The first Graf Zepplin class carrier sported dimensions of 262.5 meters (861 ft 3 in) in length with a 31.5-meter (103 ft 4 in) beam. With four planned for production and work beginning in December 1936, the first ship, Flugzeugträger A, was ready almost 24 months to the day after it was laid down. While throwing a big middle finger at the Versailles Treaty and all its sanctions, work began on a new breed of German warship, the Graf Zeppelin class aircraft carrier. With one of these countries, Japan, being a top German Ally, there was certainly a sense that the Kreigsmarine needed to build something to match. But another priority, at least before the start of the war for Admiral of the Kriegsmarine Erich Raider, was to finally catch up to Great Britain, Japan, and the United States in the department of aircraft carriers.īeing more or less a complete product of post-WWI warfare, the Germans were all but barred from building carriers while these nations mentioned above built vast fleets of them. The first order on the agenda was to begin manufacturing U-boats secretly once again. The last item of business left was the Kreigsmarine. By the mid-30s, the Luftwaffe (airforce) and the Heer (Army) had already begun to expand clandestinely beyond the reigns imposed by the French, British, Americans, and other member states of the League of Nations. Of course, by the mid-1930s, the newly arisen Nazy party was already finding ways to subvert international law to get around First World War sanctions. Oh, and no submarines or aircraft carriers of any kind, no exceptions. By which the German naval forces were limited to no more than six capital ships at a time with strict limits on personal, armament, and ship tonnage. In regards to the Kreigsmarine, i.e., the German Navy, the most significant aftershock of the Versailles Treaty took place 17 or so years after the fact in the form of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935.
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