Alfred von Tirpitz

German naval officer (1849–1930)

Alfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (German pronunciation: [ˈalfʁeːt fɔn ˈtɪʁpɪt͡s] ; born Alfred Peter Friedrich Tirpitz; 19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral and State Secretary of the German Imperial Naval Office, the administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did any of the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871. Tirpitz took the modest Imperial Navy and, beginning in the 1890s, turned it into a world-class force that could threaten Britain's Royal Navy.

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