The German Fleet at War, 1939-1945 (review)

The German Kriegsmarine in World War II remains a highly popular subject, as the numerous recent studies of the U-boat war and the major engagements of surface raiders, the Bismarck and the Graf Spee, demonstrate. In this work, the author attempts to show how the surface navy's role was more complex and critical than has generally been appreciated. He summarizes "sixty-nine" surface actions of the "large" warships (which he defines as "purpose-built surface warships" of 500 tons or more) supplemented by a statistical analysis (engagement by type, opponents, location, results, etc.) that provide a useful perspective on the scale of the war at sea and a reminder of the gritty day to day efforts of those in the naval "trenches." Relying on the standard secondary English sources (with some notable omissions) and works translated from German, along with some primary sources from the American and British navies, he has produced a highly readable book which will satisfy the general reader with its focus on the stories of the crews and commanders who carried out their duties with the weapons and conditions (and orders) at hand. However, the absence from its bibliography of most of the standard German secondary sources, such as Michael Salewski's indispensable three-volume history of the Seekriegsleitung or the German Military History Research Office's comprehensive ten-volume history of the Second World War (also published in English by Oxford University Press), raises a question as to whether the book should more properly be titled "Actions against the German Fleet, 1939–1945." His descriptions of the sinking of the Glorious on 8 June 1940 and the Battle of the Barents Sea, 31 December 1942, for example, are told more from the perspective of the British than the Germans and do not reflect current research from the German sources.

A more complete analysis of the motivation behind the decisions of the naval command, 1939–1945, and its two commanders, Admirals Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz, particularly Raeder's struggle to justify his capital ships, while, at the same time, preserving the "core of the fleet" for a future "rebirth," would have provided a richer context for the individual engagements described in this work. Utilizing the published War Diary of the Naval Command (Kriegstagebuch der Seekriegsleitung 1939–1945, Part A) would also have greatly added to the author's attempt to blend the micro and macro character of the naval war. The exclusion of the auxiliary cruisers (Hilfskreuzer) from this work is also surprising considering their contribution for most of 1939 and 1940 in prosecuting Raeder's sea commerce strategy. More importantly, their role presaged what increasingly became a war of "improvisation" for the navy and after 1943, a necessary "miniaturization" of the navy following Dönitz's appointment as commander and the strains of total war.

For the specialist, this book points out the need for a broader new general history of the German navy in World War II that covers all the operations of the naval war, especially the "forgotten navy"—the 3,000 ships of the security forces that protected the coasts from Norway to the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.