The German Way: Life in Austria, Germany, Switzerland

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Biography • Inventor of the pleasure cruise
Albert Ballin: “Der Reeder des Kaisers”

Ballinstadt museum
Part of the BallinStadt Auswanderermuseum (Emigration Museum) in Hamburg, which opened in 2007, the 150th anniversary of Ballin’s birth. Learn more below.
Photo: Jan Kuchenbecker, Wikipedia Creative Commons

“Ship operator to the Kaiser”
The German shipping magnate Albert Ballin was responsible for turning Germany into a world leader in ocean travel prior to World War I. It was Ballin who also invented the Mediterranean pleasure cruise in 1891.

German postage stamp 1957
This German postage stamp was issued in 1957 for the 100th anniversary of Albert Ballin’s birth in Hamburg.
Born in Hamburg on 15 August 1857, Albert Ballin was destined to become a pioneer in making ocean travel a more pleasant, even luxurious experience. As a Jew, for most of his life he would walk a fine line between social acceptance and scorn. But the “Kaiser’s Jew” long enjoyed financial and political prominence before falling out of favor and being branded a traitor to Germany as the First World War and his own life drew to their bitter end in 1918. Born in a poor section of Hamburg, Ballin (pronounced BALL-EEN) had achieved greatness and strongly influenced the passenger ship industry by the time he took his own life at the age of 61.

A decade before Albert Ballin’s birth, the company he would later head, the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag) had been founded on 27 May 1847, with the goal of operating a faster, more reliable liner service between Hamburg and North America, using the finest sailing ships. At that time a “fast” east-to-west Atlantic crossing took about 40 sailing days. The return voyage, with favorable west winds, required “only” 28 days.

A “packet ship” gets its name from the time when ships were employed to carry mail packets to and from British embassies, colonies and outposts. The term “packet service” later came to mean any regular, scheduled service, carrying freight and passengers – such as the Hamburg-American Packet Company (Hapag).

Nevertheless, there was stiff competition for passengers on the North Altlantic route. Internationally, shipping lines in Britain and Prussia (after 1871) fought to attract passengers, but there was also competition within Germany itself between the port cities of Bremen (Bremerhaven) and Hamburg. In 1856 Hapag, under its first director, Adolph Godeffroy, put its first steamship, the Borussia, into service, becoming the first German shipping firm to do so. As time went by, coal-powered steamships would cut the travel time between Hamburg and New York down to just six or seven days.

From Morris & Co. to Hapag
Albert Ballin got his start in Hamburg at the age of 17 when his father died in 1874 and he took over the family’s ship passenger booking service, known as Morris & Co. At first he shared that job with his older brother, but when Joseph left to become a stockbroker in 1877, Albert became the sole operator and soon turned the slumbering operation into a thriving enterprise that eventually drew the attention of the major shipping lines.

BallinStadt: “BallinCity” was the name given to the complex that Hapag built in 1907 to better house and protect impoverished emigrants before their voyage to the New World aboard its ships (in steerage). But Albert Ballin also had very practical motives for his generosity. More...

In 1881 Ballin teamed up with shipowner Edward Carr to get more directly involved in the passenger trade – and avoid sharing fees with other shipping firms. By 1886, Carr and his partner, cousin Robert M. Sloman, had a fleet of five ships in their Union Line. They cut costs by using converted freighters that offered no luxury but far more space for passengers in steerage class. Working with Ballin, they began to drive down the price of a North Atlantic crossing and put pressure on the larger shipping lines.

Soon the cost of a ticket for an Atlantic voyage in steerage had fallen to just six dollars. Hapag and the other major lines were now losing money in an ongoing rate war. In 1886 a shareholders’ revolt led to a major shakeup at Hapag that resulted in Ballin being hired to head the company’s passenger division. Only two years later, Ballin was made a member of the Hapag board of directors.

Hapag's Augusta Viktoria
The Augusta Viktoria had her maiden voyage for Hapag in 1889. Two years later she embarked on the world’s very first Med cruise (in January 1891).
Photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons

From Steerage to Luxury
Although Albert Ballin came from a humble backgound and had achieved his initial success by catering to steerage passengers (Zwischendeckpassagiere), the next stage of his business rise would come from his revolutionary view that a sea voyage should be more a pleasure cruise than a test of one’s endurance. While his competitors became obsessed with speed and winning Blue Ribands for the shortest Atlantic crossing times, Ballin used luxurious accommodations to attract a wealthier clientele. In the process, he would also invent the sea cruise.

NEXT: In Part 2 Albert Ballin invents the pleasure cruise.

NEXT > Albert Ballin - Part 2

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