page_title: Anglo-German Naval Agreement
section_title: U-boat construction
hierarchical_section_title: Anglo-German Naval Agreement / U-boat construction
caption_attribution_description: J. Ramsay MacDonaldtitle QS:P1476,en:"J. Ramsay MacDonald" label QS:Len,"J. Ramsay MacDonald"
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: Though every government of the Weimar Republic had violated Part V of Versailles, in 1933 and 1934, the Nazi government had become more flagrant and open in violating Part V. In 1933, the Germans started to build their first U-boats since World War I, and in April 1935, launched their first U-boats. On 25 April 1935, the UK's naval attaché to Germany, Captain Gerard Muirhead-Gould was officially informed by Captain Leopold Bürkner of the Reichsmarine that Germany had laid down twelve 250 ton U-boats at Kiel. On 29 April 1935, the Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon informed the British House of Commons that Germany was now building U-boats. On 2 May 1935, the Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald told the House of his government's intention to reach a naval pact to regulate the future growth of the German Navy.
  In a more general sense, because of the UK's championing of German "theoretical equality" at the World Disarmament Conference, London was in a weak moral position to oppose the German violations. The German response to the UK's complaints about violations of Part V were that they were merely unilaterally exercising rights the UK's delegation at Geneva were prepared to concede to the Reich. In March 1934, a British Foreign Office memo stated "Part V of the Treaty of Versailles... is, for practical purposes, dead, and it would become a putrefying corpse which, if left unburied, would soon poison the political atmosphere of Europe. Moreover, if there is to be a funeral, it is clearly better to arrange it while Hitler is still in a mood to pay the undertakers for their services".
  In December 1934, a secret Cabinet committee met to discuss the situation caused by German rearmament. The UK Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon stated at one of the committee's meetings that "If the alternative to legalizing German rearmament was to prevent it, there would be everything to be said, for not legalizing it". But since London had already rejected the idea of a war to end German rearmament, the UK Government chose a diplomatic strategy that would exchange abolition of Part V in exchange for German return to both the League of Nations, and the World Disarmament Conference". At the same meeting, Simon stated "Germany would prefer, it appears, to be ‘made an honest woman'; but if she is left too long to indulge in illegitimate practices and to find by experience that she does not suffer for it, this laudable ambition may wear off". In January 1935, Simon wrote to  George V that "The practical choice is between a Germany which continues to rearm without any regulation or agreement and a Germany which, through getting a recognition of its rights and some modifications of the Peace Treaties enters into the comity of nations and contributes in this or other ways to European stability. As between these two courses, there can be no doubt which is the wiser". In February 1935, a summit in London between the French Premier Pierre Laval and UK Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald led to an Anglo-French communiqué issued in London that proposed talks with the Germans on arms limitation, an air pact, and security pacts for Eastern Europe and the nations along the Danube.
caption: Ramsay MacDonald, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1924, 1929–1931 & 1931–1935.
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