The German Navy, or Kriegsmarine, was a highly modern force in World War II, having been built up pursuant to the provisions of the Anglo-German Naval Treaty of 1935, which generally abrogated the naval restrictions that had been imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The 1935 treaty allowed Germany a surface fleet 35 percent the size of the British surface fleet and 45 percent that of the British submarine fleet. Moreover, the treaty gave Germany the option of reducing surface tonnage to the point at which one-to-one parity was permitted between the British and German submarine forces. Adolf Hitler's assumption at the time of the treaty was that he would go to war with the Soviet Union and France, not Great Britain. Therefore, he embarked on a program of surface ship construction. By 1938, however, war with Great Britain seemed increasingly likely, and Hitler was well aware that the British surface fleet greatly outnumbered that of Germany. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder advocated the building of more surface ships, and while he had to admit that the German surface navy would never equal that of the British, he also believed that the bulk of the British fleet would have to be deployed in foreign waters, leaving only the Home Fleet for the Kriegsmarine to contend with, a plausible mission. Sharply differing from Raeder was Admiral Karl Dönitz, commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine's U-boat force. His advice was to develop the U-boat fleet as a weapon to be used against British shipping, thereby starving the island nation into submission. This, in fact, was destined to become the principal German naval strategy, but at the beginning of 1939, Raeder's point of view prevailed, largely because he had successfully argued that antisubmarine warfare had become so sophisticated that U-boats would not prove nearly as effective as they had in World War I.

Raeder's Plan Z, approved by Hitler in January 1939, called for the construction of a very large surface fleet, to be completed by 1944. At the outbreak of war, however, on September 1, 1939, the Kriegsmarine was far outnumbered by the British and the French fleets. It consisted of two battleships, three pocket battleships, one heavy cruiser, six light cruisers, 21 destroyers, 12 torpedo boats, and 57 U-boats. In contrast to the navies of the other World War II powers, the Kriegsmarine did not have its own air arm, in deference to Hermann Goring's edict that all aircraft were to be controlled by the Luftwaffe. While it is true that a single aircraft carrier, the Zeppelin, was laid down, it was never completed, and it is likely that any aircraft launched from it would have been operated by the Luftwaffe.

One indisputable advantage the Kriegsmarine enjoyed was a cadre of excellent commanders, from the top down, and the luxury of relative freedom from the meddling of Hitler, who saw himself as a land-based warrior and tended to leave naval matters to the experts. Naval high command was the Oberkommando der Marine (OKM) headquartered in Berlin. Reporting to the OKM were Naval Group Command East, Naval Group Command West, Naval Station North Sea, and Naval Station Baltic. Two additional naval stations controlled coastal defense and training. The fleet was distributed as required among these commands. It was divided into the High Seas Fleet, the Security Forces, and the U-boat Fleet. The High Seas Fleet encompassed all major surface ships. The Security Forces controlled coastal defense, convoy escorts, antisubmarine forces, and minesweeping forces. The U-boat Fleet experienced explosive growth during the war and became the dominant arm of the Kriegsmarine. . .

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