The American historian Keith Bird wrote that nothing illustrated Raeder's right-wing, authoritarian outlook and his basic antipathy to the Weimar Republic better than his desire to ban the Reichsbanner, which existed for the defence of Weimar and his opposition to banning the SA, which existed for the destruction of Weimar.

The American historian Keith Bird wrote about Raeder's thinking about the role of the military, state and society: " For Raeder, the military and the navy in particular could not have a firm foundation unless they were grounded in the people: " A military must stand in close relationship with the people whom they serve and cannot lead its own existence ".

The American historian Keith Bird wrote if Raeder's claims after 1945 that he resisted efforts to introduce National Socialism in the Navy were true, then it would been very unlikely that Hitler would had awarded Raeder the Golden Party Badge.

The American historian Keith Bird summed up the strategic differences between Hitler and Raeder: " Raeder's continual pressure for an intensified war with Britain and his willingness to risk war with the United States, however, conflicted with Hitler's short-term continental goals.

Raeder was described as an ultra-conservative by the American historian Charles Thomas, who wrote that Raeder's core values were authoritarian, traditionalist and devoutly Lutheran.

Hansen wrote that the Dithmarschen ships were Raeder's most enduring legacy as their provided the basis for the modern support ship ; after the war, the United States Navy took over the Dithmarschen and renamed it the USS Conech.

The Canadian historian Holger Herwig wrote that the Z Plan was Raeder's fantasy given that the Z Plan fleet would take 8 million tons of oil whereas in 1939 Germany imported a total of only six million tons of oil.

Raeder's deputy, Admiral Rolf Carls wrote with pride in his diary in October 1941 that " all our forces have been deployed so often and so recklessly that never can the charge of tepidity be levelled against us ".

The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote about Raeder's role in invading Norway that :" Inside the German government during the war, Raeder always called attention to his own role in pushing the invasion of Norway ; after the war, he invariably blamed it on the British.

The American historians ' Williamson Murray and Alan Millet wrote about Raeder's thinking about Norway: "... since fall 1939, Admiral Raeder had advocated an aggressive policy toward Scandinavia to protect ore shipments and to establish naval bases in the area.

Raeder admitted in the Seekriegsleitung war diary that " The operation really breaks all the rules of naval warfare theory ", which the Canadian historian Holger Herwig wrote strongly suggests that Raeder's real reason for Weserübung was his desire to win the Kriegsmarine glory in the war as part of an effort to compete with the army and air force for funding.

An even more harsher assessment of Raeder's decision to send the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off the North Cape came from Murray and Millet, who wrote: " The Seekriegsleitung ... had lost none of its ability to confuse strategy with bureaucratic interest.

General Franz Halder after reading some of Raeder's memos wrote in his diary of " navalism run amuck " and commented that Raeder and other admirals that: " These people dream in continents ".

Murray and Millet wrote that Raeder's " Mediterranean strategy " had "... more to do with inter-service rivalry than with any strategic conception ".

The Greek historian Aristotle Kallis wrote that the best evidence suggests that in late 1940 Hitler was serious about carrying out Raeder's " Mediterranean plan ", but only within certain strict limits and conditions, and that he saw the " Mediterranean plan " as part of the preparations for Barbarossa by defeating Britain first.

The German historian Gerhard Schreiber wrote that Raeder's " Mediterranean plan " was a chimera because to carry out it would have required German diplomacy to make compromises with Vichy France, Spain and Italy that Hitler had no interest in making, and without the necessary diplomatic prelude the plan had no hope of ever being carried out.

Murray and Millet wrote that after the loss of the Bismarck that " Raeder's strategy of surface raiders had largely failed ".

Murray and Millet wrote that Raeder's views on the desirability of starting a war with the United States were " astonishing " because neither he nor anybody else in the Seekriegsleitung saw fit during the period July – December 1941 to commission studies on what would be the strategic consequences of war with the United States.

The American historian Charles Thomas wrote that Raeder's remarks about the executions in the Seekriegsleitung war diary seemed to be some sort of ironic comment in protest against the executions, which might have reflected a guilty conscience on the part of Raeder in enforcing a policy that he knew well to be illegal, and one that might lead him to being prosecuted for war crimes if Germany should lose the war.

The American historian Norman Goda wrote that Raeder's champions usually spoke if aggression against Norway was the only thing that Raeder had been convicted of, and that campaign to free Raeder rested upon "... a quasi-legal argument mixed with moral equivalency and wilful ignorance ".

The American historian Charles Thomas wrote that Raeder's remarks about the executions in the Seekriegsleitung war diary seemed to be some sort of ironic comment, which might had reflected a bad conscience on the part of Raeder.

The American historian Charles Thomas wrote that Raeder's remarks about the executions in the Seekriegsleitung war diary seemed to be some sort of ironic comment, which might had reflected a bad conscience on the part of Raeder.

On 18 March 1920 when Raeder's close friend, Admiral Magnus von Levetzow who had seized Kiel proposed a march on Berlin with the aim of deposing the government after the failure of the putsch in Berlin, Raeder declared his intention of joining Levetzow, only to change his mind a few hours later, and hastily called the Defence Minister Gustav Noske to tell him he had been " misunderstood " about joining Levetzow on his proposed march.

A notable exception to the flood of attacks on the " Wegener thesis " was Raeder's silence about Wegener's claim that Germany should have occupied Norway in 1914.

The American historian Charles Thomas maintains that it was more likely that Raeder's silence during the Hossbach conference was a gambit on his part to increase the Navy's budget by being seen to be supportive of Hitler's foreign policy when the Army leaders were expressing some doubts about the timing.

Raeder later claimed during his testimony at Nuremberg and in his memoirs to have been opposed to the denunciation of the A. G. N. A., which he claimed to have been kept in the dark about, but contemporary evidence from 1939, not the least Raeder's own role as the author of the Z Plan suggests otherwise.

As proof that Hitler was serious about Raeder's " Mediterranean plan " in late 1940, Kallis noted that Hitler made a major push to bring Spain into the war between September – December 1940, and on 12 November 1940 ordered the Army General Staff to treat planning for Operation Felix as their first priority.

Raeder claimed that he was not involved in a conspiracy to commit aggression because Hitler's statements in the Hossbach Memorandum of 1937 and again to senior officers including Raeder for plans for a war with Poland in May and August 1939 together with Raeder's own statements to Hitler about seizing Norway in October – November 1939 were all just mere talk that was not to be taken seriously.

Taylor commented about Raeder's claim to have been just an apolitical professional doing his job was meaningless because: " It is an innocent and respectable business to be a locksmith, but it is nonetheless a crime if the locksmith turns his talents into picking the locks of his neighbours and looting their homes.

" One result of Raeder's efforts to indoctrinate the Kriegsmarine was to make a great many of his officers and men into Nazi fanatics.

The third was Raeder's aide Vice Admiral Erich Schulte-Mönting who supported Raeder's claim to have been an apolitical officer just doing his job, and that Raeder had not been a Nazi.

The Nuremberg trial also a further escalation of Raeder's ongoing feud with Dönitz when an affidavit of Raeder's was introducted as evidence against Dönitz.

Above all, he wanted to ensure that the Navy would have a pre-eminent role in Hitler's Weltreich and armament priorities far beyond what it could hope to achieve in this war " Hitler saw the conquest of the Soviet Union, which was intended to give Germany lebensraum and with it control of enough of Eurasia, to provide sufficient Autarky to challenge the sea powers and carry out Raeder's plans for trans-oceanic expansionism.

This in turn further increased Raeder's opposition to democracy because in a dictatorship the state could pursue navalist policies regardless of what the voters wanted.

Another debate that brought Raeder's name into the news had started in January 1956 when Captain Karl-Adolf Zenker of the Bundesmarine gave a speech before a group of cadets, which he had mentioned he shown to Raeder in advance for his approval, during which Zenker argued not only for the innocence of Raeder and Dönitz whom Zenker called officers just doing their duty in "... a war thrust upon them ", but also called Raeder and Dönitz great heroes who should be role models when the cadets became officers.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder's orders to Admiral Günther Lütjens were that " the objective of the Bismarck is not to defeat enemies of equal strength, but to tie them down in a delaying action, while preserving her combat capacity as much as possible, so as to allow Prinz Eugen to get at the merchant ships in the convoy " and " The primary target in this operation is the enemy's merchant shipping ; enemy warships will be engaged only when that objective makes it necessary and it can be done without excessive risk.

Raeder's strong authoritarian tendencies came to the fore as soon he assumed command of the Reichsmarine in 1928 when he sent out a circular making clear that dissent would not be allowed while at the same time carrying out the " great seal hunt " of 1928-29 when Raeder forced most of the senior admirals into early retirement in order to promote men who were loyal to him.

Raeder's traditional Anglophobia, which always led him to view Britain as the main enemy and together the chance for increased naval building represented by the anti-British turn made Raeder into one of the strongest supporters of the anti-British foreign policy.

After the Z Plan was completed in the mid-1940s, Raeder's plans called for a " double pole strategy ", in which U-boats, Panzerschiffe and cruisers operating alone or in tandem would attack British commerce all over the globe, forcing the Royal Navy to divert ships all over the world to deal with these threats while at the same time two task forces of carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers would engage in frequent sorties into the North Sea, preferably from bases in Norway to destroy what remained of the British Home Fleet in a series of battles that would give Germany command of the sea.

Raeder's strategy which was a modified version of the " double pole " strategy he had devised before the war called for the Panzerschiffe, auxiliary cruisers and submarines to attack British merchantmen all over the world to force the Royal Navy to divert its strength while at the same time the main surface ships would make frequent raids into the North Sea to gradually reduce the Royal Navy's strength.

Raeder's insistence that Germany either needed bases in or needed to annex the Canary Islands cost Germany the chance of bringing Spain into the war.

Raeder's last attempt at using a capital ship as a raider occurred in June 1941, when he ordered the pocket battleship Lützow into the North Atlantic ; she was badly damaged by an attack from British torpedo planes on 13 June 1941 that put her out of commission for six months.