With the huge success of the Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber in the early days of World War II (the Battle of Britain did not yet happened at this time), it is no big surprise that the "Stuka" was selected as the primary dive bombers to be used on German aircraft carriers.

The Junkers Ju 87C-1 was an adapted version of the Junkers Ju 87B-1 which was build between 1938 and 1940. While engine and armament were the same as in the land based version of this famous dive bomber, several enhancements had to be made to adapt it to a carrier bases aircraft.  In addition to a more massive fuselage, storable wings and an arrestor hook, the landing gear could be dropped for emergency landings in the ocean.

At least one Prototype of the Ju 87C-0 was completed and several others were under construction when the construction of the Graf Zeppelin was stopped. Those planes were later rebuild to the Ju87B standard.

When it was considered to complete the Graf Zeppelin , the C Model of the Ju 87 was already obsolete at this time. Therefore, the Ju87D was chosen as the new carrier bomber, in the role of the dive bomber and as a torpedo bomber. It was projected to make the same modifications to the original Luftwaffe design as it was previously done in case of the Ju87C, but none of those aircraft was ever completed.