COLONEL GOETHAL'S VISIT
The development of Heligoland and its fortifications as a point of support for small cruisers and torpedo boats—also, later on, for U-boats—was also taken in hand, after the necessary protective work for preserving the island had been constructed by the state—in connection with which work the Empire and Prussia fought like cat and dog.
On account of the growth of the fleet it became necessary to widen the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. After a hard struggle we caused the new locks to be built of the largest possible size, capable of meeting the development of dreadnaughts for a long time to come. There the far-sighted policy of the Admiral was brilliantly vindicated.
This found unexpected corroboration by a foreigner. Colonel Goethals, the builder of the Panama Canal, requested through the United States Government permission to inspect the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal and its new locks. Permission was most willingly granted. After a meal with me, at which Admiral von Tirpitz was present, the Admiral questioned the American engineer (who was enthusiastic over our construction work) concerning the measurements of the Panama locks, whereupon it transpired that the measurements of the locks of the Panama Canal were much smaller than those of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. To my astonished question as to how that could be possible, Goethals replied that the Navy Department, upon inquiry by him, had given those measurements for ships of the line. Admiral von Tirpitz then remarked that this size would be far from adequate for the future, and that the newer type of dreadnaughts and superdreadnaughts would not be able to go through the locks, consequently the canal would soon be useless for American and other big battleships. The Colonel agreed, and remarked that this was already true of the newest ships under construction, and he congratulated His Excellency upon having had the courage to demand and put through the big locks of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, which he had looked upon with admiration and envy.
In like manner the very backward and antiquated Imperial docks [the old tinker's shops, as Tirpitz called them] were rebuilt and developed into model modern plants and the arrangements for the workers were developed so as to further the welfare of the latter along the most approved lines. Only those who, like myself, have followed and seen with their own eyes from the very beginning the origin and development of all these factors necessary to the building up—nay, the creation anew—of the fleet can form anything like a proper idea of the enormous achievement of Admiral von Tirpitz and his entire corps of assistants.
The office of the Imperial Naval Department was also a new creation; the old "Oberkommando" was eliminated when it was divided into the two main branches of Admiralty Staff and Imperial Naval Department. Both of these (as in the army) were directly under the supreme war commander in chief—this meant that there was no longer any official between the Emperor and his navy.