Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy [Hardcover]

Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz (18491930) was the principal force behind the rise of the German Imperial Navy prior to World War I, challenging Great Britains command of the seas. As State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office from 1897 to 1916, Tirpitz wielded great power and influence over the national agenda during that crucial period. By the time he had risen to high office, Tirpitz was well equipped to use his position as a platform from which to dominate German defense policy. Though he was cool to the potential of the U-boat, he enthusiastically supported a torpedo boat branch of the navy and began an ambitious building program for battleships and battle cruisers. Based on exhaustive archival research, including new material from family papers, Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy is the first extended study in English of this germinal figure in the growth of the modern navy.

Patrick Kelly has written the first major scholarly biography of Tirpitz in English, based on detailed knowledge of vast archival material and an extensive historical literature. With great precision, Kellys narrative integrates Tirpitzs naval and political careers with broader developments within the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. He also treats in detail the international politics of Wilhelmine arms policy, the naval race with Britain, and the ensuing First World War. This book can be thoroughly recommended to students of both German and naval history.

Patrick J. Kelly is Professor of History at Adelphi University.

Beyond its great interest for naval and military historians regardless of specialization, this work will be required reading for any . . . historian of the Second Reich and the interwar period . . . and for those fascinated by the eternal query, 'Who or what caused the outbreak of the First World War?'Kelly's book is a great achievement. Well written and based on new sources, his biography of Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz allows the reader deep il3