Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft "Hansa"
DDG Hansa house flag
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| Founded | 3 December 1881 |
| Defunct | 1980 |
DDG Hansa, short for Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft Hansa (German Steamship Company Hansa; in modern orthography, Deutsche Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft Hansa) was a major German shipping company specialising in heavy freight and scheduled traffic between Europe and the Far East. Founded in Bremen in 1881, the company declared bankruptcy in 1980.
DDG Hansa was founded on 3 December 1881 at the "constituent general assembly" in Bremen by a consortium of 17 Bremen and 2 Bremerhaven companies, to provide steamship connections for trade with Asia, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean. The first voyage was by SS Stolzenfels from Newcastle to Singapore in February 1882. Regular service began in 1882 with seven ships. Under its first head, Oltmann Johann Dietrich Ahlers, the company withdrew from the Baltic and limited its Mediterranean activities to the Iberian Peninsula, but its affiliate the Asiatische Linie was able to compete well in trade with India by concentrating on the less well served East Coast ports, and the fleet was expanded with newer ships. The two companies merged in 1894 and by 1899 the company had 40 ships. The routes were also expanded, for example to South America in the 1890s. In 1910 Ahlers was succeeded as Chairman of the Board by Hermann Helms (1868–1942). In 1912, diesel power was introduced; in 1914, the line had 66 steamships and one motor-powered ship, and with a total Gross Register Tonnage of 437,789, was the world's largest freight shipping company and the third largest shipping company in Germany.
In World War I the company lost 81 vessels, a total of 437,489 GRT, all but one ship, the Soneck, with which service to Spain resumed in August 1919. Helms, who remained head of the company until 1940, rebuilt the fleet. Service to India resumed in 1920. With a view to meeting the demand for delivery of railway locomotives to British India, Hansa took delivery in 1929 of SS Lichtenfels, the first modern heavy lift ship, with a crane capable of lifting 120 tonnes. Beginning in 1922, the company also began doing increasing business with Persia and the Arab states around the Persian Gulf. 19 ships had to be laid up during the Great Depression of the early 1930s, but after that DDG Hansa expanded once more, to become the largest heavy freight shipping line in the world. At the start of World War II in 1939, the company were operating several lines to India, a monthly service between the US and the Persian Gulf, and a bimonthly service between the US and southern and East Africa.
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