Should Germany have built a training carrier first?

Would a merchant conversion have been a better first step toward a German carrier force?

A training conversion could have generated valuable experience, although the proposed Bismarck-Tirpitz trade rests on an unsupported assumption.

The comment proposes a modest conversion in the mid-1930s, followed by a combat carrier informed by operating experience or Japanese practice. Such a ship could have exposed deck-handling, training, and command problems before they were embedded in a large purpose-built carrier. The reply accepts the learning value of that sequence, though it questions the assumption that cancelling Bismarck in favor of Tirpitz would improve the outcome by itself. Carrier experience and a reshuffling of capital-ship names were separate issues.