General Discussions
This is the place to discuss general issues related to the U-boat war or the war at sea in WWII.
RE: the submarine role in German expansion - help!
Posted by:
kurt
()
Date: April 25, 2001 02:48AM
<HTML>I couldn\'t resist throwing in my two cents.
As others have pointed out, U-boats were heavily used in WWI, and in fact almost brought England to its knees in 1917, much closer than U-boats managed in to ever do in WWII.
Be that as it may, I\'m afraid that the answer to your question is rather anticlimactic. The U-boats really had little to do with German and Nazi expansion policies.
Hitler and friends always viewed Germany\'s expansion in terms of a landward expansion eastwards, towards the \'inferior\' slav regions of Poland and Russia. They thought in terms of land conflict, and were very Army oriented. The Navy got low priority and was generally neglected.
Germany began a major re-armament program after WWI that was heavily accelerated by AH after he became Chancellor in the thirties. The resumption of the banned U-boat arm was only one small part of this defiant re-armament that included large tank and aircraft forces, and other banned items.
The Naval re-armament program was oriented towards a long term growth of a large surface fleet, with the U-boats in a secondary role. When England and France stunned the German government by actually going to war over the invasion of Poland, the Navy was caught totally unprepared to meet england on the high seas, having barely begun its buildup. With a puny surface fleet that was no match for English surface might, the u-boats once again, as in WWI, showed that they were the major arm for striking at England.
As such the U-boat war in WWII was not part of any plan to expand Germany overseas, or part of Hitler\'s lebensraum to the East, but merely the only effective naval weapon available to go to war against the mortal enemy, England, it found itself unexpectedly at war with. This \'mission of necessity and not racial destiny\' if you will is reflected in the apolitical nature, and generally honorable manner, with which the U-boat crews fought, in contrast to the harsh and often viscious brutality of the German Army in Russia.
If by \'expansion\' you mean did the U-boats help with Germany\'s initial victories and conquests of Europe, no they had virtually no effect in helping the German blitzkrieg flash across the Europe. Submarines are a weapon of attrition against an island adversary, and are irrelevant to a lightning land campaign.
As for the impact of U-boats on the war outcome, this is a long and controversial topic, but is apparently secondary to your purpose, so I will simply summarize to say that the u-boats failed to stop allied shipping and isolate England, and therefore failed to change the outcome of the war, but the undoubtedly delayed the outcome by extracting a heavy price in men and effort in their defeat. </HTML>
As others have pointed out, U-boats were heavily used in WWI, and in fact almost brought England to its knees in 1917, much closer than U-boats managed in to ever do in WWII.
Be that as it may, I\'m afraid that the answer to your question is rather anticlimactic. The U-boats really had little to do with German and Nazi expansion policies.
Hitler and friends always viewed Germany\'s expansion in terms of a landward expansion eastwards, towards the \'inferior\' slav regions of Poland and Russia. They thought in terms of land conflict, and were very Army oriented. The Navy got low priority and was generally neglected.
Germany began a major re-armament program after WWI that was heavily accelerated by AH after he became Chancellor in the thirties. The resumption of the banned U-boat arm was only one small part of this defiant re-armament that included large tank and aircraft forces, and other banned items.
The Naval re-armament program was oriented towards a long term growth of a large surface fleet, with the U-boats in a secondary role. When England and France stunned the German government by actually going to war over the invasion of Poland, the Navy was caught totally unprepared to meet england on the high seas, having barely begun its buildup. With a puny surface fleet that was no match for English surface might, the u-boats once again, as in WWI, showed that they were the major arm for striking at England.
As such the U-boat war in WWII was not part of any plan to expand Germany overseas, or part of Hitler\'s lebensraum to the East, but merely the only effective naval weapon available to go to war against the mortal enemy, England, it found itself unexpectedly at war with. This \'mission of necessity and not racial destiny\' if you will is reflected in the apolitical nature, and generally honorable manner, with which the U-boat crews fought, in contrast to the harsh and often viscious brutality of the German Army in Russia.
If by \'expansion\' you mean did the U-boats help with Germany\'s initial victories and conquests of Europe, no they had virtually no effect in helping the German blitzkrieg flash across the Europe. Submarines are a weapon of attrition against an island adversary, and are irrelevant to a lightning land campaign.
As for the impact of U-boats on the war outcome, this is a long and controversial topic, but is apparently secondary to your purpose, so I will simply summarize to say that the u-boats failed to stop allied shipping and isolate England, and therefore failed to change the outcome of the war, but the undoubtedly delayed the outcome by extracting a heavy price in men and effort in their defeat. </HTML>
