Talk:Plan Z

message: This page needs serious updating; in fact it does not even get to the actual "Z-Plan" of 1938/39.  The German version is far more detailed and should be used to bring the English version up to standard.Cosal 02:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I don’t mean to sound rude, but this page is truly in need of drastic clean-up. The statement "Plan Z was the name given to the planned re-equipment and expansion of the Nazi German Navy (Kriegsmarine) from 1935 onwards” is totally dead wrong. Plan Z did not to the build-up of the Kriegsmarine from 1935 at all. Plan Z refers to a plan approved by Hitler on January 29, 1939 for a massive build-up of the Kriegsmarine to be completed by 1944. Because World War Two broke out in September 1939, the plan had to be abandoned, and even the war had not occurred, it seems unlikely that the plan was feasible given that the plan called for a massive battle fleet to be built in five years time that without making any corresponding cuts to the budgets of the Army and the Air Force. Economic historians are unanimous that in 1939 Germany did not possess sufficient quantities of money, raw materials or skilled workers to build the huge fleet envisioned in the plan, so the Plan was not very realistic at all. Even Admiral Erich Raeder, a man who was quite happy at having his service moved from third to first in terms of funding priorities protested that it would not be possible to build such a fleet in five years time.  
However, the real significance is that Hitler gave the Kriegsmarine for the first and only time in the existence of the Third Reich first priority on allocation of raw materials, skilled workers and money; previously the Kriegsmarine had been third in priorities. The importance of this is an it a sign of how serious Adolf Hitler was in his anti-British policy that started after the Munich Conference. Hitler had began his foreign policy in 1933 with the hope of making Britain his ally, but by late 1938 he had turn an complete U-turn, and was now determined to destroy Britain as a power. Contrary to popular opinion, Hitler saw the Munich Agreement as a terrible diplomatic defeat inflicted on him by Neville Chamberlain as it “cheated” him of the war he was so desperate to have against Czechoslovakia in 1938. The Z Plan was a sign of how serious Hitler was in his anti-British course by early 1939, and I think the article should focus on that aspect of Z Plan, for that is the real importance of the otherwise ephemeral plan. A really good, if extremely dry source for the information about the Z Plan are the chapters on foreign policy and the Navy in Volume 1 of Germany and the Second World War edited by Wilhelm Deist, Hans-Erich Vokmann, Manfred Messerschmidt & Wolfram Wette, Clarednon Press: Oxford, United Kingdom, 1990, which is the offical German history of World War Two. Moreover, a historiography section is needed to discuss how the Z Plan fits into the Globalist- Continentalist debate. The Globalists  (those historians who believe Hitler aimed at world conquest) like Andreas Hillgruber and Klaus Hildebrand have used the Z Plan as evidence of Hitler’s desire to conquer the world. The Continentalists (those historians who believe Hitler aimed at the conquest of Europe) like Ian Kershaw argue that the Z Plan was an improvised measure forced on Hitler by Britain’s refusal either to become Hitler’s ally or stand aside from the Continent, and was not a sign of Hitler's intention to conquer the world. --A.S. Brown (talk) 22:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Clean Up

message: I recall a visit to a college library a few years ago, where I found a book that said that Plan Z was the third version of a plan for a greatly expanded German navy, and that it was a more moderate version than earlier proposals. According to the book, these were known as Plan X and Plan Y, if I recall correctly. Does anyone remember reading anything similar? I'll also see if I can't track down that book again. If I'm correct on the particulars, then this should go into the article as well. Sacxpert (talk) 03:32, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Plans X and Y

message: Quite frankly, this page and the German one is extremely misleading and spouts out a bunch of garbage with no substantiating evidence.  Forty-four light cruisers?  The most I've been able to find in books *in German written by German historians* about the subject say that there would've been 18 total light cruisers.  I got all of my sources from this forum:  http://forum.axishistory.com/viewforum.php?f=61.  That forum has book scans, ISBNs, lots of suggested readings, and every claim in there is cited.  "Overy, p. 50" is not a reference, because that tells me nothing about where the information came from.  The book 'Der Z-plan Streben zur Weltmachtflotte' by Siefried Breyer,  claims that the the German surface fleet, minus the two old pre-dreadnoughts and existing destroyers, would have been this upon completion:
*6 H-class Battleships
*3 O-class Battleships/Battlecruisers (depends on how you classify them, and varies by source)
*2 Bismarck-class Battleships
*2 Scharnhorst-class Battleships/Battlecruisers
*2 Graf Zeppelin-class Aircraft Carriers
*2 unknown-class Aircraft Carriers (since design work was never started, the class was never named; every book I've read simply says "2 other carriers")
*12 P-class Pocket Battleships (fancy name for heavy cruisers with very large guns)
*3 Deutschland-class Pocket Battleships
*5 Admiral Hipper-class Heavy Cruisers
*12 M-class light cruisers
*3 K-class light cruisers
*1 Emden-class light cruiser
*1 Leipzig-class light cruiser
*1 Nürnberg-class light cruiser
*22 Spähkreuzer-class heavy destroyers
In addition, a new harbor on Rügen Island, called Rügenhafen, was to be built to accommodate the new fleet.
Now, I just created an account to point out that this article sucks.  If no one wants to change it so it's accurate instead of blatant crap, then I can change it so the information presented matches the historical information as found and compiled by actual historians.  A lot of people rely on this site as a source of information, and it bothers me to see an article that is so wrong and filled with false information.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBromgrev (talk • contribs) 16:30, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Just a few comments and suggestions for sources

message: Substituted at 03:06, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment