An excellent article by Michael Emmerich which gives a different picture of the wars from British sources

World War One (A German point of View) - The Hochseeflotte

In the years before World War I Germany initiated a major fleet building program to enlarge its fleet - the Hochseeflotte - to a size nearly as powerful as the Royal Navy, the most powerful fleet in the world. Although the initial reason for creating this huge fleet was to protect German overseas trade, a lesson learned in several wars against Denmark in the 19th century, the key naval strategy in World War I was focused in one single decisive naval battle between the Hochseeflotte and the Royal Navy. It finally took place in 1916, the Battle of Jutland (or the Battle of Skagerak as it is called in Germany).

This biggest battle between battleships ever was a tactical German victory, but it did not change the strategic situation for the Hochseeflotte: Locked up in the North Sea by a British blockade, the German ships were limited to operate in North and Baltic Sea only and could not support the few ships operating outside of Europe.

(Interesting view as the British see the Battle of Jutland as a victory for them, as the Germans losses reduced their fleet considerably, the British Fleet, already the world's largest suffered relatively few casualties from their massive fleet, they could afford the losses, the Germans could not).

Besides the Battle of Jutland the two sides only had a few encounters between their capital ships - the battlecruiser battle at the Doggerbank and the battles of the East Asia squadron at Coronell and the Falklands. The few small cruisers operating in the Pacific or Indian Ocean could operate successful for a short time, but due to the lack of resupplies and reinforcements from Germany, it was only a matter of time until they would be hunted and destroyed.

In the final months of the war, political unrest among the crews made operations of most ships nearly impossible and the final fate of the fleet was quite unique: After the war almost the complete fleet was interned in Scapa Flow and in June 1919 all ships were scuttled by their own crews. Only a few could be prevented from sinking and several were raised in the 1930s and broke down, but many ships still rest on the ground of Scapa Flow today.
 

World War Two (A German point of view) - The Kreigsmarine

When World War II started in September 1939, the German Kriegsmarine was not prepared to challenge the allied naval forces. Unlike the other arms of the German military, the naval construction plan (Z-Plan) had only started a few months before. Therefore the number and strength of available ships was not adequate for the needs of a major war.

In the years before the war, the Kriegsmarine believed that any military confrontation in the near future would not be against Great Britain again, Poland and France were seen as possible enemies and the naval construction was directed to with this possible enemies in mind. A possible confrontation with one of the major sea powers was not believed before the mid or late 1940, at a time where the Z-Plan should have been completed. As it got obvious that tensions with Great Britain started to rise in 1938, the fear of a military confrontation with Great Britain caused the increased speed of the introduction of the naval construction program. But even at this time, the Kriegsmarine still believed that a war with England was several years away.

In the early years, the Kriegsmarine archived some remarkable results, like the invasion of Norway and the destruction of several major British ships, but this lucky time ended with the sinking of the battleship Bismark in May 1941. From this time, the major surface units were not used in such an offensive way as before, now the small number of operational ships made every loss more important.

The German U-boats could continue their successful operations until May 1943 - the technological advance of the allied forces made U-boat operations almost impossible then.

At the end of the war, only two of the major Kriegsmarine ships were still operational, all other were sunk, either during their operations or destroyed during the last months and weeks of the war in their bases.
 
 C) Michael Emmerich,1998,1999

http://www.german-navy.de/index.htm