After the war, in 1920, Raeder was involved in the failed Kapp Putsch where together with almost the entire naval officer corps he declared himself openly for the " government " of Wolfgang Kapp against the leaders of the Weimar Republic, which Raeder loathed.

Raeder took the view that the Navy should be " one family " with himself as the stern, but loving father figure, and the sailors as his " children ", from whom he expected unconditional obedience.

Recognizing Hitler's fondness for Dönitz, Raeder always took Dönitz with him ( despite their mutual dislike ) when he went to lobby Hitler for more naval funding, guessing correctly that Hitler was more likely to say yes to a request for more money for U-boat construction from Dönitz than he was from himself.

Finally, Raeder claimed that Dönitz was unqualified to become Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in 1943, and that Dönitz was only appointed to that position because Hitler preferred an unqualified " Hitler-boy " like Dönitz to qualified officers like himself.

Since in his own mind, he was still Germany's leader, Dönitz saw himself as Raeder's superior, and expected Raeder to be his subordinate.

Raeder also complained about the poor standard of aerial torpedoes, although their design was the Kriegsmarine's responsibility.

* German leadership rejected Hartenstein's cease fire proposal, partly because Admiral Raeder did not think it wise to enter into a " deal " with the Allies, nothing was to interfere with Eisbär's surprise attack on Cape Town to strike at the supplies destined for the British and Soviets, and Hitler had directed that no word of Laconias sinking or the proposed Axis rescue be transmitted to the Allies, though subordinates ignored Hitler's orders and communicated messages to the Allies about the proposed rescue attempt.

Admiral Raeder was strongly opposed to Sea Lion since the almost entire Kriegsmarine surface fleet had been either sunk or badly damaged in Weserübung, and therefore his service was hopelessly outnumbered by the ships of the Royal Navy.

Erich Johann Albert Raeder ( 24 April 1876 – 6 November 1960 ) was a naval leader in Germany before and during World War II.

Raeder led the Kriegsmarine ( German Navy ) for the first half of the war ; he resigned in 1943 and was replaced by Karl Dönitz.

Raeder was born into a middle-class family in Wandsbek in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein in the German Empire.

Owning to his cold and distant personality, Raeder was a man whom even his friends often admitted to knowing very little about.

Raeder was the captain of Kaiser Wilhem II's private yacht in the years leading up to World War I.

Another major influence on Raeder was his close friend Admiral Adolf von Trotha who had commanded the " Detached Division " of the Navy before 1914 and often taken the " Detached Division " on long voyages into the Atlantic.

This marked the beginning of a long feud between Raeder and Wegener with Wegener claiming that his former friend Raeder was jealous of what Wegener insisted were his superior ideas.

For the puritanical Raeder, the divorce was a huge personal disgrace, and as a result for the rest of his life, he always denied his first marriage.

For Raeder, the idea that all of the suffering and sacrifice of the Great War, which had affected him personally was all in vain was unthinkable, and he become obsessed with making certain that Germany would one day obtain the " world power status " that the Reichs leaders had sought, but failed to achieve in the Great War.

For Raeder as for other naval officers, the defeat of 1918 was especially humiliating because under the charismatic leadership of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the Naval State Secretary from 1897-1917, the Navy had been promoted as the service which would give Germany the " world power status " that her leaders craved, and to that end, vast sums of money had been spent in the Anglo-German naval race before 1914.

After the failure of the Kapp putsch he was marginalized in the Navy, being transferred to the Naval Archives, where for two years he played a leading role in the writing of the Official History of the Navy in World War I. Raeder also was the author of a number of studies about naval warfare, something that resulted in his being awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree honoris causa by the University of Kiel.

In October 1928, Raeder was promoted to Admiral and made Commander-in-Chief of the Reichsmarine, the Weimar Republic Navy ( Oberbefehlshaber der Reichsmarine ).

In the 1920s, Raeder as one of the authors of the official history of the German Navy in World War I, he sided with Tirpitz against the Jeune École-inspired theories of Wegener, arguing that everything that his mentor Tirpitz did was correct, and dismissed the strategy of guerre de course as a “ dangerous delusion ”.

Tirpitz was greatly pleased by Raeder ’ s defence of his leadership and theories.

And in Tirpitz, who was still very influential in the Navy despite having retired in 1917 started to speak of Raeder as an ideal man to head the Navy.

Raeder came to fear that this debate was starting to sully the image of the Navy to such an extent that he would never convince anyone in power to fund the Navy again, and so took extraordinary steps in the late 1920s to end the debate by trying to silence all critics of Tirpitz.

As a devout Lutheran who as captain of the Cöln in World War I personally conducted services on the deck of his cruiser, Raeder sought to make Christianity a great part of the lives of his men as possible.

On 11 December 1941, Germany declared war on the United States, which was at least in part due to the pressure of Raeder, who was very pleased with going to war with America.

| 75px < div style =" clear: left "> Erich Raeder </ div >|| G || G || G |||-|| Life Imprisonment || Commander In Chief of the Kriegsmarine from 1928 until his retirement in 1943, succeeded by Dönitz.

To get around the problems posed by the limited range of German warships, Hipper and Raeder suggested establishing a line of German colliers across the North Atlantic from Norway to Canada that the battlecruisers would meet at predetermined points to refuel.

After reading all three of Wegener's papers setting out his ideas, Admiral Hipper decided to submit them to the Admiralty in Berlin, but changed his mind after reading a paper by Raeder attacking the " Wegener thesis " as flawed.

As soon as they learned that Berlin had been occupied by Marinebrigade Ehrhardt on the morning of 13 March 1920, Trotha and Raeder issued a proclamation declaring that the Weimar Republic had ended, declared their loyalty to Kapp " government ", and ordered the Navy to seize Wilhelmshaven and Kiel for the putsch.

In private, Raeder often fumed against the Social Democrats for playing " party politics " with the naval budget as he deemed their opposition to navalism, and which was incensed that the S. P. D were against even building up the Navy to the levels allowed by the Treaty of Versailles.

In October 1928, Raeder was cross-examined by a Reichstag committee investigating secret rearmament and violations of the Treaty of Versailles.

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.

Heydrich later became chief of the SD, and he sought revenge for his disgrace by engaging in petty harassment of Raeder.

Such was the degree of Raeder's lobbying for bigger naval budgets that in early 1932, General Kurt von Schleicher, who viewed Raeder as a threat to the Army budget attempted to discredit Raeder by leaking a story in the press that Raeder was plotting to be defence minister.

Raeder refused Schleicher's attempts to involve him in his intrigues against Groener, stating that attempts to involve the Navy overtly in politics like the Kapp putsch had been disastrous for naval expenditures in the 1920s, and that he would not risk future naval budgets by becoming involved in plots against the Defence Minister.

Raeder wanted to see the replacement of democracy with an authoritarian, militaristic regime that in Raeder's analogy ensure that Germany would become " one family " united behind the same goals of world power, or as Raeder put it in 1932 Germany needed a " unified Volk " led by one strong leader to win the next war.

Raeder was greatly dismayed by Hitler's criticism of Tirpitz and of the pre-1914 Anglo-German naval race, and of his statements that if he came to power, he would a reach an understanding with Britain, whereby Germany would " renounce " naval and colonial ambitions into exchange for British support of German ambitions in Eastern Europe.

Raeder generally resisted attempts by the NSDAP to establish influence within the Navy, through he much preferred compromise rather than confrontation whenever possible.

At the same time, Raeder worked to promote National Socialist ideology as opposed to the NSDAP in the Navy, ordering in September 1936 that all officers read a tract by Kriegsmarine Commander Siegfried Sorge called Der Marineoffizier about what it took to be a good officer., Sorge had claimed that one could not be a good naval officer without believing in National Socialist values.

Raeder accepted without complaint orders from the War Minister von Blomberg on 21 May 1935 that those who were of " non-Aryan descent " would not be permitted to join the Wehrmacht and all members of the Wehrmacht could only marry women of pure " Aryan descent " and another order from Blomberg in July 1935 saying no member of the Wehrmacht could buy from a store owned by " non-Aryans " under any conditions.

" Although Raeder was not anti-Semitic in the virulent National Socialist sense, he tolerated statements from his senior officers such as Admiral Schuster ( appointed by Raeder as the inspector of education and training ) who told new recruits in 1937 that they must be " racially and morally sound .".