Plan Z
The keel of "Graf Zeppelin" was laid down on 28 December 1936, on the slipway that had recently held the battleship . The ship was built by the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel. Two years later, "Großadmiral" (Grand Admiral) Erich Raeder presented an ambitious shipbuilding program called Plan Z which would build up the "Kriegsmarine" to a point where it could challenge the British Royal Navy in the North Sea. Under Plan Z, by 1945 as part of the balanced force the navy would have four carriers; the pair of "Graf Zeppelin"-class ships were the first two in the plan. Hitler approved the construction program on 1 March 1939. In 1938, a second carrier, ordered under the provisional name "B", was laid down at the Germaniawerft dockyard in Kiel. "Graf Zeppelin" was launched on 8 December 1938.