral Erich Raeder, resigned in early 1943 after clashes with Hitler, he suggested Carls and the Commander of the Submarines, Admiral Karl Dönitz, as candidates to succeed him.