Admiral von Spee and a lost cruiser influence

Maximilian von Spee might have shaped German cruiser policy had his East Asia Squadron somehow returned to Germany after Coronel without being destroyed at the Falklands. Such a return would have carried enormous prestige and could have brought promotion to senior fleet command. More importantly for cruiser policy, von Spee would have remained an influential specialist during the Reichsmarine's formative years. The counterfactual introduces an institutional question: Germany possessed a strong cruiser tradition before 1914 but failed to turn that experience into a coherent interwar program.