German Naval Laws

The Naval Laws (German: Flottengesetze, "Fleet Laws") were five separate laws passed by the German Empire, in 1898, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1912. These acts, championed by Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Secretary of State for the Navy, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, committed Germany to building up a navy capable of competing with the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom.

The Kaiser had long wanted a large naval force to assure Germany of what he called "a place in the sun". A large German navy could assist in German attempts to attain colonies, as well as further the country's economic and commercial interests elsewhere in the world. He was determined to make his country a colonial power in the Pacific and Africa. He was also a very militaristic man, and wished to increase the strength of the German armed forces; in particular he wanted to develop a navy that could match the British Royal Navy. As he wrote in his autobiography:

I had a peculiar passion for the navy. It sprang to no small extent from my English blood. When I was a little boy...I admired the proud British ships. There awoke in me the will to build ships of my own like these some day, and when I was grown up to possess a fine navy as the English.

Though Wilhelm loved naval power, he was initially unsure what form the German Navy would take: a force made up primarily of smaller vessels such as cruisers, or larger vessels such as battleships. He initially leaned toward cruisers because they could go to all corners of the globe and display the German flag wherever they went, while battleships were large and cumbersome and thus needed to stay in the Baltic or North Sea. The Secretary of the German Imperial Naval Office, Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann, also favoured cruisers because they were cheaper and more suited to German maritime strategy, which then emphasized coastal defence. However, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the leading proponent of battleships for the German navy, argued that because Germany did not have many colonies or overseas coaling stations, cruiser warfare did not make sense. Rather, it was important to concentrate a large fleet of battleships in close proximity to the strongest sea power, as this was the only way that Germany could compete with Britain (the world's leading naval and colonial power) and thus achieve world power for itself. Tirpitz further claimed that the mere existence of a large battleship fleet would indirectly protect German colonies and commerce the world over, despite the battleships' limited range. The victory of the battleship camp in this strategic debate was cemented when Tirpitz replaced Hollmann as State Secretary for the Navy.

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Wikipedia