Alfred von Tirpitz

Alfred von Tirpitz (March 19, 1849 – March 6, 1930) was a German Admiral, Minister of State and Commander of the Kaiserliche Marine in World War I from 1914 until 1916.

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Born in Kuestrin in Brandenburg, the son of a senior civil servant, he grew up in Frankfurt an der Oder. He joined the Prussian Navy in 1865 and attended Kiel Naval School, gaining his commission in 1869. At first he was part of a torpedo fleet but in 1871 he joined the torpedo department at the new German naval ministry and in 1877 he was made inspector-general of the torpedo fleet.

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He joined the Naval staff in 1892 and was made a Rear Admiral in 1895. In 1896-97 he commanded the Asian cruiser squadron and oversaw the gain of Kiaochow as a German port. In 1897 he was made Secretary of State for the Navy. An energetic campaigner for a greatly enlarged fleet and supported by the Kaiser he championed the "Fleet Acts" of 1898, 1900, 1908 and 1912 which by 1914 had given Germany the second largest naval force in the world (roughly 40% smaller than the Royal Navy). It included seven modern dreadnoughts, five battlecruisers, twenty-five cruisers and twenty pre-dreadnought battleships as well as over forty submarines. Although including fairly unrealistic targets the expansion program was sufficient to alarm the British, starting a costly naval arms race and pushing the British into closer ties with the French.

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Tirpitz developed a "risk theory" (an analysis which today would be considered part of game theory) whereby, if the German Navy reached a certain level of strength relative to the British Navy, the British would try to avoid confrontation with Germany. If the two navies fought, the German Navy would be destroyed but the British Navy would be fatally crippled. Because the British relied on their navy to maintain control over the British Empire, Tirpitz felt they would rather keep control of the empire, and let Germany become a world power, than lose the empire as the cost of keeping Germany less powerful. This theory sparked a naval arms race between Germany and Great Britain in the first decade of the 20th century. Germany was forced to reduce its building plan and the German Navy was never large enough to make risk theory viable.

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Tirpitz had been made a Grand Admiral in 1911 and was appointed Commander of the Navy on the outbreak of war. Despite the building program he felt the war had come too soon for a successful surface challenge to the Royal Navy as the fleet act of 1900 had included a seventeen year timetable. Instead Tirpitz pushed for a great increase in submarine construction and unrestricted use of these new boats. Over the war 345 new U-boats were constructed and even at the Armistice over 200 were under construction. When restrictions were not lifted he resigned on March 15, 1916. He was replaced as Navy minister by Eduard von Capelle.

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After the war he became head of the conservative Deutschnationalen Volkspartei (DNVP, Fatherland Party) and was elected to the Reichstag from 1924 until 1928.

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The German battleship Tirpitz was named for him in 1939.

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1849: 1849 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar)....

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