German mail steamer line
The German mail steamer line was a state-subsidized mail steamer line of the German Empire that existed from 1886 to 1914 .
prehistory
From around 1840 on, steamers were increasingly used in addition to sailing ships for the transport of people and freight on the world's oceans . The big industrial nations and the colonial powers set up mail steamer lines between the continents . The Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actiengesellschaft ( HAPAG ) founded in May 1847, for example , put the 101 m long screw steamer Borussia, built in Great Britain, into operation on its Hamburg - New York line in 1856 . In 1858 mail steamers sailed once a month from Hamburg via Portugal to South America and every fortnight from Hamburg to New York. In 1871, the year the German Empire was founded, mail steamers operated by North German Lloyd (NDL) drove once a week from Bremen via Southampton to New York.
founding
The initiative to set up state-subsidized mail steamer lines after the founding of the Reich went back to the State Secretary in the Reich Post Office Heinrich von Stephan . As part of an export promotion program , the German Reichstag passed a law in 1885 to set up mail steamer lines to Australia and the South Seas . a. also aimed at the intensification of trade with the later German colonies of German New Guinea , German Samoa and Kiautschou . Norddeutsche Lloyd (NDL) in Bremen was awarded the contract.
With this shipping company, the Reich government signed a contract signed by Otto von Bismarck and the founder of the NDL, Hermann Henrich Meier , in July 1885 , according to which the NDL in return for a subsidy of 4,400,000 marks from 1886 initially for fifteen years Mail steamer main lines for traffic with East Asia and Australia should maintain as well as a branch line on the Mediterranean Sea from Trieste via Brindisi to Alexandria .
Routes
For traffic with East Asia, two routes were prescribed for the ferries:
- from Bremerhaven via Antwerp, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Kolombo, Singapore and Hong Kong to Shanghai ,
- a connecting line from Hong Kong via Yokohama, Hiago to a port to be determined from Korea via Nagasaki back to Hong Kong.
The following two routes have been agreed for traffic with Australia:
- from Bremerhaven via Antwerp, Port Said, Suez, Aden, Tschogainseln to Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney , whereby a further journey to Brisbane was released,
- a connecting line from Sydney over the Tonga Islands to Apia ( German Samoa ) and back to Sydney.
On the Australian route, the NDL had to compete not only with foreign shipping companies, but from 1889 also with the German-Australian Steamship Company (DADG), which was founded as a stock corporation in rival Hamburg and whose main shareholder was Deutsche Bank . The DADG ferries ran from Hamburg via Melbourne to Sydney and back.
attitude
The poor earnings situation soon forced the two rival shipping companies to coordinate their activities. Despite the more favorable terms negotiated after a few years and government subsidies, the NDL made losses. When the contract expired in 1914, he therefore planned to discontinue the Australia line. The Reich government, however, advocated the continuation of the Australian line until at least 1917 and therefore approved an increase in the subsidy. The realization of the plan was thwarted by the First World War .
literature
- Author: Title. Publisher, location, year, ISBN.
- Meyers Konversations-Lexikon , 6th edition 1908, Volume 4, keyword 'Steamship'.
- Bodo Hans Moltmann, Walter Kresse (arr.): History of the German merchant shipping. , Verl. Hanseatischer Merkur, Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-922857-02-7 .
- FC van Oosten: Steamers conquer the seas - The beginnings of steam shipping , Oldenburg, Hamburg 1975, ISBN 3-7979-1855-0 .
- Helmut Pemsel : Seeherrschaft - Eine maritime Weltgeschichte , Vol. 2: From steam shipping to the present , Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 1996, ISBN 3-89350-711-6 .
- Susanne Wiborg; Klaus Wiborg: 1847-1997, Our field is the world - 150 years of Hapag-Lloyd , Festschrift published by Hapag-Lloyd AG, Hamburg 1997.