THE FORGOTTEN SERVICE: Adolf Hitler had promised his Naval commanders that there would be no war in Europe before 1942. Accordingly plans were laid for the best Naval force in the world, but when Hitler precipitated the Second World War in 1939, only a fraction of the necessary ships and submarines were ready. At the outbreak of World War Two Germany did not even possess a single aircraft carrier. The battleships Bismark and Tirpitz fought famous actions at sea, but the Kreigsmarine was always on the back foot, crippled by superior opponents and strangled by bureaucratic neglect at home (thetvdb.com)