on board the heavy cruiser
Deutschland, Kiel, 1935 After the war, Carls joined the
freikorps division Marine-Brigade von Loewenfeld, serving as a company commander and battalion commander. In 1922, Carls was transferred to the
Reichsmarine of the newly established
Weimar Republic. From 18 March 1927 onwards Carls served in various positions in the Naval Administration. On 1 October 1930 Carls served as Chief of Staff of the Naval Command, where he became one of Admiral
Erich Raeder's closest aides. Carls was appointed as commander of the pre-dreadnought battleship
Hessen on 27 September 1932. On 3 October 1933 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Fleet. On 29 September 1934 Carls was appointed as Commander of the
Linienschiff, he retained this position after his command was renamed to Commander of the
Panzerschiffe until 24 November 1936. Carls acted as commander of the German naval forces off Spain during the
Spanish Civil War until September 1936. On 2 August 1936, the cruiser
Deutschland and the torpedo boat
Luchs under the command of Carls visited the
Nationalist-held port of
Ceuta. There, Carls had long secret meetings with
Francisco Franco and other Nationalist military chiefs in which procedures for further
German military aid were coordinated. On 19 August 1936, under the leadership of British Rear Admiral
James Somerville, British, Italian, and German warships formed a single squadron to evacuate from the harbour of
Palma de Mallorca after
Republican authorities announced an imminent naval bombardment of that port. The experience prompted Carls to signal to Somerville that "it would be much better if the nations of Europe could cooperate with each other much as their ships have sailed together here." Somerville's reply affirmed that hope. At the end of December 1936, he was appointed as
Flottenchef (
Fleet Commander). On 1 November 1936 Carls took over command of the
Baltic Sea Naval Station. As Fleet Commander, the highest ranking administrative officer of the
Kriegsmarine and member of the
Oberkommando der Marine, Carls was instrumental in drafting Germany's pre-war naval war plans. In a top-secret appraisal of
Adolf Hitler's aggressive foreign policy in the summer of 1938, Carls envisaged German hegemony over Europe, the reestablishment of a
colonial empire in Africa, and the securing of the major Atlantic sea lanes. Specifically, Carls argued, that such a national policy would entail war with France and the Soviet Union as well as with "a large number of overseas states; in other words, perhaps with 1/2 or 2/3 of the entire world." Carls emphasised that this kind of undertaking would be possible only if the military could make a guarantee of strategic success to the politicians. Admiral Erich Raeder viewed Great Britain and the United States as one
Anglo-Saxon ethnic and economic bloc, wherein Great Britain was the "junior" partner. As a result, Raeder and his
Naval War Staff from the start anticipated that any conflict between Berlin and London would once more bring the United States in on the side of Britain. Following war games by the Navy High Command in 1938, Carls expressed scepticism about operations in the depths of Soviet territory. He had the following assessment on a possible conflict with the Soviet Union: "...neither Germany nor Russia is in a position to undertake operations of a decisive scale against the other. German operations into Russia will peter out in the vastness of its territory, while Russian operations against Germany, which I do not consider the Russians presently capable of mounting, would shatter on Germany’s defenses." ==World War II==