(born March 19, 1849, Küstrin, Prussia—died March 6, 1930, Ebenhausen, near Munich, Ger.) German naval commander. The son of a Prussian civil servant, he enlisted in the Prussian Navy in 1865, attended the Kiel Naval School, and was commissioned in 1869. As commander of a torpedo-boat flotilla, he devised new tactical principles.
Promoted to rear admiral, he commanded a cruiser squadron in East Asia (1896–97). In 1897 he became secretary of state of the imperial navy department and reorganized the German navy into a formidable high-seas fleet. Promoted to grand admiral (1911), he favoured unlimited submarine warfare in World War I, but opposition to his policy led to his resignation in 1916. In 1917 he cofounded the patriotic Fatherland Party.
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