Extracts from a letter to navy officers (and others) on the background of the navy's armaments ptogram, including the start of the war earlier than expected, the preparations for U-boat construction in the Weimar period, and the navy's role in the occupation of Norway

Commander in Chief of the Navy MPA Nr. 2864g
Berlin, 11 June 1940
SECRET
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The most outstanding of the numerous subjects of discussion in the Officer Corps are the Torpedo position and the problem whether the Naval building programme up to Autumn 1939 envisaged the possibility of the outbreak of war as early as 1939, or whether the emphasis ought not to have been laid from the first on the construction of U-Boats.
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If the opinion is voiced in the Officer Corps that the entire Naval building programme has been wrongly directed and that from the first the emphasis should have been on the U-Boat weapon and after its consolidation, on the large ships, I must emphasize the following matters:
The building up of the fleet was directed according to the political demands, which were decided by the Fuehrer. The Fuehrer hoped until the last moment to be able to put off the threatening conflict with England until 1944/45. At that time the Navy would have had available a fleet with a powerful U-Boat superiority and a much more favourable ratio as regards strength in all other types of ships, particularly those designed for warfare on the high seas.
The development of events forced the Navy—contrary to the expectation even of the Fuehrer—into a war, which it had to accept while still in the initial stage of its rearmament. The result is that those who represent the opinion that the emphasis should have been laid from the start on the building of the U-Boat arm appear to be right. I leave undiscussed, how far this development, quite apart from difficulties of personnel, training
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and dockyards, could have been appreciably improved in any way in view of the political limits of the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. I leave also undiscussed, how the early and necessary creation of an effective Air Force slowed down the desirable development of the other branches of the forces. I indicate however with pride the admirable and, in spite of the political restraints in the years of the Weimar Republic, far-reaching preparation for U-Boat construction, which made the immensely rapid construction of the U-Boat arm both as regards equipment and personnel possible immediately after the assumption of power.
(signed) Raeder