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Theory Into Practice Buy Now! Dramatis Personae Home Vice Adm. Wolfgang Wegener (1875-1956) Wegener was born in Stettin, the son of a doctor. He joined the navy in 1894, where he became a gunnery offi cer. During World War I he fi rst served as the chief of staff of 1st Battle Squadron, leaving that post to become captain of the light cruiser Regensburg, followed by a stint as commander of the battleship Nurnberg. After the war he stayed on in the much diminished service, attaining the rank of vice admiral in 1926. He was the author of a series of essays that in totality became known as the “Wegener Thesis.” Those writings were a matter of controversy in Germany, and also had some impact outside that country. The thesis was published in the Soviet Union, where com- mentators praised it for recognizing the strategic importance of the Scandinavian peninsula. British commentators took a different view, maintaining any navy that couldn’t go where it pleased when it pleased was really no navy at all. They maintained – not surpris- ingly, given Britain’s naval preeminence in Europe at the time – that geography was never as important as having the brute battle line strength needed for outright sea control. Adm. Erich Johann Albert Raeder (1876-1960) Raeder was born to a middle-class family in Schleswig-Holstein, the son of a schoolmaster. He also joined the navy in 1894, and rose rapidly in the ranks. During World War I he fought at the Battle of Dogger Bank in 1914 and at Jutland in 1916. In 1920 he participated in the Kapp Putsch, a far-right coup attempt against the Weimar Republic aimed at preventing the new regime’s disbanding of the Freikorps. He was thereafter marginalized for his role in the Putsch and, as punishment, was transferred to the naval archives section, where, with nothing else to do, he threw himself into an intensive study of naval strategy and history, eventually receiving a doctorate from the University of Kiel. Through sheer persistence he hung on, surviving his internal exile and eventually rising to overall command of the navy in 1928, which was at that time rife with internal dissension as The Bismarck unleashing a salvo against HMS Hood. well as material problems. The navy was popularly blamed for fi rst prolonging and then losing the First World War. Its loyalty was also questioned due to the fact the general mutiny within it in the autumn of 1918 had turned out to be the fi rst step in the fall of the imperial government. In order to speedily reunify the service, Raeder set in place a culture of uniformity in which dissenting opinions simply weren’t tolerated. That approach led to Wegener’s forced retirement. Theory Into Practice: The opening of World War II saw Raeder win operational successes, including the invasion of Norway, the prosecution of a U-Boat campaign, and convoy raids around the world. After growing reversals of fortune, including the loss of the Bismarck and the failure German Surface Raider Strategy By David March of Battle of the Barents Sea, Hitler in turn forced his resignation in January 1943. After the war Raeder was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for his part in plotting and fi ghting a war of aggression. The sentence was later reduced and, due to deteriorating health, he was granted early release in 1955. Background of the war’s loss. Finally, while it had British were able to maintain that been relegated to a small size by the blockade against the Germans. Adm. Raoul Castex (1878-1968) he post-World War I German Versailles Treaty, the navy was then The navy of the new Third Reich was Navy was limited by the further reduced by the still smaller therefore immediately confronted with Castex was a French naval theorist whose writings had a profound effect on Raeder and the T Versailles Treaty to no more budgets allocated to it by the Weimar three major problems: 1) a small num- development of the German navy between the wars. Castex joined the French Navy in 1896 and than six battleships of 10,000 tons Republic, which precluded it from even ber of ships; 2) inherent strategic limits eventually became an instructor at the Ecole de Guerre Navale. After World War I he became each, six cruisers of no more than reaching the limitations imposed on it. due to the geographic relationship a rear admiral, and in 1936 he established the Institute for Higher National Defense Studies. 6,000 tons each, 12 destroyers of In the run up to the First World between Germany and her Allied oppo- Between 1929 and 1939 he wrote a series of papers titled “Theories Strategiques,” no more than 800 tons each, eight War, the navy had been developed in nents; and 3) a still limited budget that in which he discussed the links between land and naval warfare, concentrating on what light cruisers and 32 torpedo boats. accordance with the views of Grand had to be shared with the two other ser- nations that were primarily land powers should do in regard to naval strategy. His think- Fifteen thousand men would be Adm. Alfred von Tirpitz. He advocated vice branches, the army and air force. ing included the idea of relocating France’s armaments industry and capital to Algeria, allowed to crew those vessels, and no a strategy in which the navy was to be At the same time, three inescapable as that locale could be more easily defended in case of a new outbreak of war. submarines were to be allowed at all. made large enough to threaten British tasks would face the navy on the His strategy formed an important part of Raeder’s thought. The German was particularly After the conclusion of the war, pub- domination of the seas and, more outbreak of a new war: 1) protecting impressed by the Frenchman’s idea that opportunities for decisive naval battles were rare, lic opinion in Germany ran against the particularly, it was to be able to break Germany’s coasts from invasion; 2) and that attempts to create them were futile. He emphasized tactics that encouraged the navy. It was seen as having contributed any British blockade of Germany by protecting German shipping within the development of what he called force organisée (organized forces). Such naval groupings would to the long duration of the war while forcing (and winning) a decisive battle nation’s coastal waters; and 3) attacking be task-organized and sent to sea temporarily, as needed, to fi ght limited offensives. He also itself having turned out to have been in the North Sea. When the British enemy ships and oceanic lines of stressed the need for commerce raiding, blockade, mines and amphibious warfare. ★ nothing more than a waste of resources subsequently established just such communication in some signifi cant, or during it and, ultimately—in regard a blockade at the English Channel even decisive, way. Further, given the to its overall nonperformance—it and between Scotland and Bergen, budgetary situation, those missions was also seen as one of the causes Norway, Tirpitz’s plan fell apart. The continued on page 42 » 40 WORLD at WAR 26 | OCT–NOV 2012 WORLD at WAR 26 | OCT–NOV 2012 41 but was unable to prevent them from Prussia and the likely intervention of being circulated within the service. France against Germany in that war via Wegner’s premise was that Tirpitz’s naval power. The naval raiders of the strategy wasn’t workable for Germany Deutschland-class, known as “pocket in that it didn’t threaten the one British battleships,” were originally intended vulnerability: oceanic trade. That the to fi ght that war. Their high endurance British economy was dependent on and heavy armament were intended the sea trade had been known since to enable them to hit and run French the turn of the previous century. The convoys headed toward Poland via German Navy was therefore play- the North Sea, while also breaking ing a weak hand by attempting to any attempted blockade of German match the Royal Navy’s battle line. ports by French combatant ships. Having identifi ed what he saw as There was one point on which the British weakness, Wegner suggested Raeder and Wegener agreed, but for there was an inescapable need for different reasons. That is, Raeder also the German Navy to acquire new advocated securing Norway in order bases from which it could threaten to protect the economically vital that British trade. He advocated an coastal transshipments of Swedish Kriegsmarine war badge for commerce raiding. Kriegsmarine war badge for offensive, either military or diplomatic, iron ore through that fi rst country’s service on the high seas. to acquire such bases in Norway, which coastal waters. He therefore sought an would allow German ships to simply invasion of Norway as an ultimately sidestep the Norway-Scotland portion defensive measure to secure German of the blockade. It would also allow trade, where Wegener had wanted it German ships to attack convoys headed as a geo-strategic steppingstone from toward Russia. Once those bases were which to strike against the British battle acquired, the British would be forced to line in a decisive engagement. Wegener deal with the German battle line under believed that once such a decisive battle operational and tactical situations that had been fought, the trade route the would no longer be under their control. Germans needed for ore transit would After the war Wegner published be secure simply as its byproduct.
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