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Comment
Researching awards of the
Pour le Merité
to the Imperial German Navy, some of which were made to
commanding Admirals, I found their positions in the
hierarchy difficult to understand.
These are the notes I made,
which might help others to understand something of the
Navy's organisation as well as its expansion prior to
the outbreak of World War 1.
tonnages quoted are deep
load
Sources:
Bennett, Geoffrey, "Naval
Battles of the First World War", Pan, 1974
"Conway's, All The World's
Fighting Ships, 1906-1921", Conway, 1985
Groner, Erich, "German
Warships 1815-1945", Conway, 1990
Halpern, Paul G, "A Naval
History of World War 1", UCL, 1994
Haythornthwaite, Philip J,
"The World War One Source Book", Brockhampton Press,
1998
Tarrant, V E, "Jutland: The
German Perspective", Cassell, 1995
and
"The World War
Document Archive, The Maritime War" website
All warship images are
courtesy of
Michael Pocock of
Maritime Quest, the rest, the
United States
Library of Congress. I am indebted to both.
Click images for
enlargement or to view them in their entirety
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M A
I N E V E N T S
1 8 9 7
 Imperial German Navy was the
creation of Admiral von Tirpitz (1849-1930) (right), who was appointed by
the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II to be Secretary of State of the Reichsmarineamt (Imperial Naval Office), which became the
main administrative office of the Navy.
The German Naval Supreme Command was dissolved by the Kaiser
as Supreme Commander of the Navy and reorganised into three main (and confusing)
departments, each one taking on the role of a pressure group: (1) the German Admiralty, which
was reduced to an advisory role, (2) Fleet Command under a Gross Admiral from
1903 responsible for the fleet and its personnel rather than general policy, and (3) the Reichsmarineamt under Tirpitz,
reporting directly to the German Prime Minister or Chancellor but taking orders
from the Kaiser, and covering administration, technical and training matters.
Other pressure groups included the Naval Cabinet and various commands.
1 8 9 8
First German Naval Law,
construction programme to enable the new German Navy to oppose the French and
Russian Navies (19 battleships, 8 armoured
cruisers, 12 large and 30 light cruisers to be completed by 1904.)
1 9 0 0
Second German Naval Law to challenge
Royal Navy (double fleet to 38 battleships, 20 armoured cruisers and 38 light cruisers).
1 9 0 4
Anglo-French Entente Cordiale
highlighted German concerns about British future intentions and the threat of
the Royal Navy.
1 9 0 6
Third Naval Law (6 battleships)
proposed by Reichsmarineamt.(The Deutschland-class,
13,990t, 4-11in, were the last pre-Dreadnoughts to be built;
above - SMS Pommern of the class, launched December 1905)
The revolutionary British all big-gun battleship
DREADNOUGHT was launched and soon completed, superseding all existing capital
ships and thus dislocating the German building
programme.
First Amendment of 1900 Naval Law (5 + 1 armoured
cruisers) instead of the 6 battleships of the 3rd Law which would have to be uprated to the Dreadnought concept. This would have been too
expensive for the German Parliament (Reichstag) at that time.
1 9 0 7
Anglo-French-Russian Triple Entente
further threatened Germany.
German High Seas Fleet introduced
1 9 0 8
Second Amendment of 1900 Law (6
Dreadnoughts at the rate of two each fiscal year, plus submarine construction Admiral Tirpitz, as Head of Reichsmarineamt
was subordinate to the Imperial Chancellor but in effect steered German foreign
policy and Anglo-German relations. Starting with the 1906-07 fiscal year, a
total of 21 dreadnoughts (2 uncompleted) and 11 battlecruisers
(one, the BLÜCHER only mounted 8.2in guns, and 3
uncompleted) were approved:
1906-07 fiscal year (FY) – 2 of
4 Nassau-class
Dreadnoughts, 21,000t, 12-11in (NASSAU, WESTFALEN
(below left)), and
small-gunned battlecruiser BLÜCHER (right), 17,250t, 12-8.2in.
1907-08 FY – final 2 of 4 Nassau-class Dreadnoughts (RHEINLAND,
POSEN), and battlecruiser VON DER TANN (below), 21,700t, 8-11in.
1908-09 FY – 3 of 4 Helgoland-class
Dreadnoughts, 25,200t, 12-12in (HELGOLAND, OSTFRIESLAND, THÜRINGEN), and 1st Moltke-class battlecruiser MOLTKE (right),
25,300t, 10-11in.
1909-10 FY – 4th Helgoland-class
Dreadnoughts (OLDENBURG (below)), 2 of 5 Kaiser-class Dreadnoughts (KAISER, FRIEDRICH DER GROSSE), and 2nd Moltke-class
battlecruiser GOEBEN.
1910-11 FY – last 3 Kaiser-class Dreadnoughts,
27,400t, 10-12in (KAISERIN,
KÖNIG ALBERT (below left), PRINZREGENT LUITPOLD), and
battlecruiser SEYDLITZ (right), 28,100t, 10-11in.
1911-12 FY - 3 of 4 König-class
Dreadnoughts, 29,200t, 10-12in (KÖNIG, GROSSER KÜRFURST (below left), MARKGRAF), and 1st
Derfflinger-class battlecruiser
DERFFLINGER (right), 30,700t, 8-12in.
1912-13 FY – 4th König-class
Dreadnought (KRONPRINZ), and 2nd Derfflinger-class battlecruiser LÜTZOW.
1913-14
FY - 4 Bayern-class Dreadnoughts,
31,690t, 8-15in
(BAYERN (below - sinking in Scapa Flow 1919), BADEN, uncompleted
SACHSEN, WÜRTTEMBERG), and 3rd Derfflinger-class
battlecruiser
HINDENBURG
Wartime estimates - 3 Mackensen-class
battlecruisers, 36,000t, 8-13.8in (MACKENSEN, PRINZ EITEL FRIEDRICH
(ERSATZ FREYA), GRAF SPEE – all uncompleted)
1 9 1 2
Third Naval Amendment (to build
three capital ships each year, building up to an active fleet strength in
German waters of 1 fleet flagship, 3 squadrons of 8 battleships, 8 battlecruisers, 18 light cruisers)
1 9 1 4 - 1 8
The conflicting and confusing
structure of the Imperial German Navy proved even more ineffective in war than
it did in peacetime. The Heads of the three main departments through most of the war,
through whom the Kaiser controlled the Navy, and their appointment dates, were
as follows ( * awarded Pour le Merité):
Reichsmarineamt or Secretary of State, Imperial
Naval Office (or Minister of Marine)
Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz
* (role in 1914 reduced to advisor to
Kaiser, forced to resign because of his support for unrestricted submarine
warfare)
March 1916 - Admiral Eduard
von Capelle *
October 1918 - Vice Admiral Paul Behncke *
October 1918 - Vice Admiral Ernest Mann Edler von Tiechler
Imperial
Naval Cabinet
Admiral Georg von Muller
*
 Admiralstab der
Marine or Chief of Admiralty Staff
Admiral Hugo von Pohl
February 1915 - Admiral Gustav Bachmann
September 1915 - Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff * (right, back to camera, with Adm Tirpitz (LC))
August 1918 - Admiral Rheinhard
Scheer * (appointed Head of the new
Seekriegsleitung - see
below)
The following excerpt from a 1914 edition of the
New York Times might help to clarify how the naval structure worked in practice
at least at the beginning of the war:
 “KAISER
AND CZAR CONFER; Cabinet Meeting Follows Naval Council of
War at Potsdam.
BERLIN, Thursday, July 30. -- The Kaiser (right in naval
uniform) last evening held a
naval council of war, which was attended by Admiral von Tirpitz,
Minister of Marine; Prince Henry of Prussia, Admiral Commanding in Chief;
Admiral von Pohl, Chief of the Admiralty General Staff, and Vice Admiral von
Mueller, Chief of the Imperial Naval Cabinet. …..”
Prince
Henry (or Heinrich) of Prussia * was the Kaiser’s brother, and
commanded the High Seas Fleet from 1906 to 1909. Dismissed for opposing Tirpitz, he was promoted Gross Admiral (Grand Admiral) and
appointed Inspector-General of the Navy. In July 1914 he became Supreme
Commander Baltic.
In August 1918, the German Naval Command was
reorganised with the creation of a supreme command similar to the Army structure
- the
Seekriegsleitung or SKL (Naval Warfare Command). Admiral Scheer was
appointed Head with Captain von Levetzow as Chief of Staff.
To complete
the picture, the Commander-in-Chiefs and Chief of Staffs of the High Seas
Fleet, the main counter to the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet were:
 Chef
der Hochseestreitkräfte or CinC High Seas Fleet
January
1913 - Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl (replaced following Battle of Dogger Bank)
February 1915 - Admiral Hugo von Pohl
January 1916 – Vice Admiral/Admiral Reinhard Scheer * (right (LC))
August 1918 – Vice Admiral/Admiral Franz Ritter von Hipper *
Flottenstabschef or Chief of Staff
September
1913 - Captain Ernst Ritter von Mann Edler von Tiechler
September 1914 – Rear Admiral/Vice Admiral Richard Eckermann
February 1915 – Captain William Michaelis
January 1916 – Captain/Rear Admiral Adolf von Trotha *
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