In January 1933, Hitler became the German chancellor. The new government in Germany had inherited a strong negotiating position at Geneva from the previous government of General Kurt von Schleicher. The German strategy was to make idealistic offers of limited rearmament, out of the expectation that all such offers would be rejected by the French, allowing Germany to go on ultimately with the maximum rearmament. The ultra-nationalism of the Nazi regime had alarmed the French, who put the most minimal possible interpretation of German "theoretical equality" in armaments, and thereby played into the German strategy. In October 1933, the Germans again walked out of the conference, stating that everyone else should either disarm to the Versailles level, or allow Germany to rearm beyond Versailles. Though the Germans never had any serious interest in accepting any of the UK's various compromise proposals, in London, the German walk-out was widely, if erroneously, blamed on French "intransigence". The UK Government was left with the conviction that, in the future, opportunities for arms limitation talks with the Germans should not be lost because of French "intransigence". Subsequent offers by the UK to arrange for the German return to the World Disarmament Conference were sabotaged by the Germans putting forward proposals that were meant to appeal to the UK while being unacceptable to the French. On 17 April 1934, the last such effort ended with the French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou's rejection of the latest German offer as unacceptable in the so-called "Barthou note" which ended French participation in the Conference while declaring that France would look after its own security in whatever way was necessary. At the same time, Admiral Erich Raeder of the "Reichsmarine" persuaded Hitler of the advantages of ordering two more "Panzerschiffe", and in 1933 advised the Chancellor that Germany would be best off by 1948 with a fleet of three aircraft carriers, 18 cruisers, eight "Panzerschiffe", 48 destroyers and 74 U-boats. Admiral Raeder argued to Hitler that Germany needed naval parity with France as a minimum goal, whereas Hitler from April 1933 onwards, expressed a desire for a "Reichsmarine" of 33.3% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy.