Germany had struggled to build a viable risk fleet even before 1914. Versailles and the subsequent lean decades further reduced yard capacity, experienced designers, constructors, and naval institutional memory. The comparison with Britain's 1930s destroyer programme underlines that rebuilding maritime capacity requires sustained orders, not merely a paper design. H-class ambitions thus depended on restoring generations of people and facilities that could not be recreated by a sudden burst of rearmament spending.
Notable Point · 4:12-6:39
The shipbuilding base Germany had lost
German H-class plans ran into yards, skilled personnel, and institutional knowledge weakened long before the Second World War.