A U-boat advocate at the top of the navy

Dönitz appears to have lacked the breadth required for a chief-of-staff role. The assessment distinguishes a crisis of confidence from a lack of ability and places him in the latter category. His administrative and construction interests were stronger than his strategic judgement. A different navy might therefore have used those talents in a specialist submarine-construction or bureaucratic appointment rather than overall command. One concrete success was moving U-boat production away from Göring's Four Year Plan and into Albert Speer's industrial system. That transfer shows Dönitz's ability to identify who held influence with Hitler and use it for procurement. The passage also places this bureaucratic achievement inside the Nazi war economy and Dönitz's close dealings with Göring and Speer. Political access could increase submarine output without producing a balanced naval strategy or removing the wider moral context of the regime it served.