The German Naval Staff: Organisation and Development

Abstract

The command structure of the German navy developed from beginnings which date back more than a hundred years, but an ideal solution was never found which could meet the various demands of German sea-power. The German Empire of 1871 quickly became an industrial state. At the turn of the century coal and steel dominated the competition of the advanced nations, among which Germany’s industrious population with burgeoning towns and growing wealth gained a steadily increasing advantage. The largest merchant navy after the British carried the black-white-red colours of the new Germany to all seas of the world. German exports reached the coasts of all continents, and a steadily increasing stream of essential imports began to pour into the German docks. From the high seas they entered German coastal waters and the estuaries of the German rivers. The main ports through which this increasing amount of commerce pulsed were Hamburg and Bremen in the West and Danzig and Stettin along the shores of the Baltic in the East: three-quarters of German commerce was traded via sea ports. Naïve pride soon gave way to increasing concern: on the continent Germany was splendidly supported and protected by her war-tested army; but would she also be able to protect her sea-borne trade and thus secure the growing population’s food supply? The world’s shipyards were busily constructing battle-cruisers; the age had begun in which a nation’s influence was measured in terms of sea-power.

Research topic in discussion with the Seminar Course in the Faculty of History, Cambridge University, 1961, under the chairmanship of Professor Francis Harry Hinsley.