Tirpitz and Holtzendorff as competing strategic models

In this interpretation, Tirpitz pursued a Royal Navy in miniature, an ambition that appealed to the Kaiser. Henning von Holtzendorff led a competing school concerned with what Germany needed and how it could achieve it. His support for unrestricted submarine warfare followed from the options available when he took charge. His school is credited with developing influential officers, including Raeder and Dönitz. The claim that almost every major German naval success in the First World War derived from his methods or pupils is an assessment of strategic influence. A deliberately polemical explanation for Tirpitz's greater prominence is that his public failures are more comfortable for British pride than Holtzendorff's effectiveness. Admiration for that effectiveness coexists with criticism of the brutality of Holtzendorff's decisions.