Poseidon shipping company
The Poseidon Reederei is a former German shipping company .
history
On April 17, 1899, the coal import and hard coal briquette factory AG was founded by the merchants August Schwanfelder and Hans Rosenkranz. The purpose of the company was: "... the trade in coal, coke and wood ... also the operation of all businesses falling within the scope of this purpose, as well as commercial transactions of any kind." (Extract from the commercial register). The share capital was 1.25 million Reichsmarks .
In 1919, with the end of the First World War and the associated surrender, Germany had to make its entire fleet available for the purpose of supplying food. This also included changing the crews. In the Versailles Peace Treaty it was regulated that Germany had to deliver all ships with over 1,600 RT and half of the ships with more than 1000 RT as compensation for sunk ships. There were also new buildings of 200,000 RT annually. Only coastal shipping remained exempt from this regulation and could be operated again. In May 1919 Hugo Stinnes took part in the coal import. August Schwanfelder resigned from the board in 1909. After Hugo Stinnes took over in 1920, Hans Rosenkranz also left the company. After taking over the majority of the shares, Fritz Schiewen was appointed chairman.
The Upper Silesian coal reserves were lost to Germany through the Treaty of Versailles . For this reason Hugo Stinnes tried to introduce the Ruhr coal in East Germany. Stinnes also took over two pulp mills in Königsberg . In order to transport the coal for his factories, he proceeded as in his home area: he set up his own fleet. which he subordinated to the branch in Memel , which was founded in 1920 and was closed again five years later for unknown reasons. Kohl-Import AG, as it was now called, KIAG for short, took over the Seeschlepper Treue from partner Hugo Stinnes, Joseph Abelmann, and got it going as a Panther (# 2). From 1921 the German shipowners were able to buy back their delivered ships. This enabled the KIAG fleet to be expanded quickly.
The shipping company left Königsberg due to the war, had to leave behind its valuable property and numerous inland vessels and at the end of 1944 first settled in Nordenham and later in Hamburg at the headquarters of Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt on Jungfernstieg . The administrative headquarters were temporarily in Mülheim an der Ruhr . In addition to the Utgard , two other ships were bought back: the Ernst Hugo Stinnes 11 and the Else Hugo Stinnes 15 . Both ships were renamed in the course of the ship management and sailed as Rhine and Ruhr under the Poseidon flag.
After the Second World War , the KIA / Poseidon shipping companies and the rest of the Stinnes shipping companies took a completely different route. In 1948 the Stinnes family left the AG and kept u. a. the KIA / Poseidon shipping company. This also included the Midgard shipping company based in Nordenham with their tugs. It later expanded into a port management company.
The KIA / Poseidon concentrated on two pillars after the Second World War. 1. North and Baltic Seas and 2. Canada. Wood and other raw materials were brought from Canada and general cargo was taken to Montreal on the way out. The occasional trips gradually turned into a regular scheduled service. The shipping company later expanded its summer liner service to Chicago. The ships such as Poseidon , Transcanada , Transmichigan , Transeuropa , Transatlantic , Transamerica , Transpacific and Transontario were deployed on the Great Lakes in summer and relocated to the New Orleans, Houston, Baton Rouge routes in winter. On the Great Lakes, these ships called at the following ports in the 1960s: Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam and / or Antwerp, Trois Rivieres, Montreal, Toronto, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago. These ships were all general cargo carriers and also had cabins for 12 passengers.
In 1970 Poseidon modernized the fleet to accommodate containerization. Transamerica (2) (# 57) and the Transcanada (2) (# 58) were the last newbuildings for the Great Lakes trade area. In 1973 the chapter Poseidon Great Lakes ended. Until 1999 Poseidon was still active with the new RoPax building Transeuropa on the Baltic Sea. Then the shipping company was sold to Finnlines in Helsinki, so the Poseidon lines were history.
Today the Poseidon-Schifffahrt GmbH is a subsidiary of the Gütercontor Junge & Co. Hamburg, as a service provider in the ship management business. Since 2002, Poseidon has mainly been the manager of the SCOT-8000 class tankers .