Tirpitz, Alfred von

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TIRPITZ, ALFRED VON

TIRPITZ, ALFRED VON (1849–1930), Prussian admiral.

Alfred Peter Friedrich Tirpitz (who was ennobled in 1900) was born on 19 March 1849 in the small town of Küstrin in the eastern part of Prussia. The son of a judge, he joined the Prussian Navy in 1865 and soon made a brilliant career. In the 1880s he was responsible for the development of the new torpedo weapon. In 1891 he became chief of staff of the Baltic naval station. He also quickly attracted the attention of the new kaiser, William II, himself a naval enthusiast, for unlike many of his elder comrades Tirpitz had a clear concept of both naval policy and naval strategy.

Although the extent of the influence of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan on Tirpitz is difficult to measure, their concepts were similar. Mahan believed that the Roman Empire was shaped by its control of the sea; Tirpitz was deeply convinced that history had proven sea power to be a prerequisite to the German Empire's power, prestige, welfare, and social stability in the twentieth century. Accordingly, he developed a plan to achieve these aims by building a battle fleet that he believed would be able to gain command of the sea.

Appointed commanding admiral of the German East Asian Squadron in 1896, he was called back in June 1897 to become secretary of the Imperial Navy Office. Supported by the new secretary for foreign affairs, Bernhard von Bülow, and using modern methods of propaganda to influence both parties in the Reichstag as well as the public, he began to realize what historians later were to call the Tirpitz Plan, which aimed at securing "a place in the sun" for Germany. For the advocates of this policy, it seemed inevitable that Germany would challenge Britain's supremacy in the world and on the seas. In June 1898 the Reichstag passed the First Navy Law, which established a battle fleet consisting of two battle squadrons and, most importantly, ensured continuous fleet building. Only two years later, this fleet was doubled. Although Tirpitz finally gave up the idea of demanding two more battle squadrons in 1905, he added six armoured cruisers for service on foreign stations to the existing fleet in 1906. More important, he decided to follow Britain's example and start building battleships of the Dreadnought type, armed with large guns. Thus he openly challenged the Royal Navy, which as a result quickly lost its margin of superiority in modern vessels. By reducing the age of replacement of older ships in 1908, he further accelerated the tempo of German battleship building. Contrary to his own expectations, this step was the beginning both of an arms race and the decline of his plan. After the failure in 1908 of British attempts to induce the German government to reduce its building program, the Royal Navy started to out-build its German rival in 1909. At the same time, Tirpitz began to lose support within the government as well as with the public. Steadily increasing costs and Germany's isolation among the great powers seemed to require a change in German foreign and naval policy. Supported by the Kaiser, Tirpitz was, however, still strong enough to thwart the attempts of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, appointed chancellor in July 1909, to negotiate a naval agreement. Moreover, Bethmann Hollweg's fiasco in the Moroccan crisis in 1911 offered Tirpitz an opportunity to once again increase the navy. Tirpitz eventually pushed through a new naval bill in 1912, stabilizing a building rate of 3 capital ships a year. The Imperial Navy now consisted of 61 capital ships, 40 light cruisers, 144 torpedo boats, and 72 submarines.

In spite of this success, his influence on German politics was diminishing. The Moroccan crisis, the Balkan Wars in 1912 to 1913, and the threat of a world war on the Continent strengthened the position of the army, which was enlarged twice in 1912 and 1913. Moreover, in early 1914 even Tirpitz realized that his policy was on the verge of bankruptcy due to financial constraints and rising costs on the one hand and Britain's determination to preserve its naval supremacy on the other. His policy's obvious lack of success did not harm his popularity, however. Members of the German Right were convinced that he was the ideal candidate to replace Bethmann Hollweg, who seemed too weak to break the iron ring around Germany.

Tirpitz was not involved in the decisions that led to the outbreak of war in August 1914. However, afraid of a humiliating diplomatic defeat, he did not plead for moderation. The war soon proved disastrous for Tirpitz's navy. Bottled in the German Bight, it was unable to successfully challenge the Grand Fleet. Raids on the British east coast were costly and dangerous, and the battle of Jutland in May 1916 was no strategic breakthrough. Only unrestricted submarine warfare, advocated by Tirpitz since 1915, seemed to offer a way out of a strategic deadlock but at a high price: it brought the United States into the war in 1917. Having lost the confidence of the kaiser, Tirpitz was forced to resign in March 1916 after one of several disputes with the chancellor about submarine warfare. However, he did not refrain from interfering in politics. In September 1917 he became chairman of the German Fatherland Party, a right-wing organization demanding far-reaching annexations and rejecting all domestic reforms.

After the war he quickly became the eminence gris (gray eminence) of the German Right, and he was involved in a number of attempts to overthrow the republican government. In 1925 he was one of the main architects of Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg's candidacy for president. At the same time, he exerted great influence on the navy, whose members still regarded him as their master. Still actively involved in antirepublican intrigues, the father of the German battle fleet died on 6 March 1930.