Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine (or "War Navy") was the name of the German Navy between 1935 and 1945, during the Nazi regime, superseding the Reichsmarine. The main war vessels available to the Kriegsmarine were U-boats, three pocket battleships, two battleships (Bismarck and Tirpitz), two battlecruisers (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau), three heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, and various smaller ships such as destroyers, torpedo boats, minelayers, minesweepers, gunboats and E-boats. Two old WW-I battleships were used mainly as training ships. Construction of an aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, had been started in 1936, but the vessel was never fully completed. Although a major re-armament of the navy (Plan Z) was planned, and initially begun, the start of the war in 1939 meant that the vast amounts of material required for the project were diverted to other areas.

External links

• Kriegsmarine History
• WWII U-Boat History