Ship scrapping campaign from 1932 to 1934
The ship scrapping campaign from 1932 to 1934 was a program by the Papen government to scrap ships , create jobs and reduce excess capacities during the Great Depression .
background
At that time, German shipping had four million GRT of shipping space, half of which was underutilized due to overcapacity and the collapse of demand during the global economic crisis. With the scrapping, part of the overcapacities should be reduced in order to reduce the cost pressure from idle ships and to stop the drop in transport prices, as well as to enable the shipyards to maintain their core of semi-skilled workers.
execution
The German government provided twelve million Reichsmarks for the campaign. Reederei-Treuhand GmbH (RTG) was founded by Hapag and Blohm + Voss to carry this out .
Only ships that met the following conditions were eligible:
- Launched before 1913,
- more than 500 GRT ,
- owned by the shipping company since January 1, 1930 .
The program ran until autumn 1934. A total of 111 ships with almost 404,000 GRT were canceled in the course of the program.
The chairman of the Association of German Shipyards (VDS), William Scholz, spoke of "negative shipbuilding".
See also
literature
- Andreas Meyhoff: Blohm & Voss in the Third Reich . Hamburg 2001, pp. 60-66.