Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL; lit. North German Lloyd) was a German shipping company. It was founded by Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann in Bremen on 20 February 1857. It developed into one of the most important German shipping companies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was instrumental in the economic development of Bremen and Bremerhaven. On 1 September 1970, the company merged with Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
History
Establishment of the NDL
1857 NDL prospectus announcing formation of the company and offering stock for sale
The German shipping company North German Lloyd (NDL) was founded by the Bremen merchants Hermann Henrich Meier and Eduard Crüsemann on 20 February 1857, after the dissolution of the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, a joint German-American enterprise.[1][2][3][4][5] The new shipping company had no direct association with the British maritime classification societyLloyd's Register; by the mid-19th century, "Lloyd" was used as a term for a shipping company[6] (an earlier user of the term in the same context was the Trieste-based Österreichischer Lloyd, originally intended to be modelled on Lloyd's of London).
H. H. Meier became NDL's first chairman of the supervisory board, and Crüsemann became the first director of the company (GermanAktiengesellschaft – AG). Crüsemann was in charge of both cargo services and passenger transport, which, as a result of emigration, was growing significantly. The company was also active in other areas, including tugboats, bathing, insurance, and ship repair (the last of which it still provides). The first office of the shipping company was located at number 13 Martinistraße in Bremen.
The company started with a route to England prior to starting a transatlantic service. In 1857, the first ship, the Adler (Eagle), began regular passenger service between the Weser region (where Bremen is located) and England. On 28 October 1857, it made its maiden voyage from Nordenham to London.[7]
Just one year later, regular, scheduled services were started between the new port in Bremerhaven and New York using two 2,674 GRT steamships, Bremen and New York. International economic crises made the start of the NDL extremely difficult, and the company took losses until 1859.[7] In the succeeding years, passenger connections to Baltimore and New Orleans were added to the schedule, and the company first rented and then in 1869 bought facilities on the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey.[8]
In 1867–1868, NDL began a partnership with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which initiated the Baltimore Line; until 1978, this had its own ships. In 1869, Crüsemann died at only 43 years old. From 1877 to 1892, the director of NDL was Johann Georg Lohmann. He established a new policy for the company, emphasizing fast liners. Eventually H. H. Meier and Lohmann fell out over the direction of the company. In 1892, a 5,481 GRT twin-screw steamship, the company's first, was christened the H.H. Meier after the founder;[9] this helped to heal the breach between them.[10]
Foundation of the German Empire
Headquarters of North German Lloyd in Bremerhaven in 1870
During the Gründerzeit at the beginning of the German Empire, the NDL expanded greatly. Thirteen new ships of the "Strassburg class" were ordered. A route to the West Indies offered from 1871 to 1874 proved unprofitable, but was followed by a permanent line to the east coast of South America. On the transatlantic route, the HAPAG, the Holland-America Line, and the Red Star Line were now all fierce rivals. Beginning in 1881 with Elbe, eleven fast steamships of from 4500 to 6,900 GRT of the so-called "Rivers-class" (all named for German rivers), were introduced to serve the North Atlantic trade.[11]
In 1885, the NDL won the commission to provide postal service between the German Empire and Australia and the Far East.[12] The associated subsidy underwrote further expansion, beginning with the first large-scale order placed with a German shipyard, for three mail steamships for the major routes and three smaller steamships for branch service from AG Vulcan Stettin. It was in fact a requirement of the commission that the ships be built in Germany.
By 1890, with 66 ships of a total 251,602 GRT, NDL was the second largest shipping company in the world, after the British Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with 48 ships of a total 251,603 GRT, and dominated shipping to Germany, with 31.6% of the traffic. NDL was also carrying more transatlantic passengers to New York than any other company, due to its dominance in steerage, which consisted mostly of immigrants. In cabin class, it carried only slightly more passengers than the British Cunard Line and White Star Line. 42% of NDL's passenger traffic was to New York, and 15% to other US ports, but only 16.2% eastward-bound from New York. Its westbound South Atlantic service represented 17.3% of its passengers; eastbound from South America, only 1.7%.
In 1887, the NDL withdrew from the route to England in favor of Argo Reederei, but continued to provide tug services through participation beginning in 1899 in the Schleppschifffahrtsgesellschaft Unterweser (Unterweser Tug Association, now Unterweser Reederei).[13]
Bond of the Norddeutscher Lloyd, issued 1 March 1908
H. H. Meyer stood down from the board in 1888; he was succeeded by Friedrich Reck. Johann Georg Lohmann became director of the company; following his death in 1892, Reck stepped down and Georg Plate became chairman. The lawyer Heinrich Wiegand became Director; from 1899 onwards, his title was Director General. He held this position until 1909,[7] and presided over appreciable expansion.
In 1897, with the commissioning of Kaiser Wilhelm der Große, the NDL finally had a major ship for the North Atlantic. This was the largest and fastest ship in the world, and the company benefited from the reputation advantage of the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing, with an average speed of 22.3 knots. Between 1897 and 1907, the line followed with three further twin-screw and four-funnel steamships of the Kaiser-class, of 14,000 GRT to 19,000 GRT: SS Kronprinz Wilhelm, SS Kaiser Wilhelm II and SS Kronprinzessin Cecilie. With these the company offered a regular service across the Atlantic to its docks at Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York. On June 30, 1900 over 300 Dock workers and people were killed in a fire at the Hoboken docks.
North Germany Lloyd's docks in Hoboken, 1909
So began the "decade of Germans" in transatlantic shipping, in which the NDL and the HAPAG dominated the routes with several record-breaking ships and vied with the British Cunard Line and the White Star Line as the largest shipping companies in the world. In 1902 and 1904, two NDL ships again won the Blue Riband: Kronprinz Wilhelm, now with an average speed of 23.09 kn (42.76 km/h) for the westbound passage from Cherbourg to New York and Kaiser Wilhelm II at 23.58 kn (27.14 mph; 43.67 km/h) on the eastbound passage. In 1907, RMS Lusitania, and then in 1909, RMS Mauretania, both of the British Cunard Line, won the Blue Riband back for the British, and Mauretania then retained it until 1929.[7]
Between 1894 and 1908, NDL ordered many other freight and passenger steamships from several German yards. These included the Barbarossa-class (mode than 10,000 GRT, for Australia, the Far East, and the North Atlantic) and the Generals class (about 8,500 GRT, for the Far East and Australia).
Beginning in 1899, the NDL expanded into the Pacific, acquiring the entire fleets of two small British lines, the Scottish Oriental Steamship Company and the Holt East Indian Ocean Steamship Company, and setting up between 14 and 16 passenger and freight routes in conjunction with the postal service.[14] In 1900, 14 of NDL's passenger ships were requisitioned as troop transports due to the Boxer Rebellion in China; on 27 July, Kaiser Wilhelm II delivered his infamous Hun speech, in which he compared the military of the German Empire to the Huns, at the departure ceremony for the SS Friedrich Der Grosse.[15][16] This inspired Britain later, when they seized a number of German ships, to rename them to names beginning with "Hun", such as "Huntsgreen" and "Huntsend".[citation needed] In German, these ships were collectively named "Hunnendampfer" (Huns' steamers).[17]
At the beginning of the 20th century, the U.S. banking magnate J. P. Morgan began to acquire a number of shipping companies, including the White Star Line, the Leyland Line, and the Red Star Line, to build a transatlantic monopoly. He succeeded in signing both HAPAG and NDL to an alliance, but was unable to acquire the British Cunard Line, and the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT).[18] HAPAG and NDL gave Morgan the largest U.S. rail company, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and so Morgan offered to divide the market. The Holland-America Line and the Red Star Line together divided a contract for the passengers of the four companies. Ruinous competition was prevented. In 1912, the Morgan Agreement was terminated.[19]
In 1907, the Norddeutscher Lloyd's fiftieth anniversary, it had 93 vessels, 51 smaller vessels, two sail training vessels and other river steamers. NDL had around 15,000 employees. Because of the high investment costs and an international economic crisis, the shipping company celebrated at this time but also had considerable financial difficulties.[20]
NDL headquarters building, built in 1907–10
Despite the financial difficulties, between 1907 and 1910 the company built a new headquarters on Papenburgstrasse in Bremen, the prestigious NDL Building to plans by architect Johann Poppe, who was also the lead interior designer for the company's liners. The building, the largest in the city at the time, was in eclectic Renaissance Revival style with a tower. It was sold in 1942 to Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau and when the company was broken up into its constituent parts after World War II, passed to AG Weser. The building had been severely damaged by bombing and was demolished and a Horten department store built on the site in 1969. The adjacent new shopping mall bears the name Lloyd Passage.[21]
The lucrative North Atlantic route was extremely competitive in this period, with new, attractive ships from other large companies including the RMS Lusitania, Mauretania, and Aquitania, of the Cunard Line, and the RMS Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic of the White Star Line. The HAPAG introduced three new vessels of the Imperator class, Imperator, Vaterland, and Bismarck, with a size of 50,000 GRT. The NDL responded with smaller but prestigious vessels such as Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm and George Washington, and transferred Berlin from Mediterranean service to the New York run. Finally in 1914 the company ordered two 33,000 GRT liners of the Columbus-class; World War I prevented their completion.[22]
In this era of "open borders" to transatlantic travel, the largest passenger group making the transatlantic crossing were immigrants from Europe to the United States, and NDL carried more than any other steamship line.[23] During 1900–1914, the three NDL vessels carrying the most transatlantic migrants, Rhein, Main and Neckar, each brought over 100 thousand steerage passengers to New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia.[24] The economic downturn following the Panic of 1907 led to a sharp fall-off of migrant traffic to America, only partially offset by increased steerage flows back to Europe, and this was the main contributing factor to "one of the blackest years in the Company's history."[25]
In 1914, NDL employed approximately 22,000 people. Its success thus directly influenced the rapid growth of the city of Bremerhaven, which had been founded only in 1827.
Director General Dr. Wiegand died in 1909, and was succeeded by Director Phillip Heineken until 1920.[26][27]
NDL's routes around 1907
Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm of 1907Columbus of 1914Zeppelin of 1915
This is a list of routes served by NDL in 1907.[28]
Europe – America
Bremerhaven – New York
Bremerhaven – Baltimore
Bremerhaven – Savannah
Bremerhaven – Galveston
Bremerhaven – Cuba
Bremerhaven – La Plata ports
Bremerhaven – Brazil
Genoa – New York
Mediterranean
Marseilles – Alexandria
Europe – Asia/Australia
Bremerhaven – East Asia
Bremerhaven – Australia
Asia / Australia (including coastal routes)
Hong Kong – Japan – New Guinea
Hong Kong – Bangkok
Hong Kong – Bangkok (via Singapore)
Hong Kong Straits
Hong Kong – South Philippines
Penang – Deli
Deli – Singapore
Singapore – Bangkok
Singapore – South Philippines
Singapore – Moluccas (on Borneo)
Singapore – Moluccas (on Celebes)
Shanghai – Hankow
Australia – Japan – Manila – Hong Kong
German coast
Daytrip service on the Baltic coast
Tug service Bremen – Hamburg and Bremen – Bremerhaven
Passenger shipping Bremen – Bremerhaven
World War I
The second Columbus of 1924
For NDL as a civilian shipping line, the beginning of World War I was a trial, as well as a logistical challenge because a large part of the fleet was at sea around the world. However, most ships were able to reach neutral ports. The logistical operations of NDL in Bremerhaven were placed almost exclusively at the service of the German Navy.[29] NDL owned a majority interest in the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei ("German Ocean Shipping Service"), which used U-boats for trade and made some successful Atlantic crossings.
Post war
At the start of the war, the NDL's fleet totaled more than 900,000 GRT. Under the Treaty of Versailles at war's end, all ships over 1,600 GRT and half of all units from 100 to 1,600 GRT were confiscated.[30] The United States had already confiscated in 1917 the facilities in Hoboken and the NDL ships at the dock there. The prewar NDL fleet no longer existed.[29] The company was left with some small ships totalling 57,000 GRT. With these the company restarted daytrip passenger service, tug service, and freight service in 1919. The 'flagship' was the 781-ton Grüß Gott.[31] From 1920 to 1939, NDL participated in the Seedienst Ostpreußen passenger and goods service to East Prussia.
In 1920, an air transport subsidiary was founded and soon merged with Sablatnig Flugzeugbau GmbH to form Lloyd Luftverkehr Sablatnig. In 1923 this combined with HAPAG's air transport subsidiary to form Deutscher Aero Lloyd, which on 6 January 1926 merged with Junkers Luftverkehr AG to become Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G., the predecessor of Lufthansa.
In August 1920, the NDL made an agency agreement with the U.S. Mail Steamship Co. (beginning in 1921, United States Lines). This made it possible to resume transatlantic service from Bremerhaven to New York with the former Rhein, now sailing under the US flag as the Susquehanna.[32] The unfinished Columbus had been awarded to Great Britain after the war and was bought in 1920 by White Star, which had lost significant tonnage in the war and also wished to make up for the pre-war loss of the Titanic. Work at Danzig proceeded very slowly. Finally in autumn 1921 the so-called Columbus Agreement was reached, under which the German government and NDL undertook to facilitate rapid completion of the Columbus in exchange for the British government returning ownership to the NDL of six smaller ships which had spent the war years in South America: the mail steamships Seydlitz and Yorck, the Gotha, and the cargo ships Göttingen, Westfalen and Holstein.[33] The company also began to build new freighters and passenger ships and to buy back other ships.[34] In late 1921, service to South America was resumed with the Seydlitz, and in early 1922, East Asian service with the Westfalen. On 12 February 1922, service to New York with NDL's own ships resumed with Seydlitz.[35] The other ship of the Columbus class, the 32,354 GRT former Hindenburg, was completed in 1924 and named Columbus; she was placed in scheduled transatlantic passenger service.
Flagships of North German Lloyd in 1930 – Bremen and Europa, the biggest German liners
A brief post-war boom was followed by severe inflation in Germany, despite which NDL continued to expand their fleet. Twelve new ships of between 8,700 and 11,400 GRT were placed in service for South and Central America and the Far East, then in addition to Columbus three new ships of between 13,000 and 15,000 GRT for the North Atlantic (the München, Stuttgart and Berlin), and in 1927 the former Zeppelin was bought back from Great Britain and placed in service as the Dresden.[36]
In 1920, Carl Stimming became director general of NDL, while his predecessor Heineken became chairman of the board. Between 1925 and 1928, the company acquired a number of German shipping companies: HABAL, the Roland Line, and Argo.[37][38] The acquisition of the Roland Line brought Ernst Glässel onto the board of directors, where he was to have increasing influence. In 1926, the company were once more able to pay a dividend. American credit financed continuing expansion and orders for new ships.
In 1929 and 1930, the company put its two largest ships in service, Bremen (51,656 GRT) and Europa (49,746 GRT). With an average speed of about 27.9 knots (51.7 km/h), both were to take the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossings.[29] In 1929, Columbus was completely refitted.
From 1928 to 1939, the volume of passengers travelling between the US and Europe declined sharply. In 1928, the NDL transported about 8% of a passenger volume of 1,168,414 passengers; in 1932, 16.2% of the 751,592 passengers transported; in 1938, around 11% of 685,655 passengers. In addition, there was significant new competition from new Italian, French and British superliners: the Italian Rex (51,062 GRT) and Conte di Savoia (48,502 GRT), the French Normandie (79,280 GRT), and the British Queen Mary (80,744 GRT).[39]
General von Steuben of 1923
The 1929 economic crisis which began in the US affected the German shipping companies. The NDL and the HAPAG therefore entered into a cooperation agreement in 1930, and beginning in 1935, instituted joint operations in the North Atlantic.[40] The first signs of a merger were visible. By 1932, the NDL was in an economic crisis, with about 5,000 employees let go, salary cuts, and red ink. Glässel was dismissed. The government placed both NDL and HAPAG in trusteeship under Siegfried von Roedern, and following the death of Stimming, Heinrich F. Albert briefly became head of the NDL, followed after some eighteen months by the National SocialistRudolph Firle.[41][42] Bremen State Councillor Karl Lindemann was chairman of the board from 1933 to 1945.[43] A programme of economic recovery by divestments and restructuring was initiated. HBAL and the Roland Line became independent companies once more, and other lines took over services to Africa and the Mediterranean. The Nazi regime ordered both NDL and HAPAG to relinquish ships to other lines which were to operate in their regions without competition from other German companies, in particular to Hamburg Süd, the Deutsche Afrika-Linien and the Deutsche Levante Linie.[44]
In 1935, the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Potsdam, each with about 18,000 GRT, were placed in service for the Far East. The modernization of the fleet continued and in 1937 the line made modest profits.
In 1939 the Erlangen slipped out of Lyttelton Harbour (New Zealand) on 28 August, on the eve of World War II, ostensibly for Port Kembla, New South Wales, where she was to have filled her coal bunkers for the homeward passage to Europe. She then headed for the subantarctic Auckland Islands, where she successfully evaded the cruiser HMNZS Leander, and re-stocked with food and wood. The freighter then made a desperate and successful escape, using jury-rigged sails, to Valparaíso, Chile, in South America. She then made her way into the South Atlantic where, on 24 July 1941, she was intercepted off Montevideo by HMS Newcastle and scuttled by her crew.[45]
In 1939 NDL had in service 70 vessels with a total of 562,371 GRT, including the sail training vessel Kommodore Johnsen (now the Russian STS Sedov), 3 daytrip ships, 19 tugs and 125 small ships, and employed 12,255, 8,811 on vessels. Nine further freighters were completed after the outbreak of World War II. This entire fleet was either lost during the war or awarded to the Allies as reparations. Columbus had to be sunk in 1939; Bremen burned in 1941; Steuben was sunk in the Baltic in 1945 with the loss of some 4,000 lives; Europa, claimed by France, became the Liberté in 1947.[29]
The Reich was the primary stockholder in the company, but in 1941/42, NDL was once more privatized and cigarette manufacturer Philipp Reemtsma became primary stockholder.[46] Dr. Johannes Kulenkampff, a board member since 1932, and Richard Bertram, a board member since 1937, became Chairman in 1942.
After World War II
At the end of World War II the company's headquarters (which had in any case been sold in 1942[47]) had been severely damaged by bombing and all its large vessels either destroyed or seized. It was left with only the freighter Bogotá, which was in Japan. Relicensed by the American military administration on November 29, 1945 as a "coastal shipping and stevedoring company," it started again, as after World War I, practically from zero, offering tugboat and daytripper services.
Gripsholm, later NDL's BerlinTwo NDL cargo ships in Antofagasta – 1963Participants of the fourth large Bremer NDL meeting on 20 February 2013
Kulenkampff and Bertram constituted the Board and there were at first only 350 employees. In 1948, the first Hapag-Lloyd travel agency opened. Business initially consisted of emigration and a limited amount of tourism. Beginning in 1949, German companies were permitted to order and to build ships of up to 7,200 GRT. In 1950, the NDL placed its first post-war orders at the Bremer Vulkan shipyard, the Rheinstein class (2,791 GRT, 13 knots).[48]
After the limitations on German shipping imposed by the Allies were lifted in 1951,[49][50] the NDL commenced building a new fleet. First it bought older freighters (for example the Nabob, a former American auxiliary aircraft carrier) and had new freighters built between 4,000 and 9,000 GRT and 5,000 and 13,000 DWT, all with names ending in -stein. The line had routes to Canada, New Orleans, the Canary Islands, and beginning in 1953 to the Far East.
Passenger service resumed in 1955 using a rebuilt 1924 Swedish ship, the 17,993 GRT Gripsholm.[51] Renamed Berlin, she was the sixth German ship of that name, the fourth at NDL, and sailed North Atlantic routes. In 1959, the company added the 32,336 GRT Bremen (formerly Pasteur), and in 1965, the 21,514 GRT Europa (formerly Kungsholm), Gripsholm's sister ship bought from the Swedish American Line, with a capacity of 843 passengers.[29] These vessels were first placed in scheduled service to America but soon transferred to cruising. In 1967, the 10,481 GRT express freighter Friesenstein (21.5 knots) inaugurated the Friesenstein class and replaced Nabob and Schwabenstein. Passenger service was running at an increasing deficit, and the rapidly growing container traffic required cost-intensive retooling in the freight business. In 1968 NDL inaugurated container service to the USA with the 13,384 GRT Weser-Express; two more container ships were soon added.
Around 1960, NDL had 47 ships, a number that remained almost unchanged until 1970. In 1968, the fleet totaled 343,355 GRT (in 1970, 391,313 GRT) and was the 16th largest shipping company worldwide; HAPAG, with 410,786 GRT, was the 9th largest.[52] In 1970, NDL had a turnover of 515 million DM and share capital of 54 million DM, and employed 6,200 people, 3,500 of them at sea.[53]
In 1967, Claus Wätjen and Dr. Horst Willner, and in 1969 Karl-Heinz Sager, joined the Board. Kulenkampff served on the Board until 1968 and Bertram until 1970. Since the NDL was already executing three quarters of its freight business in association with HAPAG, a merger of the two largest German shipping companies was entirely logical.[54]
On 20 February 2007, a small group of dedicated, former member of the North German Lloyd organized for the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the shipping company a meeting at the Bremer Ratskeller. This event was very popular, so it was decided to carry out in the following years further meetings. – Meanwhile, the meetings take place annually on the twentieth of February in Bremen in the former Lloyd's building – today Courtyard Marriott hotel.
Legacy
NDL's emblem on the wall of the former company headquarters at the Bremen main station
The new company has Lloyd as part of its name.
The Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven, with its headquarters in the former laundry facility, continues the memory of the NDL.
The former company headquarters on Papenstraße was demolished and replaced by a department store in 1969, but the Große Hundestraße on one side of the site was the first street in Bremen to be privatized, and has been roofed with glass to become a pedestrian mall. It is called Lloyd Passage.[21]
The Lloyd baggage department building or Lloyd station on Gustav Deetjen Allee at the main station in Bremen, built in 1913 to Rudolph Jacobs' design, became Hapag-Lloyd's secondary headquarters. The NDL's company emblem adorns the main entrance.[56] Almost all company buildings are now in Hamburg and Hanover.[57]
Buildings in Bremen and Bremerhaven still bear the marks of former use by the NDL.[59]
The Bremer Bank, now absorbed by Commerzbank, was founded by Meier to provide financing.
Major people
H.H. MeierEduard CrüsemannJohann Georg LohmannDietrich Hogemann
Hermann Henrich Meier, founder and 1857–1888 first Supervisory Board Chairman of the NDL[60]
Eduard Crüsemann; 1857–1869 founder and first director of NDL[61]
August Hermann Friedrich Neynaber alias HFA or HAF called Hermann Neynaber; (1822–1899) captain of many liners from 1866 to 1881 (Bremen, Deutschland, Donau, Mosel, Kronprinz Friedrich Wilhelm, Rhein)[62]
Johann Georg Lohmann, 1877–1892 Director of NDL[30][63]
Hermann Friedrich Bremermann; 1868–1892 Director of the NDL
Willy Christoffers; Captain from 1886 to 1900
Georg Plate, from 1887 to the Supervisory Board of the NDL, 1892–1911 Chairman of the NDL
Dr. Heinrich Wiegand; 1892–1899 Director and 1899–1909 Director-General of NDL[64]
1898 could not reach specified speed, 1899 chartered to HAPAG, 1900–1912 laid up; 1912 sold to Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique, Paris, renamed Burdigala
Supply ship for German raiders,[83] seized by Peru 1917, renamed Callao, chartered by United States Shipping Board (USSB) and transferred to U.S. Navy 26 April 1919 and commissioned USS Callao (ID-4036), decommissioned 20 September 1919.[84] 1922 sold at auction by USSB, renamed Ruth Alexander by Dollar Steamship Lines[85][86]
1920 ceded to Britain as war reparation, transferred to Orient Line, renamed Ormuz; 1927 repurchased by NDL, renamed Dresden (II); 1934 wrecked on Norwegian coast, loss of 4 lives
1954 acquired from Swedish American Line as Gripsholm by Bremen Amerika Line, jointly operated by Swedish America and NDL. 1955 renamed Berlin (IV), 1959 fully owned by NDL, 1966 scrapped.
1959 purchased from Cie. de Navigation Sud-Atlantique as Pasteur, renamed Bremen. 1970 owned by Hapag-Lloyd after the merger of NDL and HAPAG; 1972 sold to Chandris Lines, Piraeus, renamed Regina Magna, 1977 sold to Philippine Singapore Ports Corporation and renamed Saudiphil I as a floating hotel in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1980 sold as Filipinas Saudi I to Philsimport International in Hong Kong, 1980 sunk in Indian Ocean while in tow to Taiwanese ship breaker
1965 bought from Swedish America Line as Kungsholm, renamed Europa. 1970 owned by Hapag-Lloyd after the merger of NDL and HAPAG. 1981 sold to Panama, renamed Columbus C
Unknown
Prinz Waldemar
Unknown
Steamship on the USA–Japan–Australia route, along with Prinz Sigismund. In use by 1903. In about 1917, it became the Parr-McCormick Company steamship Wacouta.[88] The vessel again renamed Prinz Waldemar was wrecked near Kingston, Jamaica, by 1926.[89]
^Lamar Cecil, Albert Ballin: Business and Politics in Imperial Germany, 1888–1918, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University, 1967, OCLC900428, pp. 52–53, 56–57.
^Krass, Peter (May 2001). "He Did It!(creation of U.S. Steel by J.P. Morgan)". Across the Board (Professional Collection).
^Atlantic reporter. Vol. 81. Harvard: West Publishing Company. 1912. p. 764.
^Gibbs, Charles Robert Vernon (1957). Passenger Liners of the Western Ocean: A Record of Atlantic Steam and Motor Passenger Vessels from 1838 to the Present Day. John De Graff.
^Hartmut Rübner: Konzentration und Krise der deutschen Schiffahrt. Maritime Wirtschaft und Politik im Kaiserreich, in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus. Bremen 2005, ISBN3-89757-238-9
^Reinhold Thiel, Die Geschichte des Norddeutschen Lloyd 1857–1970, volume 4 1920–1945 Bremen: Hauschild, 2006, ISBN978-3-89757-230-0, p. 123 (in German)
^"List of Ship owners," Fischer Weltalmanach 1971.
^Gardiner, Robert (1994). The golden age of shipping: the classic merchant ship, 1900–1960. University of Michigan: Conway Maritime Press. p. 20. ISBN0-85177-567-5.
^Hans Hermann Meyer: Die Bremer Altstadt – Wanderungen in die Vergangenheit. Veröffentlichung des Bremer Landesmuseums für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Focke-Museum (Nr. 107), Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN3-86108-686-7
^Wilhelm von Bippen: Meier, Hermann Henrich. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. Volume 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig (1906), P. 291–294.
^Karl Heinz Schwebel: "Haus Seefahrt" Bremen: seine Kaufleute und Kapitäne. Krohn, Bremen 1947, P. 76.
^"Capt. Hogemann Makes His Last Voyage After 44 Years Spent at Sea"(PDF). New York Times. May 7, 1913. Retrieved 2009-08-06. After the North German Lloyd liner Kronprinzessin Cecilie, arriving from Bremen yesterday, had been made fast to her pier in Hoboken Capt. Dietrich Hogemann, Commodore of the fleet, announced that it was his last voyage, and that Capt. Charles Polack of the George Washington would succeed him.
^Hartmut Schwerdfeger & Erik Herlyn: Die Handels-U-Boote Deutschland und Bremen. Kurze-Schönholtz & Ziesener Verlag, Bremen 1997, ISBN3-931148-99-8
^Reinhold Thiel: Die Geschichte des Norddeutschen Lloyd 1857–1970, Volume 5, 1945–1970. Bremen, 2006. p. 123
^Harald Focke: Im Liniendienst auf dem Atlantik. Neue Erinnerungen an die Passagierschiffe BERLIN, BREMEN und EUROPA des Norddeutschen Lloyd. Hauschild Verlag, Bremen, 2006. ISBN978-3-89757-339-0
^Focke, Harald: Bremens letzte Liner. Die großen Passagierschiffe des Norddeutschen Lloyd nach 1945. Hauschild Verlag, Bremen 2002, ISBN3-89757-148-X
^"Lloyd's Register"(PDF). London. 1930. Archived from the original(PDF) on 18 March 2014. Retrieved 18 March 2014 – via Southampton City Council.
^Naval History And Heritage Command. "Callao (No. 4036) ii". Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Naval History And Heritage Command. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
^Lloyds. "Lloyd's Register 1932–33"(PDF). Lloyd's Register (through PlimsollShipData). Archived from the original(PDF) on 25 February 2015. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
Buchholz, Jörn/Focke, Harald: Auf Lloyd-Frachtern. Erinnerungen 1957 bis 1964. Hauschild, Bremen, 2007, ISBN978-3-89757-374-1
Focke, Harald: Bremens letzte Liner. Die großen Passagierschiffe des Norddeutschen Lloyd nach 1945. Hauschild, Bremen, 2002, ISBN3-89757-148-X
Focke, Harald: Mit dem Lloyd nach New York. Erinnerungen an die Passagierschiffe BERLIN, BREMEN und EUROPA. Hauschild, Bremen, 2004, ISBN3-89757-251-6
Focke, Harald: Im Liniendienst auf dem Atlantik. Neue Erinnerungen an die Passagierschiffe BERLIN, BREMEN und EUROPA des Norddeutschen Lloyd. Hauschild, Bremen, 2006, ISBN978-3-89757-339-0
Kludas, Arnold: Die Seeschiffe des Norddeutschen Lloyd: 1857–1970 (2 vols). Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Herford, 1991 / 1992
Reinke-Kunze, Christiane: Die Geschichte der Reichs-Post-Dampfer-Verbindung zwischen den Kontinenten 1886-11914, Herford 1994, ISBN3-7822-0618-5.
Wiborg, Susanne, und Klaus Wiborg: 1847–1997, Mein Feld ist die Welt – 150 Jahre Hapag-Lloyd, Hapag-Lloyd AG, Hamburg 1997.
Rübner, Hartmut: Konzentration und Krise der deutschen Schiffahrt. Maritime Wirtschaft im Kaiserreich, in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus. Hauschild, Bremen 2005
Thiel, Reinhold: Die Geschichte des Norddeutschen Lloyd: 1857–1970 (5 vols). Hauschild, Bremen 2001
Dirk J. Peters (Hrsg.): Der Norddeutsche Lloyd – Von Bremen in die Welt – „Global Player“ der Schifffahrtsgeschichte. Hauschild, Bremen, 2007, ISBN978-3-89757-360-4