Beyond Their Shores

This is my first TL on here. Any comments are appreciated.


“…….Poincare ordered the French armed forces into the Ruhr in order to collect reparations that they felt Germany was trying to avoid. However, opposition was met to the French-Belgian occupation from both the United States and Germany, and to an extent, from the United Kingdom. David Lloyd George, sitting Prime Minister, did not share any sympathies for the German people, and resisted calls by the public to openly condemn France’s actions………..”

“……..Prime Minister David Lloyd George endorsed the Dawes Plan as did the other members of the Allies. However, the damage was already done to the German economy, and it would take time to get back upon its feet………”

- “History Between The War”, Dustin Colby


“….I had visited the Hitler in April of nineteen thirty four to suggest that we expand the Kreigsmarine in such a way as to be able to challenge the French Marine Nationale, with whom we would fight with sooner or later, I was sure……”

“……the plan called for the construction of three aircraft carriers, eight Panzerschiffe, eighteen cruisers, forty eight destroyers, and seventy four U-boats…….”

“……after a few moments, he asked if we could build up the Kreigsmarine in such a way as being capable of challenging the English Royal Navy. Frankly I had to keep myself from laughing at the prospect, but the Hitler was not known for jest…….”

“……..I returned the next day with another set of plans, which had not even been named, and presented them to the Fuhrer. In it, we planned for the construction of ten battleships, four aircraft carriers, three Panzerschiffe, eight heavy cruisers, sixty eight destroyers, and two hundred and forty nine U-boats. He shuffled through the various papers and designs for several minutes before standing up and walking over to me. Clasping his hand upon my shoulder, he said “England can no longer hold us hostage from beyond our shores. This time, we will hold them hostage, from beyond their shores.”……..”

- “Die Memoiren des Erich Raeder”, Erich Raeder
 
Ariosto

If you're TL involves a serious German attempt to complete the Z Plan earlier then this is almost certainly a very good thing for Britain and the world. Given German economic problems under Hitler it will have to go with the OTL rate of expansion or collapse. However with huge amounts wasted in developing a large navy it will have far less to fight on land or in the air or probably both. As such it will suffer heavier losses in Poland and probably be defeated in France in 1940.

This presumes that the allies don't stand up to Hitler earlier. A larger and earlier naval programme by Hitler will drastically change opinion in Britain and encourage it to modernise the RN earlier, which unlike Germany it has the industrial base and funds to do. It will also change public opinion so with luck you might see a strengthened Britain and France stand up to a weaker [on land] Germany over the Sudatenland crisis.

If Nazi Germany is stomped in ~1940-41 or earlier that also means that Japan will be much less able to threaten the position of the allies in the Pacific and Far East.

Steve
 
May I ask, with all respect, what Germany will not be building so that she can build "ten battleships, four aircraft carriers, three Panzerschiffe, eight heavy cruisers, sixty eight destroyers, and two hundred and forty nine U-boats"?

May I also ask, again with all respect, what will be Britain's response to a naval rearmament program which is clearly aimed at her?

Finally, may I ask, again with all respect, what is the likelihood of Germany developing an effective naval aviation force in the space of a few years when the three powers with the only effective naval aviation programs, Britain, Japan, and the US, have been working on the same issue for decades?
 
“…..Well…….I arrived back at our headquarters two days after the meeting with Hitler…….and called a meeting with the main officers of the Reichsmarine……..including Oskar Kummetz……..and I think Otto von Schrader………my memory isn’t what it used to be sadly. I told them about Hitler’s request…..or rather order…….and I could not tell immediately if they were dismayed or lifted.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were happy that the Reichsmarine would be expanded in such a way to do justice to the Kaiserliche Marine of old………..but it was the reason we got to expand…….why the Fuhrer had agreed to allow us to do so. We were going to have to take…….head on…….the Royal Navy…….and none of us relished the upcoming battle with them. Anyway…….we were not able to actually do anything for about a year since the designs for the various craft were no even finished. The Japanese agreed to help us in that task….especially in helping us design the Graf Zeppelin……through the Research Institute that was established in Berlin. There was this fellow……..I think Hiroshi was his name…..”

“Who was Hiroshi?”

“Hiroshi Oshima? He was the one that allowed us to properly develop carrier aircraft…….despite the delays imposed by that oaf Goering. He and that serpent Joachim von Ribbentrop helped cement our relations with the Japanese Empire. They would help us develop the Reichsmarine…….and we would help train the Imperial Army. Course we had to withdraw our men from Chiang’s China because of that…..but you already know that. Anyway……Hiroshi’s support for us was indispensible.”

“Weren’t you ever worried about the English response……seeing you build so many ships?”

“Not immediately. We had to redesign everything according to the new plans we had put in place……collection of resources………expansion of the shipyards…….but nothing could be laid until nineteen thirty five. Thanks to Ribbentrop though…….the English did not properly react until it was too late……”
- Excerpt of an Interview with Erich Raeder, NBC News, Camel News Caravan, February 18, 1958




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Erich Raeder, still looking younger than his years. (I must apologize. the only aged photo of him that I could find is of him walking out of prison. Not too useful.)​


“…The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (A.G.N.A) of June 20, 1935 was a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and German Reich regulating the size of the Reichsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy. The A.G.N.A fixed a ratio where the total tonnage of the Reichsmarine was to be 40% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy on a permanent basis.…”
- Excerpt from Wikipedia


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While this looks interesting, you have a few points you just cant handwave away.

the Z plan was quite impossible to achieve by 1944, even starting early, unless Germany wants to build a lot of new slips and train serious numbers of dockyard workers and navy personell.
Which might be possible (we'll ignor for a moment the HUGE amount of LW and army equipment not getting built instead of these ships)

However you have to find a reasonable way of stopping the UK from going ballistic and outbuilding you as soon as they get a hint of these plans. Which they will, they had excellent knowledge of what the german navy was building. Now the British can outbuild you even without laying down any new manufacturing plant. Which, by the way, takes longer than you think. 2-3 years, it takes time to build the slips, train the workers, and buy and equip the works.
As soon as they get a sniff of whats going on, why arent the British ramping up their own shipbuilding base (around 3 times the size of the German one!) to full speed ahead? You cant just say appeasement, there are some things the British simply wont (and the politicians cant) give away, and allowing a modern version of the High Seas Fleet is one of them.
So if you want this to work, your going to need some believable way of butterflying this.
 
Ariosto

I said it a bit tongue in cheek and a couple of other posters have said it rather more directly. Germany can't afford to build such a naval programme will still undergoing a massive military and air expansion. Even if you had far more rational economic policies and still get various treasuries to loot. If they follow this path and no other major butterflies occur their likely to find the German army so underfunded that it gets dufted over by the Poles in 39. Which is not going to happen because Hitler knows the enemies he wants to [and must defeat for his plans] are Poland, France and Russia and none of their capitals will be threatened by a battle-fleet.

Furthermore, if Germany tries such a programme British domestic opposition to naval reconstruction becomes virtually non-existent. [Which would probably be not too bad for the British economy either as it means a lot of depressed areas in the north suddenly get major investment and employment]. Even if the Germans try and keep things quiet as others have said once they start laying down the shipyards and other facilities needed for such an expansion alarm bells in the Admiralty will be audible all the way to Halifax - and I mean NS not northern England.

Using a link up with Japan is a possible way to get some degree of desire experience for the naval air arm. However, apart from the serious lack of co-operation that occurred historically between the Axis powers, in large parts because of their nature - paranoid, xenophobic, egomaniac etc there are a number of other potential problems.
a) Will the Japanese be willing to give up all their secrets?
b) Will the Germans involved in the operation be willing to learn. We are talking about the self-confessed master race listening to Asians here.
c) Even if seriously willingness on both sides it will mean a huge degree of change needed to develop modern maritime a/c and related infrastructure, training, doctrine etc.
Not to mention that some things could backfire badly. If Germany, which didn't train enough pilots anyway, in part because of their lack of resources, adopts Japanese schedules for training their pilots they could be even worse off. Have a very well trained small elite that is excellent but virtually irreplaceable because the training cycle is so long. Or the idea that highly manoeuvrable but un-armoured Japanese designs might not be a good choice for confined coastal waters in northern Europe.

Steve
 
“……Following the establishment of the Japanese-German Cooperation Agreement, German delegations currently stationed within China were ordered to withdraw to the Japanese Empire. Konstantin von Neurath was opposed to these changes, which inevitably resulted in his removal from office in August of nineteen thirty five, being replaced with Joachim von Ribbentrop……..”

- World War II: A History, Gordon Dayton


“Do you recall your meeting with……..Mohammad Amin……al-Husayni?”

“Yes…I do. The Fuhrer had wanted to stir up some trouble for the British so as to make their eyes turn elsewhere, and Palestine seemed the best place to do it…….considering the natives were fighting a common enemy. The Jews were forcing the Palestinians off their hard-earned lands and were supported by the English in their efforts. We felt it was only proper that we offer them……..aid…….so they may reclaim their lands from the occupiers.”

“What sort of aid?”

“Well………we sent them arms that we were no longer using from the Great War………munitions for those weapons…….basically anything we could afford. Accruing those supplies was easy. Getting them there was more difficult. Any German merchant vessel approaching Palestine would have looked suspicious…….so we sailed them to Iraq……which was under lose control from London. In return for the arms……the Iraqi Kingdom gave us oil from its Northern regions…….when it could siphon it off of course.”

“Didn’t the British catch on?”

“They almost did. The British military once came close to discovering the nature of our shipments to Iraq……and we were forced to cease convoy’s operation. We ended up establishing another route through Saudi Arabia into Iraq and Palestine. They would pick up the materials along the border out of sight of the British military……and we would part ways.”

“So the Arab Revolt in nineteen thirty six……..that was due to German support?”

“Correct. We continued to support them for years afterward……later under the flag of Italy…..from whom we received permission to do so. Arabia became to boil such…….that the British…..despite all the power they could bring to bear…….could not properly place a lid upon it……..”

- Excerpt of an Interview with Joachim von Ribbentrop on Rundfunkaus, December 14th, 1952


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