Quoting Emily O. Goldman’s ‘Receptivity to Revolution’ in The Diffusion of Military Technology and Ideas, page 295:
While Italy had no plans to build an aircraft carrier [during the 1920s or 1930s], [the Third Reich] had plans to build two by 1941 and two more by 1947. Funds for the Graf Zeppelin were authorized in 1936; the carrier was launched in December 1938, and it was 85 percent complete when [the Third Reich and the Slovak Republic] went to war [against Poland] in September 1939.
Originally designed to displace 19,250 tons and carry fifty aircraft, its displacement rose to 34,000 tons and its final aircraft complement was to be twelve fighters and twenty-eight bombers, suggesting a shift in mission from reconnaissance and escort to attack.¹¹²
The [Third Reich], however, never developed the doctrine for using the carrier against the Royal Navy or Britain’s merchant fleet. In Corum and Muller’s estimation, “the lack of a naval air doctrine was the weakest aspect of German airpower thinking.”¹¹³
This was not for lack of appreciation for naval air power developments abroad. Suchenwirth describes how as early as 1923, the Navy Command set up agencies to keep the aviation idea alive, supervise air training, and examine the tactical employment of naval aircraft. A monthly magazine, Marine-Flotten-Rundschau [Navy Fleet Review] “printed the best foreign articles on naval air forces, accompanied by very fine photographs, sketches and news articles, […] to keep Navy personnel up to date with respect to technological advances in the field of naval aviation and warfare.”¹¹⁴
When designing the Graf Zeppelin, the [Fascists] consulted open-source literature including Weyer’s Taschen der Kreigsflotten and Jane’s Fighting Ships, along with other foreign aircraft journals.¹¹⁵
In 1935, as part of their exchange agreements with [the Empire of] Japan, they were given access to the 26,900-ton carrier Akagi and received nearly one hundred detailed blueprints of the ship’s flight deck apparatus,¹¹⁶ although they adopted the British design of the 22,500-ton carrier Courageous.
The [Fascists] were also aware that the U.S. Navy was successfully developing dive-bombing and torpedo aircraft that could operate from carriers, and that carrier construction was underway in the United States, Britain, Japan, and France.¹¹⁷ Nonetheless, naval airpower was viewed primarily as an auxiliary weapon for coastal patrol and strategic reconnaissance.
Douglas C. Dildy’s and Ryan K. Noppen’s German and Italian Aircraft Carriers of World War II provides more details:
The designers had made a thorough study of the HMS Courageous — at that time considered the state of the art in carrier development — and toured HMS Furious during “Navy Week” at Portsmouth in 1935. Additionally, a three-man K-Amt team visited the Imperial Japanese Navy carrier Akagi — a vessel very similar to the two Royal Navy carriers in origin and configuration — that autumn.
The [Imperial] Japanese provided about 100 plans and diagrams, including blueprints, regarding the flight system — catapults, arresting gear, and elevators — and motivated Hadeler’s team to add the third elevator amidships. Overall, these visits provided little new or additional information but they at least confirmed the direction upon which Hadeler and his staff of naval architects were embarking.
[…]
Adopting the Imperial Japanese Navy practice, the carrier’s warplanes were to be fueled and armed on the hangar decks and brought up to the flight deck for launching, so the flight deck was fitted with three center-line elevators, forward, amidships, and aft. These had “clipped corners,” resulting in a roughly octagonal shape, measuring 46ft (14m) wide by 42.7ft (13m) long. The Reichsluftfahrtministerium (Reich Air Ministry or RLM) was required to design aircraft which would, of course, fit within these dimensions.
(Emphasis added in all cases. Click here if you have time to read more.)
Quoting Berthold J. Sander-Nagashima’s ‘Naval relations between Japan and Germany from the late nineteenth-century until the end of World War II’ in Japanese–German Relations, 1895–1945: War, diplomacy and public opinion, pages 46–48, 53:
The early 1930s held some important changes in store for the German Navy as well. The first was the decision of the government to re-establish military and naval attachés abroad. Thus, in 1933 Fregattenkapitän Paul Wenneker arrived in Tōkyō.
Second, German planning began to leave the limitations of the Versailles Treaty behind: already in 1932, the navy had planned to include an aircraft carrier and submarines in its fleet and to establish a fleet air arm.¹⁷
With the end of the Washington Treaty system in sight, the [Imperial] Japanese Navy was interested in developing closer ties with the Reichsmarine and in granting it development aid that might make it a potentially much more powerful factor in the future.
One of the first steps in that direction was the visit of Admiral Matsushita Hajime to Berlin in May 1934. Matsushita was the Commander of the training squadron and while his ships visited southern France, he made a round trip to Paris, Berlin and London. The very cordial atmosphere of Matsushita’s visit to Berlin was also noted by foreign observers, who even speculated about a secret alliance.¹⁸
That the [Imperialists] really meant business became clear at the end of the year when they took the unprecedented step of acquainting a former German naval officer, Joachim Coeler, who now worked for the Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrt-Ministerium) with the fleet air arm.¹⁹
Coeler was in [the Empire of] Japan for that purpose for two months. During that time, he and Wenneker were granted a tour aboard the aircraft carrier Akagi. Wenneker rated the visit as an extraordinary step and his report was even read by Hitler.²⁰
Wenneker had been granted visits aboard other ships as well and had been able to talk with Kato’s confidant, Admiral Suetsugu. The latter had hinted that the [Empire of Japan] would claim full parity with the Anglo–American powers at the forthcoming naval conference and would not accept anything else. When Wenneker stated that the Japanese would then have to face British hostility, Suetsugu answered that the Japanese side would accept this calmly.²¹
The [Fascists] reciprocated with the admission of [Imperial] officers for an inspection of their modern Panzerschiff (pocket battleship) Admiral Scheer. This was followed by [an Imperial] offer to invite [Fascist] specialists to [the Empire of] Japan for an in-depth technical study of aircraft carriers in exchange for the latest [Fascist] dive-bomber design.²²
Shortly thereafter, the [Imperialists] indicated that they were interested in a mutual exchange of design engineers. They even offered to train [Fascist] naval air arm crews and grant assistance in the difficult initial stages of carrier operations after the completion of the ships.²³
In autumn 1935, a [Fascist] commission of specialists inspected [an Imperial] carrier. They were given full information on all technical matters, were able to watch flight operations aboard and were even allowed to participate themselves. Both the members of the commission and Wenneker were baffled about the degree of co-operation (English translations of the relevant parts of the related reports can be found in Krug et al. 2001: 105–8).
This clearly indicated that the [IJN] placed high hopes on co-operation in the field of naval aviation, which was considered of special importance by Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku in November 1934.²⁴
Despite the kind treatment of the [Third Reich’s] aircraft carrier commission, the [Fascists] were reluctant to adequately repay their partner’s efforts, which led to a certain degree of disappointment on the [Imperial] side. They nevertheless still treated Wenneker better than the other foreign attachés when it came to requests for visits of naval facilities.
[…]
After World War I, both the German and Japanese navies had a common interest, namely the revision of the Anglo–American-dominated treaties. A result of this was the remarkable [Imperial] interest in German naval technology and the readiness not only to [ignore] illegal German developments but even to participate actively in these ventures.
The Imperial Navy’s development aid to the [Fascists] in the field of aircraft carriers was unprecedented in so far as no other foreign power had ever been granted anything comparable. The traditional rôles of teacher and student had been reversed for the first time: now the Japanese taught an industrialized Western power high-tech.
Some have speculated that this bird farm could have turned the tide of the war, but Dr. Alex Clarke published a (1.37-hr.) critique in which he explained how the Graf Zeppelin could not possibly have secured an Axis victory, and probably would not have even delayed the Axis’s inevitable demise either. Simply put: the Graf Zeppelin is a classic case of overengineering. Highlight:
You can build an absolutely amazing carrier… or you can build what will suit your situation and suit the realities of your situation… or you can build an absolute mess which attempts to compromise being an amazing feat of engineering with all the most innovative and perfect engineering solutions and will fit your situation… and when you’ve got a committee system which will not compromise, where everyone has to get […] the best solution for the problem [that] they are dealing with or aspect [that] they are dealing with of the design, you end up with the Graf Zeppelin.
Since this bucket of bolts was never ready for combat, it is invariably filed under the label of ‘historical curiosities’. Aside from serving as a timber warehouse for our enemies and later as a little target practice for us in 1947, it was basically a waste of resources. That is certainly a valid point of view, but we can derive other, I think more valuable, lessons from it.
The first is that this project made somebody a lot of money despite never being finished. This may seem like the most obvious point, but it is one that hardly anybody mentions either. It cost 92,700,000 ℛℳ, and German and Italian Aircraft Carriers of World War II tells us who profited:
On November 16, 1936, Deutsche Werke Kiel AG shipyard was awarded the contract to build the ship and on December 28, less than three weeks after the brand-new 11in battlecruiser Gneisenau was launched from Slipway 1, the keel of hull “K-252” was laid in its place.
That capitalists have always profited from war is no news to us, but something less frequently mentioned is that even the unfinished or unused crap makes money for somebody anyway. Capitalism constantly rewards wastefulness, including in an ancient and unnecessary phenomenon that is itself extremely wasteful.
The twoth point is a generic lesson about the importance of cooperation and coordination. Plans for Graf Zeppelin were fraught with infighting, as Grand Admiral Dr. Erich Raeder of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe commander-in-chief Reich Marshal Hermann Göring had trouble coming to agreements regarding a vehicle that pertained to both of their fields. One brief example:
Admiral Raeder proposed halting work on the carrier, arguing that even if commissioned by the year’s end, fitting its guns—whose original fire-control system had been sold to the Soviet Union—would delay operational readiness by another ten months.
This want of coordination probably explains why the Luftwaffe once misidentified two Fascist warships as hostile and sunk them, massacring hundreds. Long-time readers should know by now that factionalism was always phenomenal in the Third Reich, and this is a great example.
Lastly, Graf Zeppelin’s early development shows how dictatorships of the bourgeoisie support each other. I know that you could easily deduce this one on your own, but most commentators gloss over the Third Reich’s friendly relations with the British Empire and even the Empire of Japan in 1935 as if they were insignificant or trivial. On the contrary, they should be alarming! This is what inspired me to research this topic more and it is what inspired the title.
There can be no doubt that all of the Axis’s unfinished projects, the Graf Zeppelin most definitely included, gave many labourers and other thinkers experience that would come in handy later. This is one reason why I think that they deserve more attention than they get, but this particular example had even more consequences than that, consequences that casual viewers barely notice if at all. Offer to tell your friends about them the next time that they fire up World of Tanks or play a WWII-themed grand strategy game.
OH kewl
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