TIRPITZ, ALFRED VON

born March 19, 1849, Kstrin, Prussia died March 6, 1930, Ebenhausen, near Munich original name Alfred Tirpitz German admiral, the chief builder of the German Navy in the 17 years preceding World War I and a dominant personality of the emperor William II's reign. He was ennobled in 1900 and attained the rank of admiral in 1903 and that of grand admiral in 1911; he retired in 1916. Additional reading Alfred von Tirpitz, My Memoirs, 2 vol. (1919, reprinted in 1970; originally published in German, 1 vol., 1919), and Politische Dokumente, 2 vol. (192426), were written by Tirpitz to justify himself. Ulrich von Hassell, Tirpitz: sein Leben und Wirken (1920), is the first Tirpitz biography based on family papers. More recent studies of imperial German naval policy include Walther Hubatsch, Die ra Tirpitz (1955), and Der Admiralstab und die obersten Marine behrden in Deutschland, 18481945 (1958); Wilhelm Schssler (ed.), Weltmachtstreben und Flottenbau (1956); Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet (1965, reissued 1992); and Gary E. Weir, Building the Kaiser's Navy: The Imperial Naval Office and German Industry in the von Tirpitz Era, 18901918 (1992).