Unlike the Japanese carrier fleet, the Kriegsmarine envisioned using the Graf Zeppelin in a support capacity for the wider fleet.
Hitler’s navy, the German Kriegsmarine, was designed to do one thing: disrupt British shipping to cut the otherwise isolated United Kingdom off from its empire and the vital supply chain keeping Britain in the war against Nazi Germany. Great battleships such as the mighty Bismarck and Germany’s fearsome U-Boat fleet were exemplars of Hitler’s maritime strategy to break Great Britain.
Unlike so many navies of the age, though, the Kriegsmarine never completed construction of an aircraft carrier.
Hitler’s Unusual Aircraft Carrier
But Hitler’s Germany did make progress towards building an aircraft carrier. This was the Graf Zeppelin—named for Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, best known for developing the eponymous airship.
The ship emerged following a period of German naval resurgence after the country began breaking through the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles that had ended the First World War.
Hitler’s mercurial nature meant a steadfast commitment to developing such a complex and costly naval system—as well as the dysfunction of the Nazi military hierarchy, in terms of interservice rivalries—was impossible for the Nazi state.
The 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement loosened the constraints imposed upon Germany’s naval development at the end of World War I. By loosening these restraints, Germany was able to build aircraft carriers up to a total displacement of 38,500 tons.
Looking around the world, at friendly and rival regimes alike, Hitler’s Nazi government recognized there existed a yawning gap between their growing Kriegsmarine and the navies of Britain, the United States, and Japan. Thus, in 1935, Hitler decreed that Germany would construct its own force of carriers.
Designated as “Flugzeugträger A” (Aircraft carrier A), the Graf Zeppelin’s keel was laid down on December 28, 1936, at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel. The carrier was launched with great fanfare on December 8, 1938; its launch was attended by Hitler, Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring, and Grand Admiral Erich Raeder of the Kriegsmarine.
The Graf Zeppelin’s Specifications
Graf Zeppelin was, like all German products, a marvel of modern engineering for its time. Displacing 33,550 tons—a little less than what the 1935 Anglo-German Naval Agreement allowed—the great ship boasted a top speed of 35 knots per hour, faster than many modern aircraft carriers. Graf Zeppelin would have been considered the fastest aircraft carrier of its day because of that top speed.
German engineers designed the carrier with an armored flight deck. This was a distinctive feature that even the Americans and the Japanese, then the two nations with the most advanced carrier forces in the world, lacked.
Graf Zeppelin’s armament included 16 five-inch guns for surface defense and substantial anti-aircraft batteries. She was planned to carry an air wing of 42 aircraft, consisting of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter and the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber.
Unlike the Japanese carrier fleet, Germany’s wartime ally, the Kriegsmarine envisioned using the Graf Zeppelin in a support capacity for the wider fleet. Indeed, Graf Zeppelin’s mission was a hybrid, reflecting the focus of the Kriegsmarine on commerce raiding in the Atlantic first, and then providing key support to the wider German surface fleet.
As an interesting aside, it should be noted that the Germans, despite their engineering genius and industrial power at the start of the Second World War, struggled early in the development of the Graf Zeppelin. That’s because the Germans had no experience with aircraft carrier development or operation.
In fact, Nazi engineers journeyed to Japan in 1935 and were proffered technical advice from Japanese naval engineers, who allowed the Germans to inspect the impressive IJN carrier Akagi.
The Graf Zeppelin’s Development Hit a Wall
At the onset of World War II in September 1939, approximately 85 percent of the Graf Zeppelin was completed. Its projected finish date was in the middle of 1940. But the war drastically altered Hitler’s strategic priorities. The Nazi conquest of Poland and the subsequent invasion of Norway in April 1940 shifted considerable resources toward more pressing needs, such as coastal defenses and U-Boat production.
In fact, 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.
Thus, Hitler listened and approved the delay. The Graf Zeppelin was towed to Gdynia, Poland (renamed “Gotenhafen” by the Nazis) in July 1940, where it served as a storage depot for hardwood. But after Hitler saw the way other navies, notably the British Royal Navy, were using their aircraft carriers with such devastating lethality against German forces at sea, in 1942, Hitler commanded a restart of the carrier’s construction.
A Clash of Egos: Göring vs. Raeder
At that point, however, the egos of the top Nazi leaders began to clash over the project. Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring raged against Raeder’s Kriegsmarine, seeing the idea of letting even 42 of his warplanes be converted for carrier use and placed under the command of the Kriegsmarine as anathema. Göring posed a significant bureaucratic impediment that stymied the completion of what could have been a lethal carrier.
A year later, in 1943, Hitler blew up over the project—ranting against the Kriegsmarine and its inability to effectively counter the much larger British Royal Navy. When the Graf Zeppelin was 95 percent completed, Hitler ordered that it—and the rest of the large surface warships of the Kriegsmarine—be scrapped.
The Nazi aircraft carrier was stripped of its armament and relegated to minor roles, such as a coastal battery platform in Norway. In April 1943, it was towed to Stettin (modern-day Szczecin, Poland), where it languished with a skeleton crew until the war’s end.
After the War, the Soviet Union Resuscitated the Carrier—Briefly
When the Third Reich collapsed in 1945, German forces scuttled the carrier in shallow waters near Stettin to prevent its capture by the advancing Soviets.
But because the carrier was sunk in shallow waters, the Soviets refloated the incomplete carrier in March 1946, designating it PO-101 (Floating Base Number 101). Its ultimate end came on August 17, 1947, when after failing to sink under simulated dive-bomber attacks, the Soviets torpedoed it off the Polish coast.
The Graf Zeppelin had a final laugh at Hitler’s expense, since the incomplete carrier proved its mettle repeatedly in the face of attempts to sink it. Had it been completed on schedule, it might have contributed significantly to Nazi Germany’s grand strategy of disrupting British supply lines. It is unlikely that the Graf Zeppelin would have flipped the War for the Atlantic in Germany’s favor. But, it might have given the Nazis an advantage—and in a war as closely fought as the Second World War, every small advantage mattered.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a contributor at Popular Mechanics, who consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Wikimedia Commons.
