Atlas Levante Line
The Atlas Levante Line AG (ALL) was an existing 1935-1967 liner shipping company in Bremen .
history
In maritime shipping, the " Levant " is the name given to the countries of the eastern Mediterranean, although geographically incorrect.
The leading shipping company in maritime trade between Germany and the Levant region since 1890, Deutsche Levante-Linie AG (DLL), owned a majority of the two major German shipping companies, the Hamburg-Amerika-Linie , and Norddeutscher Lloyd . In the course of 1934, the German Reich drew up a restructuring plan aimed at unbundling and concentrating the tasks of the German liner shipping companies. For this purpose, the Reich acquired a majority stake in the Hamburg-America Line and in North German Lloyd. Up to November 9, 1934, corresponding contracts had also been negotiated with the German Africa Lines and Hamburg-Süd. The spin-off took place with the founding of the new Deutsche Levante-Linie Hamburg AG with equity of 4 million Reichsmarks on July 5, 1935 in Hamburg, as well as the Atlas Levante-Linie AG (ALL) with equity of 2.3 million Reichsmarks on 26. July of the same year in Bremen ended. The German Levante Line took over the ships of Hapag and the Atlas Levante Line took over the ships of the North German Lloyd. That means that Bremen started with a fleet of eleven ships, which was expanded to fourteen by the time the war took place. Both shipping companies signed a pool agreement and founded Deutsche Levante-Linie GmbH, in which DLL held two thirds and ALL one third. Several successful years followed until the war broke out again and as early as 1935/36, for example, the Deutsche Levante-Linie Hamburg increased its equity capital by 1.5 million Reichsmarks.
Second World War
With the outbreak of World War II, many ships were lost or were drafted into the Navy. The auxiliary cruiser Stier deserves special mention here . Although the Atlas Levante Line continued to operate during the war, it became increasingly difficult to do business. In 1942 the ownership of ALL changed. The ALL dissolved its personal union with the Argo shipping company . During the Second World War, a number of the ALL ships were lost. At the end of the war, some remaining ships were involved in rescuing refugees from the advancing Red Army from the former eastern regions.
post war period
After the war, the Atlas Levante Line had to deliver the remainder of the ALL ships. The office rooms and the remains of the fixed assets remained. The shipping company, which left the pool in 1945, was initially involved in fishing. After the currency reform in 1949, the company's share capital was set at three million DM and, from 1950, the company operated alone. Thanks to a policy of rapprochement with the former competitors, good business could be done until the mid-1950s. The DLL fleet was also slowly rebuilt, followed by an economic crisis for ALL. In this context, the DDG "Hansa" took over the majority of shares in the Atlas Levante line in 1959. In 1962, however, the Atlas Levante Line became part of the Middle East Community (NOGEM or NOG). In 1965 it was converted into a GmbH and thus the temporary end as a stock corporation. Another two years later, ALL was finally taken over by the Hamburg Süd Group, which transferred the shipping company to Hamburg and also discontinued the name Atlas Levante-Linie.
Web links
- The Atlas Levante Line at Dieter Engel
- The German Levante line on The Ships List (English)
- Early documents and newspaper articles on the Atlas Levante Line in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
literature
- Stegemann, Richard: 50 years of the German Levante Voyage . 1889-1939. Ed .: German Levante Line. Self-published, Hamburg 1939.
- Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: Course Levante . German line trip to the eastern Mediterranean. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1989, ISBN 3-7822-0454-9 .
- Thiel, Reinhold: Atlas Levante Line . 100 years of Bremische Maritime Shipping. Hauschild, Bremen 1994, ISBN 3-929902-14-1 .