Throughout a large part of the war, Germany possessed a high degree of technical advancement in the field of marine mines, but never fully exploited it. A number of fac-tors prevented the German mines from reaching their point of potential destructiveness against the Allies. At first the Navy placed little importance upon them; subsequent inter-service rivalries seriously impaired their effectivenes; and, in the latter stages of the war, shortages curtailed operations. In addition, miscalculations at several points marred the program.

At the beginning of the war, the German Navy emphasized guns and torpedoes. Apart from a small group of specialists, it was not interrested in mines. Even the specialists be-lieved that while mines, intelligentyl used, could be powerful weapons, they were verly likely to be discredited by injudicious use. This liability to fortuitous rise and fall in the stock may well have contributed to deprive mine development of the consistent direction and drive to be seen in German torpedo development.

Mining suffered consistently from its subordinate standing. No one in the Navy held operational control over mining; no one in the Mining Command possessed sufficient drive and grasp to present the case for mining with enough force before the High Command. As a result, the direction of mine warfare failed to rise above its second-rate position.

The weakness of the Mining Command was readily apparent in operations. The decen-tralization of control over operations and operation policy contasted markedly with the highly centralized control the Mining Command held over materials. The German Navy had no specially built, high-speed minelaying vessels capable of large-quantity plants. Although Schnell boats, submarines, destroyers, cruisers, and certain merchantmen were fitted for minelaying, none of these vessels was ever available in sufficient number of combination to meet the strategic requirements of the mine group.

Because mine priority was disproprotiomately lower than that of torpedoes, too few submarines were assigned to minelaying in American waters. As a result, there were no effective minefields in the western Atlantic to disrupt coastwise shipping and convoys to Europe.

The field commanders persisted in laying only those mines designed to sink merchant tonnage, since such sinking made better press-release material and created higher mo-rale than did the sinking of small mine-sweeping vessels. Pressure from the High Comm-and finally resulted in a change of policy, but by then it was too late.

The greatest weakness in the mining program was the lack of cooperation between the Navy and the Luftwaffe, and on a lesser scale between the Navy and the Army. The Luftwaffe insisted upon its own independence, and the Naval Mining Section (1 Skl) had no jurisdiction over its minelaying activities. The Navy maintained that every minelaying operation was a naval operation. Accordingly they tried to influence policy, although they could not exercise control; but even in this they had little success.

After the collapse of France, when the Navy came to the view that an effective sea-blockade of England would bring her to her knees, the Luftwaffe continued to use bombs, the results of which were tangible and of greater propaganda value. Admiral Müller declared, "Göring was interested in showing Hilter and the German people pictures of bombed and burning English cities, and was not content with the invisible and often im-measurable results of Naval Mine Warfare."

At the same time, the Luftwaffe preempted much of the Navy's jurisdiction over both operation and production. The pre-war plan had been for aircraft minelaying to be con-fined to estuaries and such coastal waters as could not ne reached by surface craft or submarines. One Luftwaffe formation based in northwest Germany and cooperating with the Fleet was to carry out all aircraft laying. The exclusion of German naval forces from British waters led the Luftwaffe to extend its area of operation, and the plan quickly broke down. In its minelaying it so completely ignored the Navy that it prematurely laid two new types of mine before they were ready in large numbers, and thus helped des-troy their surprise effect.

Interservive politics undoubtedly had their part in the decision of the Luftwaffe, taken about the beginning of the war, to develop its own bomb-mine to replace the Navy para-chute mine. The Luftwaffe placed an order for the first bomb-mine without any known-ledge of the principles of that type of mining, and with the sole specification that it be of the same size and shape as a bomb. The tactical considerations behind  the descision were no doubt sound enough, but, at the time, the Luftwaffe had no technical staff of its own which was sufficiently versed in mining problems to obtain a balanced solution.

When the Luftwaffe undertook mining developments, available experimental and test-ing facilities were very small and temporarily makeshift. The only equipment available was some generally used for torpedo work at Travemünde. Adjoining was an airfield originally used for experimental work with sea-planes. Subsequently a testing station for mines was constructed, and changes made in personnel.

At the time developments began at Travemünde, the staff had no experience with mines. The original suggestion to transfer trained personnel from the Navy was rejected, and it took some time to train the necessary staff and initiate testing and development on the requisite scale. Finally, after much argument, an officier with mine experience was assigned to the station in 1943. Later a strong technical staff and considerable develop-ment resources, mainly in industry, were built up.

Ultimately the Luftwaffe put much effort into the design of firing systems and corres-ponding modifications of the BM (bomb mine). Nevertheless, the BM was more restricted in its condition of drop than the Navy LM (parachute mine). With the explosion of the pressure unit, which was a special case, the Navy had already produced all essentially new firing systems, and installed them in the LM.

When production work started on the pressure mine, the Luftwaffe and the Navy dis-agreed on principles and design. As a result, both services manufactured their own ver-sions. Later, when the unit was ready for laying, the services again disagreed on its use in combination with other units. The Navy insisted on combining it with the magnetic unit, while the Luftwaffe preferred its use with an acoustic unit.

The Navy seldom attended trials of new devices at Travemünde, but it did receive completed specimens, sent for information and suggestions.

While the war lasted, the diversion of effort involved in the dual development contin-ued. Luftwaffe Colonel Rommel complained that the naval system was far too rigid to get results quickly. Since the Luftwaffe did not get them any quicker, the view of German naval officiers that the separation was thoroughly undesirable, seems to be sound.

To a lesser extent, the same sort of division existed between the Navy and the Army. Although the Navy was responsible for harbor security and control mines, they had no cognizance of any over-all beach defense mining planes developed by the Army. Coastal defense and anti-invasion matters were under the jurisdiction of area commanders. Mines intended for use against river shipping, against bridges, and for anti-invasion purposes were extremely simple to manufacture, and therefore produced and procured locally by area commanders. The Navy was seldom informed about such improvisations, and belie-ved that in closer coorperation with the Army better results might have been obtained.