Plan Z
Plan Z was the name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the Kriegsmarine (German navy) ordered by Adolf Hitler in early 1939. The fleet was meant to challenge the naval power of the United Kingdom, and was to be completed by 1948. 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 plan called for a fleet centered on ten battleships and four aircraft carriers which were intended to battle the Royal Navy. This force would be supplemented with numerous long-range cruisers that would attack British shipping. A relatively small force of U-boats was also stipulated.
When World War II broke out in September 1939, almost no work had been done on the new ships ordered under Plan Z. 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. Nevertheless, the plan still had a significant effect on the course of World War II, in that only a few dozen U-boats had been completed by the outbreak of war. Admiral Karl Dönitz's U-boat fleet did not reach the 300 U-boats he deemed necessary to win a commerce war against Britain until 1943, by which time his forces had been decisively defeated.
Following the end of
The Treaty also stipulated that Germany could replace its pre-dreadnought battleships after they reached twenty years of age, but new vessels could
In 1932, the Reichsmarine secured the passage of the Schiffbauersatzplan ("Replacement ship construction program") through the
Operational philosophies and development
The postwar German navy was conflicted over what direction future construction should take. In September 1920,
In the 1920s, the question arose over what to do with the cruisers that would presumably be abroad on training cruises when a war would break out. The high command decided that they should operate as independent commerce raiders. When
Hitler ordered that completion of
The plan
The plan, approved by Hitler on 27 January 1939,[19] called for a surface fleet composed of the following vessels, which included all new ships built in the 1920s and 1930s:[11]
Type | Projected | Completed |
---|---|---|
Battleships | 10 | 4 |
Battlecruisers | 3 | 0 |
Aircraft carriers | 4 | 0 |
Panzerschiffe | 15 | 3 |
Heavy cruisers | 5 | 3 |
Light cruisers | 13 | 6 |
Scout cruisers | 22 | 0 |
Destroyers | 68 | 30 |
Torpedo boats | 90 | 36 |
Total | 230 | 82 |
These figures included the four Scharnhorst- and Bismarck-class battleships already built or building, the three Deutschland-class panzerschiffe and the six light cruisers already in service.[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.[20][21] The five ships of the Admiral Hipper class fulfilled the mandate for heavy cruisers, while the M class of light cruisers would fulfill the requirement for light cruisers.[22] The Spähkreuzer 1938 design would form the basis for the fleet scouts ordered in the program.[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. Plan Z was given the highest priority of all industrial projects.[24] On 27 July 1939, Raeder revised the plan to cancel all twelve of the P-class panzerschiffe.[21]
In the short time from the introduction of Plan Z to the beginning of war with the United Kingdom on 3 September only two of the plan's large ships, a pair of H class battleships, were
Impact on World War II
Since the plan was cancelled less than a year after it was approved, the positive effects on German naval construction were minimal. All of the ships authorized by the plan were cancelled after the outbreak of war, with only a few major surface vessels that predated the plan completed during the conflict. These included Bismarck and Tirpitz, along with the heavy cruisers Blücher and Prinz Eugen. Without the six H-class battleships or the four aircraft carriers, the Kriegsmarine was once again unable to meet the Royal Navy on equal terms.[29]
Most of the heavy ships of the Kriegsmarine were used as commerce raiders in the early years of the war. 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
Despite the fact that Plan Z produced no new warships in time for World War II, the plan represented the strategic thinking of the
The feasibility of the plan had never been considered by Raeder and Kriegsmarine planners; construction of the ships themselves was not a concern, assuming sufficient time had been available. But securing the fuel oil necessary to operate the fleet likely was an insurmountable problem. Fuel consumption would have more than quadrupled between 1936 and the completion of the program in 1948, from 1.4 million tons to approximately 6 million tons. 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. Compared to the combined fuel requirements of the Kriegsmarine, Heer (Army), Luftwaffe (Air Force), and the civilian economy, the projected domestic production by 1948 of less than 2 million tons of oil and 1.34 million tons of diesel fuel is absurdly low.[42]
Footnotes
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 218.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, pp. 229–231.
- ^ Rössler, p. 88.
- ^ Treaty of Versailles, Part V, Section II, Article 191
- ^ Rössler, pp. 98–99.
- ^ Paloczi-Horvath, p. 64.
- ^ Bidlingmaier, p. 73.
- ^ a b Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 219.
- ^ Gröner Vol. 1, p. 63.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 225.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 220.
- ^ Garzke & Dulin, pp. 203–209.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, pp. 218–219.
- ^ Herwig, p. 237.
- ^ Rössler, p. 103.
- ^ Blair, pp. 37–38.
- ^ a b Tooze, p. 288.
- ^ a b Showell, p. 15.
- ^ Tooze, p. 289.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, pp. 224–226.
- ^ a b Gröner Vol. 1, p. 64.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, pp. 228–232.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 235.
- ^ Tooze, pp. 288–289.
- ^ Gröner Vol. 1, p. 37.
- ^ Garzke & Dulin, p. 354.
- ^ Gröner Vol. 1, p. 125.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, p. 227.
- ^ Gardiner & Chesneau, pp. 224–232.
- ^ Williamson, p. 15.
- ^ Bidlingmaier, pp. 91–93.
- ^ Williamson, p. 33.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 65.
- ^ Hümmelchen, p. 101.
- ^ Garzke & Dulin, p. 140.
- ^ Bercuson & Herwig, pp. 155–156.
- ^ Garzke & Dulin, p. 256.
- ^ Gröner Vol. 1, pp. 31–35.
- ^ Gröner Vol. 2, p. 44.
- ^ Showell, pp. 15–16.
- ^ Syrett, p. 2.
- ^ Tooze, pp. 294–295.
References
- Bercuson, David J.; Herwig, Holger H. (2003). The Destruction of the Bismarck. New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 978-1-58567-397-1.
- Bidlingmaier, Gerhard (1971). "KM Admiral Graf Spee". Warship Profile 4. Windsor: Profile Publications. pp. 73–96. OCLC 20229321.
- Blair, Clay Jr. (1996). Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939–1942. London: Cassell & Co. ISBN 0-304-35260-8.
- Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-913-8.
- Garzke, William H.; Dulin, Robert O. (1985). Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-101-0.
- Gröner, Erich (1990). German Warships: 1815–1945. Vol. I: Major Surface Warships. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-790-9.
- Gröner, Erich (1990). German Warships: 1815–1945. Vol. II: U-boats and Mine Warfare Vessels. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-790-9.
- Herwig, Holger (1998) [1980]. "Luxury" Fleet: The Imperial German Navy 1888–1918. Amherst: Humanity Books. ISBN 978-1-57392-286-9.
- Hümmelchen, Gerhard (1976). Die Deutschen Seeflieger 1935–1945 (in German). Munich: Lehmann. ISBN 978-3-469-00306-5.
- Paloczi-Horvath, George (1997). "The German Navy from Versailles to Hitler". In McLean, David; Preston, Antony (eds.). Warship 1997–1998. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-722-8.
- ISBN 1-59114-119-2.
- Rössler, Eberhard (1981). The U-boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines. Translated by Harold Erenberg. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-304-36120-8.
- Showell, Jak Mallmann (1999). The German Navy Handbook 1939–1945. Gloucestershire: ISBN 978-0-7509-1556-4.
- Syrett, David (1994). The Defeat of the German U-Boats: The Battle of the Atlantic. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 0-585-33629-6.
- Tooze, Adam (2008). The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-311320-1.
- Williamson, Gordon (2003). German Pocket Battleships 1939–1945. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 1-84176-501-5.
Further reading
- Breyer, Siegfried (1996). Der Z-Plan. Wölfersheim-Berstadt, DE: Podzun Pallas Verlag. ISBN 3-7909-0535-6.
- S2CID 159878696.
- Nolte, Maik (2005). "... mit Anstand zu sterben verstehen.": Flottenrüstung zwischen Tirpitzscher Tradition, strategischer Notwendigkeit und ideologischem Kalkül 1933 - 1943. Tönning, DE: Der Andere Verlag.