Hamburg America Line

History

Ports served

In the early years, the Hamburg America Line exclusively connected European ports with North American ports, such as Hoboken, New Jersey, or New Orleans, Louisiana. With time, however, the company established lines to all continents. The company built a large ocean liner terminal at Cuxhaven, Germany, in 1900. Connected directly to Hamburg by a dedicated railway line and station, the HAPAG Terminal at Cuxhaven served as the major departure point for German and European immigrants to North America until 1969 when ocean liner travel ceased. Today it serves as a museum and cruise ship terminal.

Atlas Service

The Atlas Service sailed from New York to Jamaica, Haiti, Colombia, Central America. The service was described as a way to "escape the rigors of Northern winters" through taking a Caribbean cruise and was promoted to tourists. The ships Altai, Sarnia, Sibiria, Alleghany, Alene, Adirondack, Valdivia, and Graecia provided this service in 1906.

Notable journeys

In 1858, its liner sank, killing 449 people. In 1891, the cruise of the Augusta Victoria in the Mediterranean and the Near East from 22 January to 22 March, with 241 passengers including Albert Ballin and wife, is often stated to have been the first passenger cruise. Christian Wilhelm Allers published an illustrated account of it as "Bakschisch". In 1897, its steamer Arcadia was wrecked on the rocks off Newfoundland. In 1900, 1901 and 1903 its liner won the Blue Riband taking the prize from the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. In 1906 Prinzessin Victoria Luise ran aground off the coast of Jamaica. No people died by the grounding; however, the ship's captain committed suicide after getting all the passengers safely off the ship. In 1912, its liner SS Amerika was the first ship to warn of icebergs.

HAPAG's general director, Albert Ballin, believed that safety, size, comfort and luxury would always win out over speed. Thus he conceived the three largest liners yet to be built, named , and Bismarck.

First World War

The Imperator and the Vaterland were briefly in service before the First World War. In 1914, the Vaterland was caught in port at Hoboken, New Jersey at the outbreak of World War I and interned by the United States. She was seized, renamed Leviathan after the declaration of war on Germany in 1917, and served for the duration and beyond as a troopship. In 1917, its liner Allemannia was "torpedoed by German submarine near Alicante"; two people were lost.

Postwar reparations

After the war, the Vaterland/Leviathan was retained by the Americans as war reparations. In 1919 Vaterlands sister ships – Imperator and the unfinished Bismarck – were handed over to the allies as war reparations to Britain. They were sold to the Cunard Line and White Star Line respectively, and renamed Berengaria and Majestic. A ship chain in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey is identified by the historic society as belonging to either the Vaterland or Imperator. It was acquired in 1921, likely during refurbishments, and now lines a portion of the Boulevard.

In 1939, the HAPAG liner was unable to find a port in Cuba, the United States, or Canada willing to accept the more than 950 Jewish refugees on board and had to return to Europe. On 9 April 1940, when German warships attacked Kristiansand, Norway, during Operation Weserübung (the opening assault of the Norwegian Campaign), the HAPAG freighter sailed into the crossfire between the warships and Norwegian coastal artillery. She was holed and sunk, and her crew briefly became prisoners of war.

According to a 1940 US intelligence report compiled by the US War Department, Louis Classing, general manager of the Hamburg-America in Havana was identified as a "well-known Nazi agent" who "imported moving pictures for propaganda purposes to be shown at local theaters". In 1941 it was further reported that Luis Classing fulfilled the "finances" position in the "probable Nazi organization in Cuba".

Later years

The Hamburg America Line lost almost the entirety of its fleet twice, as a result of World Wars I and II. In the post-war years, HAPAG rebuilt its fleet and focused on cargo container transport. In 1970, the company merged with its longstanding rival, Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen, to establish the present-day company Hapag-Lloyd. This merger formed one of the world's biggest container shipping companies. In 2008, Hapag-Lloyd was acquired by the City of Hamburg and a group of private investors, the Albert Ballin Consortium.

Fleet list

References

References

1. "Hapag Halle Museum Cuxhaven".
2. "Atlas Line Service – Hamburg-American Line – 1905". GG Archives.
3. (26 May 1897). "The Rescue by Rossmore".
4. "Daily Event for December 16".
5. "S/S Allemannia (3), Hamburg America Line". Norway-Heritage.
6. "Cuba: General Conditions – MID 2056-213 Thru 2056-257 (1 of 2)".
7. "Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois on May 30, 1930".
8. "About Us". Hapag-Lloyd AG.