Kleiner Flugzeugträger

While the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was still under construction, the German Naval Construction department started with design studies for other, smaller carrier. Besides as 12000t carrier (of which only very few information is left), a even smaller design - a 6000t ship - was made.

Called "Kleiner Flugzeugträger" - small aircraft carrier, this ship was only able to carry up do 15 aircraft of the size of a fighter aircraft. Without any armor protection and probably a diesel engine system, the ships would not be able to keep up the speed of other Kriegsmarine surface units, so their military used for the Kriegsmarine was very doubtful. They could be compared with the allied CVEs which were used to protect allied convoys in the North Atlantic in the later years of the war, but since the Kriegsmarine did not depend on such convoys as the allied did, the idea behind this design is questionable.

Only a first design study was made, there were no plans to actually build ships like these.