Meanwhile the German Navy under Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had ambitions to rival the great British Navy, and dramatically expanded its fleet in the early 20th century to protect the colonies and exert power worldwide.

Reforms in training and gunnery were introduced to make good perceived deficiencies, which in part Tirpitz had counted upon to provide his ships with a margin of superiority.

The first British experimental design ( the destroyer HMS Velox ) had been constructed in 1901 and as a result Tirpitz had set up a special commission to develop turbines.

Although Tirpitz had succeeded in getting more ships, the proportion of military expenditure on the navy declined in 1912 and thereafter, from 35 % in 1911 to 33 % in 1912 and 25 % in 1913.

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.

Because the Navy had failed to achieve what Tirpitz had promised, there was a very strong anti-navalist mood in Germany after 1918.

In private, Raeder was prepared to admit that Tirpitz had made mistakes, but to do so publicly was anathema to him as would mean damaging the mystique of the " Tirpitz cult " that Raeder believed essential to maintain the prestige of the Navy.

Raeder's testimony had been intended to help clear the consciences of Müller and other S. P. D ministers who were planning to perform a policy U-turn on the " pocket battleships " by stressing that he was supposedly not returning to the policy of Tirpitz and aggressive navalism.

Raeder was keenly aware that the Army was the senior service and that many in Germany took the view that because the great High Seas Fleet that Tirpitz had built had done almost nothing in World War I that it would be a waste of money and time to attempt to rebuilt Tirpitz's fleet.

Shortly afterwards, Raeder had his first private meeting with Hitler, and came away impressed, believing that if Hitler was no navalist, then he could be made into one just like his mentor Tirpitz had converted Wilhelm II to navalism.

A close protégé of Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Raeder focused all of his efforts on rebuilding the High Seas Fleet that had scuttled itself at Scapa Flow in 1919.

Following the Riskflotte ( Risk Fleet ) theories of Tirpitz, Raeder argued to Hitler that the Navy had two political purposes to play, which made the Navy indispensable to his foreign policy, namely its " risk " value and " alliance " value.

Owing to the fact that the great fleet envisioned in Plan Z existed only in blue-prints or had just began to be built, Raeder like Tirpitz before him in 1914 was forced to abandon his pre-war plans for a great naval battle in the North Sea, and instead embrace the guerre de course strategy that he had previously been opposed to.

In contrast, Von Spee had a formidable force of five modern vessels ( the armoured cruisers and and the light cruisers, and ), all led by officers handpicked by Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz himself.

By 1879 a working device had been produced, but even under demonstration conditions Tirpitz reckoned it was as likely to miss a target as to hit it.

Tirpitz appointed a staff of officers he had known from his time with the torpedo boats and collected together all sorts of vessels as stand-in battleships to conduct exercises to test out tactics.

Tirpitz had concluded that the best fighting arrangement was a squadron of eight identical battleships, rather than any other combination of ships with mixed abilities.

Other officers complained about the way in which Raeder sought to re-write history in the Official History in way that gloried Tirpitz with no regard to what actually happened with Admiral Assemann of the Historical Branch complaining to Raeder: " I am convinced that it makes no difference to you Herr Admiral, what we write ... We must only write in such a way that you have peace with the old admirals ".

Right from the beginning when he assumed command of the Reichsmarine in 1928, Raeder waged a skilful public relations battle highly reminiscent of and closely modelled after the campaigns of Tirpitz in the early 20th century to convince both the politicians and the German public of the importance of sea power to Germany's future greatness.

Tirpitz joined the Prussian Navy more by accident than design when a friend announced that he was doing so.

He held the Chief of Staff position until late 1911, when he was transferred back to the RMA under Alfred von Tirpitz.

* 18 November – The Secretary of State for the German Navy, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, advocating massed Zeppelin attacks on London, writes, " The English are now in terror of the Zeppelin, perhaps not without reason ... ingle bombs from flying machines are wrong ; they are odious when they hit and kill old women, and one gets used to them.

* To every sailor who was present on the Tirpitz when it was bombed and sunk by the British R. A. F.

On 18 June 1897 Rear-Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was appointed State Secretary of the Navy, where he remained for nineteen years.

On 28 May, Hitler called a meeting of his service chiefs where he ordered an acceleration of U-boat construction and brought forward the construction of his first two battleships, Bismarck and Tirpitz, to spring 1940, and demanded that the increase in the firepower of the pocket battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau be accelerated.

Then in September he would travel to the Kaiser's retreat at Romintern, where Tirpitz found he would be more relaxed and willing to listen to a well argued explanation.

Tirpitz had been moved into a fjord in northern Norway where she threatened the Arctic convoys and was too far north to be attacked by air from the UK.

The battleship Tirpitz had been moved into a fjord in Northern Norway where she threatened the Arctic convoys and was too far north to be attacked by air from the UK.

Avro Lancaster bombers from 617 and 9 squadrons were sent to Håkøya a little west of Tromsø where the Tirpitz was based.

After receiving high praise and ratings from his superiors, he was promoted to the rank of Korvettenkapitän in December 1908, and assigned to the Reichs-Marine-Amt in Berlin where he impressed Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz.

It suited Alfred von Tirpitz, because it removed the influence of the admiralty staff from naval planning, but left him the possibility, in wartime, to reorganise command around himself.

Tirpitz had been made a Grand Admiral in 1911, without patent ( the document that accompanied formal promotions personally signed at this level by the Kaiser himself ).

At a meeting in Potsdam, according to Admiral Tirpitz ’ s notes, Wilhelm “ expressed himself without reserve regarding Bethmann ’ s incompetence ” in foreign affairs.

Tirpitz advocated the cause of an expanded navy necessary for Germany to defend her territories abroad.

Tirpitz, in 1899 was already exploring the possibilities for extending the battleship total to 45, a target which rose to 48 by 1909.

Tirpitz saw this once again as an opportunity to press for naval expansion and the continuation of the four capital ships per year building rate into 1912.

Tirpitz argued for six new capital ships, and got three, together with 15, 000 additional sailors in a new combined military budget passed in April 1912.

Tirpitz intended that with the rolling program of replacements, the existing coastal defence squadron of old ships would become a sixth fleet squadron, while the eight existing battlecruisers would be joined by eight more as replacements for the large cruisers presently in the overseas squadrons.

Finally in 1911, trials with aircraft began and in 1912 Tirpitz agreed to purchase the first dirigible for naval reconnaissance at a cost of 850, 000 GM.

In 1911 experiments took place with Albatros seaplanes and in 1912 Tirpitz authorized 200, 000 GM for seaplane trials.

In the 1920s, a major debate occurred within the Reichsmarine as to what were the correct lessons of World War I for the future, which tended to pit followers of Tirpitz against the followers of the " Wegener thesis ".

As a close protégé of Tirpitz, Raeder followed his lead in arguing for a battleship-centric “ balanced fleet ” meant to win the Entscheidungsschlacht in the North Sea.

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.

The left-wing German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler has defined social imperialism as " the diversions outwards of internal tensions and forces of change in order to preserve the social and political status quo ", and as a " defensive ideology " to counter the " disruptive effects of industrialization on the social and economic structure of Germany " In Wehler's opinion, social imperialism was a device that allowed the German government to distract public attention from domestic problems and preserve the existing social and political order Wehler argued the dominant elites used social imperialism as the glue to hold together a fractured society and to maintain popular support for the social status quo Wehler argued German colonial policy in the 1880s was the first example of social imperialism in action, and was followed up by the " Tirpitz plan " for expanding the German Navy starting in 1897 In this point of view, groups such as the Colonial Society and the Navy League are seen as instruments for the government to mobilize public support.

In 1944, both Sheffield and Jamaica acted as escorts for the aircraft carriers taking part in a series of attacks on Tirpitz in Norway.

Tirpitz was instructed to find a suitable site for a new port, selecting four possible sites.

The Kaiser agreed the plan and Tirpitz retired to St Blazien in the Black Forest with a team of naval specialists to draft a naval bill for presentation to the Reichstag.

As a reward for the successful bill Tirpitz was ennobled to the hereditary ‘ von ’ Tirpitz in 1900.

He was fanatical about the navy, but would come up with wild ideas for improvements, which Tirpitz had to deflect to maintain his objectives.

Unable to influence naval operations from his purely administrative position, Tirpitz became a vocal spokesman for an unrestricted U-boat warfare, which he felt could break the British stranglehold on Germany's sea lines of communication.

Tirpitz ' experience with the Navy League and mass political agitation convinced him that the means for a coup was ready.