The Reichsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Weimar Republic and first two years of Nazi Germany. It was the naval branch of the Reichswehr, existing from 1919 to 1935. In 1935, it became known as the Kriegsmarine, a branch of the Wehrmacht; a change implemented by Adolf Hitler. Many of the administrative and organizational tenets of the Reichsmarine were then carried over into the organization of the Kriegsmarine.
The Mürwik Naval School in 1929
Ships of the Reichsmarine on maneuvers in 1929 with a Königsberg-class cruiser on the right
Image: Admiraal Adolf von Trotha
Image: Paul Behncke (1866 1937) (cropped)
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was a historical period of Germany from 9 November 1918 to 23 March 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclaimed itself, as the German Republic. The period's informal name is derived from the city of Weimar, which hosted the constituent assembly that established its government. In English, the republic was usually simply called "Germany", with "Weimar Republic" not commonly used until the 1930s.
Sailors during the mutiny in Kiel, November 1918
Philipp Scheidemann addresses a crowd from a window of the Reich Chancellery, 9 November 1918.
Official postcard of the National Assembly
Crowds in Berlin watching the Marinebrigade Ehrhardt march in under the imperial war ensign during the Kapp Putsch