THE FAILURE OF GERMAN NAVAL FORCE DESIGN, 1928–39

As war clouds gathered over Europe in the late 1930s, the leaders of the Western democracies and continental neighbors viewed the army and air forces of Adolf Hitler's rapidly militarizing Third Reich with increasing alarm. The German Kriegsmarine, however, inspired no such trepidation. While there was concern in the admiralties of Britain and France, those countries' powerful fleets overwhelmingly outmatched Germany's navy in mid-1939. Yet, in the opening eighteen months of World War II, this inadequate German navy came perilously close to winning the Battle of the Atlantic by strangling Great Britain's vital sea-lanes. Here, Stanovich discusses the failure of German naval force design from 1928-1939 and the potential paths to success if different choices had been made.