Tirpitz: Architect of the German High Seas Fleet (review)

In 2004, the ground-breaking studies of Rolf Hobson (Maritimer Imperialismus) and Michael Epkenhans (Albert Hopman: Das ereignisreiche Leben eines "Wilhelminers") provided a new framework for evaluating Germany's efforts to become a major naval power, expanding the rich 1970's/1960's debate over the role and course of Tirpitz's naval ambitions and legacy. Epkenhans's and Hobson's fresh treatment of the origins of Germany's drive for sea power provided challenging new perspectives to evaluate the role of Tirpitz and his contemporaries. Epkenhans's extensive knowledge of existing and new sources of the "Tirpitz Era" (building upon his outstanding 1991 Die Wilheminische Flottenrüstung 1908-1914: Weltmachtstreben, industrieller Fortschritt, soziale integration) have made scholars eager for his biography of Tirpitz.

Although Tirpitz: Architect of the German High Seas Fleet is but the first installment of a much larger study, this slim biography (87 pages) whets the appetite for a comprehensive, critical study of this complex leader who "was at the center of major world events" and shaped the catastrophic dynamics of German history beyond his death in 1930. In less than 50 pages, Epkenhans masterfully synthesizes the major historiography of the Tirpitz controversy and outlines the extent of Tirpitz's failure in his strategic assumptions and ultimately life's work. Even in this brief format, Epkenhans's portrait of Tirpitz is convincing and provocative, contributing to a new engagement with this significant period of history.

Epkenhans focuses on key interpretations of Tirpitz's maneuverings with the Kaiser, the Imperial government, the Army, industry, and the Reichstag to create his feet and his determined fight to avoid any limiting of his feet-building plans. By May 1914, Tirpitz, isolated and alienated from the "Front," had to admit defeat. When the war began, Tirpitz tried to influence the navy's wartime role to create the conditions for a future feet; but his contradictory positions on the use of the battle feet and a commerce war with unrestricted submarine warfare led to his being asked to resign in March 1916.

Tirpitz's refusal to recognize the fallacies of his "Plan" (such as the role of the navy as a deterrence factor against England—his "Risk" Theory or its value as an "alliance" factor) and that the feet's destruction were his responsibility as much as its creation, forced him to turn to an active political life where he tried to rally the conservative right and block any domestic democratic reforms, driving Germany towards an authoritarian state, one more efficient and effective than the Kaiser ever dreamed. His political machinations in the final years of the war and for all but the last few years of the Weimar Republic were no more than attempts to deny the role of the navy in the collapse of the Imperial Reich and to re-write history to justify his own responsibility and actions. Tirpitz's influence on the future of the German navy and his use of modern propaganda tools continued. His supporters vigorously defended him (while recognizing privately his mistakes), and enforced a "taboo" against any public criticism of him. This inability to honestly and critically recognize the flaws in Tirpitz's arguments further contributed to the warping of strategic thought and created a sea power ideology that tried to rationalize Tirpitz's plans.