page_title: Anglo-German Naval Agreement
section_title: Adolf Hitler
hierarchical_section_title: Anglo-German Naval Agreement / Adolf Hitler
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Kurt von Schleicher Reichsminister General Kurt von Schleicher (erschossen 1934 bei Röhm-Revolte) in Uniform, Porträt Abgebildete Personen: Schleicher, Kurt von: Reichskanzler, Reichswehrminister, General, 1934 ermordet, Deutschland (GND 118608037)
context_page_description: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 18 June 1935 was a naval agreement between the United Kingdom and Germany regulating the size of the Kriegsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy.
  The Anglo-German Naval Agreement fixed a ratio whereby the total tonnage of the Kriegsmarine was to be 35% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy on a permanent basis. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 12 July 1935. The agreement was denounced by Adolf Hitler on 28 April 1939.
  The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was an ambitious attempt on the part of both the British and the Germans to reach better relations, but it ultimately foundered because of conflicting expectations between the two countries. For Germany, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was intended to mark the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance against France and the Soviet Union, whereas for the UK, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was to be the beginning of a series of arms limitation agreements that were made to limit German expansionism.
context_section_description: During the 1920s, Hitler's thinking on foreign policy went through a dramatic change. At the beginning of his political career Hitler was hostile to the UK, considering it an enemy of the Reich.  However, after the UK opposed the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, he came to rank the UK as a potential ally. In Mein Kampf, and even more in its sequel, Zweites Buch, Hitler strongly criticised the pre-1914 German government for embarking on a naval and colonial challenge to the British Empire, and in Hitler's view, needlessly antagonizing the UK. In Hitler's view, the UK was a fellow "Aryan" power, whose friendship could be won by a German "renunciation" of naval and colonial ambitions against the UK. In return for such a "renunciation", Hitler expected an Anglo-German alliance directed at France and the Soviet Union, and the UK's support for the German efforts to acquire Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. As the first step towards the Anglo-German alliance, Hitler had written in Mein Kampf of his intention to seek a "sea pact", by which Germany would "renounce" any naval challenge against the UK.
  In January 1933, Hitler became the German chancellor. The new government in Germany had inherited a strong negotiating position at Geneva from the previous government of General Kurt von Schleicher. The German strategy was to make idealistic offers of limited rearmament, out of the expectation that all such offers would be rejected by the French, allowing Germany to go on ultimately with the maximum rearmament. The ultra-nationalism of the Nazi regime had alarmed the French, who put the most minimal possible interpretation of German "theoretical equality" in armaments, and thereby played into the German strategy. In October 1933, the Germans again walked out of the conference, stating that everyone else should either disarm to the Versailles level, or allow Germany to rearm beyond Versailles. Though the Germans never had any serious interest in accepting any of the UK's various compromise proposals, in London, the German walk-out was widely, if erroneously, blamed on French "intransigence". The UK Government was left with the conviction that, in the future, opportunities for arms limitation talks with the Germans should not be lost because of French "intransigence". Subsequent offers by the UK to arrange for the German return to the World Disarmament Conference were sabotaged by the Germans putting forward proposals that were meant to appeal to the UK while being unacceptable to the French. On 17 April 1934, the last such effort ended with the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou's rejection of the latest German offer as unacceptable in the so-called "Barthou note" which ended French participation in the Conference while declaring that France would look after its own security in whatever way was necessary. At the same time, Admiral Erich Raeder of the Reichsmarine persuaded Hitler of the advantages of ordering two more Panzerschiffe, and in 1933 advised the Chancellor that Germany would be best off by 1948 with a fleet of three aircraft carriers, 18 cruisers, eight Panzerschiffe, 48 destroyers and 74 U-boats. Admiral Raeder argued to Hitler that Germany needed naval parity with France as a minimum goal, whereas Hitler from April 1933 onwards, expressed a desire for a Reichsmarine of 33.3% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy.
  In November 1934, the Germans formally informed the UK of their wish to reach a treaty with the UK, under which the Reichsmarine would be allowed to grow until the size of 35% of the Royal Navy. The figure was raised because the phrase of a German goal of "one third of the Royal Navy except in cruisers, destroyers, and submarines" did not sound quite right in speeches. Admiral Raeder felt that the 35:100 ratio was unacceptable towards Germany, but was overruled by Hitler who insisted on the 35:100 ratio. Aware of the German desire to expand their Navy beyond Versailles, Admiral Chatfield repeatedly advised it would be best to reach a naval treaty with Germany so as to regulate the future size and scale of t
caption: Kurt von Schleicher in uniform, 1932
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