High Seas Fleet - Legacy

Legacy

The High Seas Fleet, particularly its wartime impotence and ultimate fate, strongly influenced the later German navies, the Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine. Former Imperial Navy officers continued to serve in the subsequent institutions, including Admiral Erich Raeder, Hipper's former chief of staff, who became the commander in chief of the Reichsmarine. Raeder advocated long-range commerce raiding by surface ships, rather than constructing a large surface fleet to challenge the Royal Navy, which he viewed to be a futile endeavor. His initial version of Plan Z, the construction program for the Kriegsmarine in the late 1930s, called for large number of P-class cruisers, long-range light cruisers, and reconnaissance forces, though he was overruled by Adolf Hitler, who advocated a large fleet of battleships.