Hitler Built an Aircraft Carrier… And Never Used It

In the late 1930s, Nazi Germany embarked on an ambitious project to build its first aircraft carrier – the Graf Zeppelin. She was meant to be the flagship of a new carrier force that would firmly place her nation among the naval big boys of the day.

Named by Hitler himself in honour of aviation pioneer Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, she was launched on the 8th of December 1938, amid great fanfare. And frankly, you can see why, because at over 260 meters long and displacing around 34,000 tonnes at full load, she was happily comparable in size to the largest carriers of her day.

Deep in her belly were to be 42 aircraft – a mix of fighters and dive bombers – and she was to steam at a brisk 33 knots, thanks to a very powerful 200,000 horsepower turbine plant. This would have made her as fast as British and American fleet carriers, and capable of projecting German air power far beyond the Baltic and North Sea, which had traditionally hemmed in its navy.

And yet, as both the title and the tone of this introduction have given away, she never ended up doing that, did she? So, what gives?

Germany’s Inexperience with Aircraft Carriers

Germany went into the Graf Zeppelin project with basically no experience of aircraft carriers. They had dabbled a bit with seaplane tenders during WWI, sure, as the SMS Santa Elena can attest to, but that was about as far as it went – so yeah, bugger all in real terms.

With that in mind, the unenviable task of Graf Zeppelin’s design work went to Wilhelm Hadeler, a naval engineer who had never even been on an airplane.

Further still, because of Germany’s inexperience with carriers, in the early 1930s, not one of its officers knew how to operate a carrier; indeed, carriers generally were a still novel technology, one only really mastered by the British, Americans, and Japanese.

That all meant that the Germans had to essentially design their carrier using deductive reasoning, and whatever information they could glean from abroad. In 1935, for example, Britain allowed a German officer to briefly tour their old carrier HMS Furious, and more help also came from Japan, with a German commission of navy and air force experts visiting Akagi in that same year.

The Japanese, for their part, allies-to-be as they clearly were, also generously provided about 100 blueprints of Akagi’s flight deck equipment. These foreign insights reassured German planners that their ideas were on the right track, but many details still had to be figured out by educated guesswork, which led to some… interesting design choices.

The Graf Zeppelin’s Unusual Design Choices

The first unorthodox choice was the decision to give Graf Zeppelin some shooty capabilities in addition to her aerial ones, specifically in the form of a battery of 16 15cm guns in eight twin turrets, mounted along her sides – that’s basically the firepower of a light cruiser just on its own.

This ‘hybrid’ way of doing things isn’t exactly unheard of. The Soviets, for example, would later do it during the Cold War with their Kiev and Kuznetsov Class ‘aircraft cruisers’ – but it certainly wasn’t the norm, either at the time or later on.

The choice, however, was a logical one at least, with the Germans believing that their carrier would have to directly defend itself against enemy warships if a ‘Battle of Jutland 2’ type scrap was to go down.

Not all logic is created equally however, and, as one naval analyst later noted, the Germans “failed to understand that airplanes and not guns were the ship’s principal defence.”

Also notable was Graf Zeppelin’s armoured flight deck – up to 45mm thick at its broadest points – and complementary armoured hangar deck underneath. This was a significant deviation from US and Japanese carriers, which in the 1930s tended to have wooden flight decks to save weight. The Germans, like the British, instead prioritised protection: with them reasoning that an armoured deck could help the ship survive bomb hits and shellfire, at the cost of having a heavier ship with a smaller aircraft capacity.

And on that note, Graf Zeppelin’s aerial contingent of 42 aircraft was indeed rather modest by the standards of the day. The Americans, for example, could squeeze 96 aircraft onto USS Enterprise if they really pushed it, and the Japanese similarly could squeeze 73 onto Hiryū – and they both displaced less than Graf Zeppelin.

Even the Brits who, sure, also liked themselves a good armoured flight deck, but didn’t mess about with the big guns, crammed more in, with Ark Royal able to fit 72 aircraft at her theoretical max capacity, and again, she also displaced less than Graf Zeppelin.

The Struggle for Carrier-Based Aircraft

And while we’re on the subject of aircraft, we may as well segue into talking about the absolute nightmare that Germany had with getting them sorted out for Graf Zeppelin.

As many of the nation’s aerial woes often were, it was largely the fault of Hermann Göring, the Air Force Chief. A well noted smackhead, and haver of all the absolutely lovely character traits that tend to go along with that, Göring wasn’t exactly happy to play ball with the Graf Zeppelin project. His dummy was well and truly spat out over the matter in fact, with him quipping that “Everything that flies belongs to me.”

This meant that the Kriegsmarine really struggled to get specialised aircraft for Graf Zeppelin, which delayed proceedings no end.

Eventually, however, Hitler inserted his size 10s into Göring’s arse with vigour enough to get him to play ball, and specialist naval adaptations of previously land-based aircraft began to appear, such as the Messerschmitt Bf-109T, ‘T’ being for Träger, or carrier, to serve as a fighter, and the Junkers Ju-87C, to serve as a dive and torpedo bomber.

Additionally, a whole new torpedo-bomber/reconnaissance biplane called the Fieseler Fi-167 was also developed to operate from the Graf Zeppelin.

As for how many of each she would have carried, at least by the original plans, that would have been 20 Fi-167s, 10 Bf-109Ts, and 12 Ju-87Cs.

This mix also shows the early German view of the carrier’s role: the lion’s share of the aircraft were for scouting and attacking enemy ships with torpedoes, while a smaller number of fighters would provide cover. This mirrored, and indeed was copied from, British doctrine of the 1930s, which utilised their aircraft in much the same way.

The Germans would eventually adjust their plans, and reverse the aircraft ratio, however – with later proposals envisioning Graf Zeppelin carrying 30 Ju-87Cs, 12 Bf-109Ts, and dropping the reccy biplanes altogether. In other words, the ship’s mission profile shifted toward attack, with bombers taking precedence over scouting planes.

The Outbreak of War and Delayed Construction

When WWII broke out in September 1939, Graf Zeppelin, despite having been launched in ‘38, was only about 85% complete, and so had not been commissioned into service.

Her hull was done, her engines were installed, and she was afloat, but many essential components – armament, the aircraft handling gear, electronics, and the like – were still unfinished.

Initially, the Kriegsmarine had hoped to rush the carrier to completion, aiming to commission her in 1940. But the outbreak of war immediately forced Germany to rethink its priorities, with both U-boats, and their proven ability to wreak havoc upon Allied shipping, and immediate practical defensive needs, taking precedence over large, unfinished projects – no matter how potentially useful.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, then commander of the Kriegsmarine, wasn’t pleased with this at all. He argued that even a lone carrier could be useful, perhaps escorting German surface raiders such as the battleships Bismarck and Scharnhorst, or the cruiser Prinz Eugen, on Atlantic sorties.

His Naval Staff, however, were sceptical, and agreed with the orders coming in from Berlin, with them concluding in October 1939, just weeks into the war, that a single carrier would have “no apparent place” in the ongoing conflict.

As far as they were concerned, operating a carrier in the confined North Sea, within range of both British land-based bombers, and the abjectly underpant-browning prospect that was the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet, was simply too risky, and not worth wasting even a single further manhour of labour on.

They had a point too. Graf Zeppelin, Germany’s sole carrier, would be the crème-de-la-crème of bags for the Royal Navy, one that would no doubt be remembered in much the same way as we remember the sinking of Bismarck today, so they’d have been rather keen to get her, and unlike the huge multi-carrier task forces used by the US, Japan, and Britain, Germany had basically nothing they could send out with her to help keep her safe. In fact, so small was the surface fleet of the Kriegsmarine, and so overstretched was it already, that it’s doubtful Germany would even have been able to put a single carrier group together, at all.

And so, with all of that in mind, in May 1940 – the same month Germany was launching its lightning conquest of France – work on Graf Zeppelin was officially suspended.

The Changing Course of Naval Warfare and Hitler’s Renewed Interest

Now, had Nazi Germany had any sense – a big ask from that regime we know, but stay with us here – we would now be transitioning into the conclusion, with words to the extent of, “and so it sat in Kiel Port for the next 5 years, did bugger all, and was scrapped in whatever year.”

But alas, we are discussing Nazi Germany, aren’t we, a nation headed by a fella with a… ‘questionable’ grip on reality at the best of times, and so, what actually happened was, the Graf Zeppelin was to finally be finished, at which point it would supposedly race out of the harbour, start giving the business to the Royal Navy, then, happy days, glorious fascist victory, Thousand Year Reich and all that, blah blah blah – you know how the Moustache Man’s strategic spit balling tended to go.

The first event that pushed Hitler towards irrationality, at least in the carrier department, was the Battle of Taranto in November 1940, which saw the Royal Navy launch a daring carrier strike against the Italian Fleet moored in the titular port. What really inspired Hitler however, was the fact that the British did it with rickety old Fairey Swordfish biplanes, so imagine what he could do letting his mighty Stukas rip from the deck of the Graf Zeppelin!

That thought percolated around Hitler’s mind for a time, before it was further strengthened in May 1941 by the sinking of the Bismarck, again by Swordfishes. As far as he was increasingly becoming convinced, the battleship was an obsolete concept, it was now the age of the carrier, and, what would you know, he had just the planes needed to fully cash in on this fact.

And, in fairness, he wasn’t wrong in that assertion objectively, but, just like a fresh graduate getting fleeced when financing a posh car, he was thinking about writing cheques he simply could not afford.

We even have specific examples of his continued musing on this matter, with him commenting at a dinner in August 1941 that:

“There is something tragic in the fact that the battleship, that monument of human ingenuity, has lost its entire raison d’être because of the development of aviation.”

Admiral Raeder, for his part, was also happy as a pig in muck at Hitler’s new line of thinking, and so took every opportunity to fan the flames as much as possible, hoping that maybe, finally, he would get his much coveted carrier finished.

Then there was the Attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, such a devastating display, which provided many pictures of sunk or sinking American capital ships meeting their end at the hands of carrier launched aircraft and poured yet more petrol on the fire in Hitler’s mind.

The straw that broke the camel’s back however, and made Hitler fully get back on board the carrier hype train, wasn’t actually anything nearly as dramatic as the Battle of Taranto, or the Attack on Pearl Harbour, but a simple convoy interdiction action in March 1942.

The convoy in question was PQ-12, sailing from Reykjavik, Iceland, to Murmansk, the Soviet Union, between the 1st and 12th of that month. The battleship Tirpitz, operating from occupied Norway, moved in to cause some damage, and was sent packing by a single attack run by Swordfishes – and not even one that landed any hits.

That innocuous little action, for some reason, was what changed Hitler’s mind, and so, before the month was out, Germany was all in on carriers once again. And we do mean all in, because not only was Graf Zeppelin ordered to be completed, but the unfinished heavy cruiser Seydlitz was also ordered to be completed as a converted carrier, and the ocean liners SS Europa, Gneisenau, and Potsdam were too ordered to be pulled in, and bodged into auxiliary carriers.

Much like Graf Zeppelin herself, none of those conversions were ever finished, but still – proves the point!

The 1942 Refit

Graf Zeppelin made it into the drydock in May 1942, and at that point, several years had passed since she was launched – and naval technology had come a long way since then.

With that in mind then, the task at hand became not just completing her, but also retrofitting her to bring her back up to top-of-the-line standards, and that proved extensive, to say the least.

For one, her flight deck and hangar equipment had to be strengthened – the newer versions of the Bf-109 and Ju-87 that would fly from the ship were rather heavy you see, and the original deck equipment was simply not sturdy enough.

Stronger launching catapults were therefore designed to ensure the oomph needed to get them in the sky, and the arresting gear – the wires that catch landing aircraft – were given strong winches to actually be able to stop them when they came back down.

Her island – the command tower on the deck – was also redesigned to include a proper combat information centre fully loaded with radar and new fire-control systems, making it a vital (and essential) nerve centre to coordinate her defences and aerial operations. This also required additional armour protection and a taller funnel to vent smoke clear of the sensitive electronics.

All of this added weight high on the ship, which threatened to make her top-heavy, and so, to compensate, engineers added large bulges along the lower hull for extra buoyancy and stability. These bulges could also double as storage for fuel and offer some torpedo protection by absorbing blasts – a trick pinched from other navies.

Graf Zeppelin’s anti-aircraft battery was significantly beefed up too. Originally, she had just a few light AA guns, but the refit planned to give her an array of 28 twin 20mm guns and 22 37mm guns to name just a few. Her crew complement was also upped to 1,760 officers and men so that she could actually use all the extra added equipment.

Equally important was the change in air group composition mentioned earlier – but that’s old water now, so we shan’t retread it!

By late 1942, work was well underway and coming along nicely, and German naval staff were aiming to have her ready for sea trials by mid-1943.

Interestingly too, around this time, she also moved about quite a bit. She was now a top priority military asset, and so, whenever there were lulls in her refit, she was towed out into the Baltic to hide from potential aerial attacks. This drew the attention of Allied intelligence on more than one occasion, and was often a source of squeaky bum time, as concern set in that maybe she had been finished, and some action was imminent…

The Final Cancellation and Abandonment

So, where did it all go wrong then? Because that all sounds promising enough, doesn’t it?

Well, fate, as it turned out, had one last cruel twist in store for Graf Zeppelin—and naturally, it wasn’t in her favour.

You see, by the start of 1943, Germany’s war situation had shifted dramatically – in that it was now absolutely dire.

The Battle of Stalingrad alone, as an example, had ended in February 1943 with a decisive defeat for Germany; one that saw them suffer as many as 1.5 million casualties. The situation was just as dire in North Africa too, the campaign was still underway, don’t get us wrong, but thanks to the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942, which saw the Germans get absolutely creamed, the final defeat, and withdrawal from that theatre, was obviously coming.

Put simply, Germany had suffered, and was continuing to suffer, so many losses, that they were now on the defensive, and, despite the odd trend breaking attempt here and there, they would remain that way until the war came to the steps of the Reich Chancellery, and the Moustache Man did a bit of bunker redecorating with his grey matter.

And on the subject of him, he really was not taking the news well, and big ships, which he had been oh so keen on not even a year prior, were now one of the many scapegoats he was pointing to in order to explain away his nation’s ever worsening strategic situation. To that end, he even suggested during a December 1942 tirade, complete with stereotypically aggressive table banging, that Germany should scrap all of its so-called “luxury” ships and use all of the steel for U-boat construction.

Raeder, for his part, had finally reached his wits’ end and resigned from his post as Commander of the Kriegsmarine on the 13th of January 1943; with some sources saying it was because he simply couldn’t deal with his ever more erratic Führer anymore, and others saying it’s because he threw a tantrum over the fact he was never likely going to get his much coveted carrier.

Whatever the reason, he was replaced by Admiral Karl Dönitz, a U-boat man by trade, and one who had little interest in surface warships at all. This was grand as far as Hitler was concerned though, because of course, the new hire was only too happy to go along with his idea of immediately halting all big ship construction, Graf Zeppelin included.

And so, the order came in February 1943 to stop work on her once again – this time for good. At this point, Graf Zeppelin was still far from combat ready, so it wasn’t exactly the most dire of losses.

For example, only two of her four propeller shafts had been installed. The idea had been to get those working ideally by late 1942 to at least conduct minimal sea trials, but even that was never achieved. No aircraft had yet flown from her decks either, and many of her guns and electronics were not fitted. Germany’s grand carrier was now an unfinished white elephant.

And with Allied bombing raids intensifying, keeping Graf Zeppelin in a shipyard became increasingly dangerous – as no doubt her presence would only encourage more attacks. Therefore, in April 1943, she was towed to a remote backwater on the Baltic coast – a shallow arm of the Oder River, near the port of Stettin (now Szczecin, Poland). There, far from the reach of most enemy bombers, she was moored and camouflaged with nets and paint. A skeleton crew of about 40 caretakers, mostly civilian workers, was left to tend to the ship – basically just to prevent major deterioration.

From then on, she served no military purpose except as a storage hulk. In 1944, one inspection considered turning her into a floating barracks for trainees, but even that idea was dropped, and another inspection by Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge found the ship “absolutely useless” in its current state. Some of her remaining parts were scavenged – for instance, a few of her small engines were removed and sent off to help repair German battleships. Otherwise, she simply rusted away quietly.

Scuttling and the Soviets’ Interest

By the time 1945 rolled around, any notion of getting her operational was pure fantasy. Even if Germany had somehow miraculously completed her that late in the war, she would have been hopelessly outclassed. Allied naval air power was simply overwhelming by 44-45, and dozens of Allied carriers, including many smaller escort carriers, roamed the Atlantic at any one time. A lone, hastily finished German carrier with no experienced aircrew would not have survived long.

Even German naval staff admitted in 1944 that Graf Zeppelin would have been an antiquated vessel compared to Allied carriers, which by then benefitted from years of hard-won combat experience.

As for her fate, that became sealed as Soviet forces started advancing into Pomerania in spring 1945. The Germans, determined to deny their enemy any usable war matériel, and on orders from Dönitz, began scuttling all ships moored up in Baltic ports that couldn’t be either towed out, or fired up and sailed out under their own steam.

The specific orders for Graf Zeppelin’s scuttling came in late March, when the Red Army was nearing Stettin, and so, the crew opened every valve they could get their hands on to flood her lower compartments, including engine rooms, which caused the carrier to settle down by the bow and stick fast in the shallow mud of the Oder inlet. They then abandoned ship – reportedly even removing vital parts like the valve mechanisms and sending them west, so the Soviets wouldn’t be able to easily refloat the ship if they captured it.

Come the 25th of April, the Red Army had reached the area and began shelling anything of military value – and Graf Zeppelin, immobile and defenceless as she was, made for an obvious target.

In a bizarre twist, however, as artillery began to pound away at her hull, Germans found their way aboard once again; as word had gotten back to Dönitz that she wasn’t exactly sunk by the most strict definitions of the word, and he wanted that issue corrected – and so a German demolition team snuck aboard for one last act of destruction, setting off explosive charges in the ship’s hull and machinery spaces, wrecking her engines and opening great rents in her bottom.

The once-proud Graf Zeppelin was left a flooded, burned-out ruin stuck in the mud – as intended, she would be of no use to the Soviets. The war in Europe ended not long after, with Germany’s surrender in May 1945.

Conclusion

However, her story doesn’t quite end there.

The Soviets, determined to claim whatever spoils they could, examined the shattered carrier, and they found that despite the scuttling and artillery damage, her hull was actually largely intact.

And so, in 1946, Soviet salvage crews managed to refloat Graf Zeppelin. They patched holes, pumped water out, and on the 19th of March 1946, she was raised from the mud and towed out to deeper water. They designated the hulk ‘PO-101’ and reportedly considered whether it was worth repairing or studying.

Ultimately, the answer to that was a firm no, and they decided to use her for target practice instead, with her finally disappearing beneath the waves on the 16th of August 1947; at which point, her story finally came to an end.

Key Takeaways

• Germany’s first aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin, was launched in 1938 but never saw combat.
• The Graf Zeppelin’s design was influenced by limited experience and foreign insights, leading to unique but flawed choices.
• Germany struggled to develop specialized aircraft for the Graf Zeppelin due to internal conflicts and delays.
• The outbreak of WWII and shifting priorities led to the suspension of the Graf Zeppelin’s construction in 1940.
• The Graf Zeppelin was ultimately scuttled in 1945 and later sunk by the Soviets in 1947.

Sources

• Original MegaProjects video: Hitler Built an Aircraft Carrier… And Never Used It
• Hero image source by Wikitarisch / openverse, by.

Related Coverage