Though handy to have, the Graf Zeppelin by herself would have added little to the weak navy of the Third Reich. If she had completed on time, perhaps she could have sortied with Bismarck and Prinz Eugen and fended off the crucial air attack that crippled the Bismarck and led to her demise. The Graf Zeppelin languished with half-hearted effort to build her, and she was never completed. Germany's second-in-command, Hermann Göring, was the architect of the world's most powerful and advanced Air Force, but he sadly neglected his Naval Air Arm. The real Graf Zeppelin (19,000 tons standard) was launched with much fanfare in 1938, heralding a potential new era of the Kriegsmarine that included a Fleet air component to bring it up to the standards of the world's air-minded navies.
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