Albert Ballin
| Albert Ballin | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
15 August 1857 Hamburg, German Confederation |
| Died | 9 November 1918 (aged 61) Hamburg, German Empire |
| Occupation | Owner and manager of the Hamburg America Line |
Albert Ballin (15 August 1857 – 9 November 1918) was a German shipping magnate, who was the general director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) or Hamburg-America Line, at times the world's largest shipping company. Being the inventor of the concept of the cruise ship, he is known as the father of modern cruise ship travel.
The SS Auguste Viktoria, named after the German Empress Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, was the first modern cruise ship in the world. She sailed on May 10, 1889 from Hamburg to New York City via Southampton. Two years later, she went on the world's first Mediterranean cruise.
In 1901, Ballin built the Emigration Halls on the Hamburg island of Veddel to accommodate the many thousands of people from all over Europe who arrived at the Port of Hamburg every week to emigrate to North and South America on his company's ships. The island is now the BallinStadt Museum. In 1913, HAPAG owned three of the world's biggest cruise liners but they were all seized as part of the war reparations. Facing the loss of his company's ships after World War I, Ballin committed suicide in Hamburg in 1918 two days before the end of World War I. World War II once again led to the company's loss of ocean-going ships and global market positions.
In the post-war years, HAPAG rebuilt its fleet and focused on cargo container transport. In 1970, the container shipping companies HAPAG and North German Lloyd (NGL) merged into Hapag-Lloyd AG to form 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 so-called Albert Ballin Consortium.
His father was part owner of an emigration agency that arranged passages to the United States, and when he died in 1874, young Albert took over the business. He developed it into an independent shipping line, saving costs by carrying cargo on the return trip from the US. This brought him to the attention of the Hamburg America Line; the line hired him in 1886, and made him general director in 1899.
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