Erich Raeder

In the closing phase of the First World War, Raeder was deeply involved in the naval officer corps' counter-revolutionary measures. When sailors at the Kiel naval base mutinied on 28 October 1918, refusing a final sortie ordered without the German government's knowledge or approval, Raeder played a major role in attempting to crush the mutiny. In the winter of 1918-19 he served as the liaison between the naval officer corps and Defence Minister Gustav Noske. Noske, a Majority Social Democrat with firm "law and order" views, was strongly backed by the officer corps; it was Raeder who suggested to Noske that Adolf von Trotha be appointed commander-in-chief of the Navy. At Noske's request the Navy contributed two brigades to the Freikorps to crush Communist uprisings.

Raeder's political stance did not stop there. In 1920, during the Kapp Putsch, he declared himself openly, together with almost the entire naval officer corps, for Wolfgang Kapp's "government" against the leaders of the Weimar Republic. After the putsch failed, Raeder was marginalized in the Navy and transferred to the Naval Archives, where for two years he played a leading role in writing the official history of the Navy in the First World War. In that work he analysed cruiser warfare at sea, arguing that the German fleet's passivity in the North Sea had allowed the British to redeploy and destroy the German cruiser squadron at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. According to German sources, this conclusion became an important basis for the judgements he later made as commander-in-chief. Recalled to the centre in 1922 and appointed Inspector of Naval Education, he was promoted to rear admiral and, seeking to shed the republic-hostile right-wing image that had clung to him since the Kapp Putsch, repeatedly professed his allegiance to the Weimar constitution.