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The Germans had other nuisance value to thank, as well: the Vichy Fleet in the Mediterranean and the French African ports. By German naval standards, Vichy's was still an imposing force: five battleships under varied stages of repair or building, four heavy and seven light cruisers, some 40 destroyers, some 60 submarines. As the Nazis were well aware, Vichy's fleet was potentially of much greater than nuisance value; it could become a terrifying addition to the Axis naval might.
Altogether, it was a strange situation. On the surface, the German Fleet was hiding in its snuggeries. The paradox under this fact was that the Nazi Fleet was actually on the offensive, the British Fleet on the defensive.
The Nazi dispositions against the European supply lines of the United Nations were now complete. From the North Cape to the Cape of Good Hope, those supply lines were threatened from German bases all along the Atlantic profile (see map).
From Dakar to the English Channel, short-range U-boats prowled. Above the Channel, the Nazi surface warships (and more subs) were dispersed against the threat of British bombers. But all were within a few hours' steaming of the supply line up the Norwegian coast to Russia. Their dispersion gave them more than protection from air raids: it also made them hard to watch.
Further, their dispersion was in a relatively small area: they might go out as a fleet, to destroy a superior enemy in detail. In a swift hit-&-run battle in the fogs of the North Sea, a well-fought engagement might strike a body blow to the British Home Fleet.
To keep the German in check, the British had to short-change their forces against the Jap. Like a bridge team caught with fat hands between two opponents with bare suits and plenty of small trumps, the United Nations were being whipsawed into the imminent danger of losing their contract.
Faith & Works. For this favorable situation, pious Nazis thanked their landlubber Führer, who had built ships when Goring was bawling for more airplanes and Guderian for more tanks. But they also thanked a short-legged pouter pigeon of a man named Erich Raeder.
Erich Raeder's religion has always been the German Navy. Today, as Commander in Chief of the Navy and one of Adolf Hitler's favorites among his top fighting men, he can justify all his actions of the past 30 years in terms most Germans can understand and applaud. For a good end he stooped to low means. He shucked dignity, closed his eyes to principles, was alternately sycophant, stout leader, wheedling trimmer and belligerent hell-roarer. The method worked. Few years ago his Navy was "the ugly little stepchild of the Government." Today the stepchild is a favorite, Germans can look on its face and find it shining and full of promise.
Its strutting, bemedaled little commander is tall with honor.
Skagerrak to Scapa Flow. Erich Raeder was a young officer, and not a very promising one, when he was assigned in 1910 to his first important post: navigating officer of the Imperial yacht Hohenzollern. It was a job that might have broken the spirit of an already proved officer. To the unproved Raeder, who had spent 16 years in such jobs as writing thoughtful screeds for the German naval journal, Marine Rundschau, it was a job that led on to destiny.