The German Way: Life in Austria, Germany, Switzerland

CONTENTS > FAMOUS PEOPLE >
  ALBERT BALLIN > ALBERT BALLIN 2 > BALLINSTADT (Germanic Genealogy)

The BallinStadt Emigration Museum

Albert Ballin knew first-hand about poverty and hardship. Even after his spectacular rise from humble beginnings in a poor section of Hamburg, he felt empathy for the impoverished refugees traveling on his ships to flee hardship in Europe and find a better life in America.

BallinStadt ferry launch
A launch approaches the BallinStadt docks on Veddel Island in the Elbe River.
Photo: BallinStadt Auswanderermuseum, Hamburg
As the flow of emigrants passing through the Hamburg-Amerika port facilities became a flood, Ballin knew he had to respond to the need for better living conditions for the men, women and children awaiting their departure aboard Hapag’s ships. By the time the BallinStadt (“Ballin City”) facilities on Veddel Island finally closed down in 1934, over five million souls had passed through them on their way to the New World, more than from any other European port.

From Amerikakai to Veddel Island
Hapag had built its first facilities for departing emigrants on the Amerikakai (America quay) in the old Hamburg harbor in 1892. As the influx of emigrants grew and the harbor itself expanded, a new location with better conditions was needed. The new BallinStadt site was on Veddel Island in the Elbe River. Construction on a new “departure city” began in 1898. It went into operation in December 1901.

BallinStadt offered clean accommodations and medical facilities for the mostly poor people fleeing persecution and the lack of prospects in Germany and eastern Europe. Over the next seven years the emigration facility continued to grow. By 1907 there were 30 buildings and Hamburg was the busiest emigration port in Europe.

The creation of BallinStadt was not due solely to altruism. Albert Ballin’s Hamburg-America Line had to bring back at its own expense any emigrants judged too unhealthy to remain in the New World. It made good business sense not to have too many of the line’s passengers rejected upon arrival in America. (Fewer than two percent of the Hapag emigrants who arrived at Ellis Island in New York were denied admittance and sent back to Hamburg.) But BallinStadt’s welcoming atmosphere also encouraged more emigrants to travel aboard Hapag’s ships and helped make Hamburg the leading emigration port in Germany.

dormitory
This is what a typical BallinStadt dormitory looked like.
Photo: BallinStadt Museum Hamburg

Bremerhaven vs. Hamburg
Just as there was intense competition between Bremerhaven’s Nordeutscher-Lloyd (NDL) and Hamburg’s Hapag shipping lines, the rivalry continues between the emigration museums in the two Hanseatic cities today.

Bremerhaven got an earlier start, opening its German Emigration Center in August 2005. That museum has since won critical praise and awards, including the prestigious European Museum of the Year in 2007. The BallinStadt Auswanderermuseum (Emigrant Museum) in Hamburg opened in June 2007. It may be some time before it can equal or exceed the Bremerhaven museum’s 500,000 annual visitors.

To do so, the BallinStadt museum has adopted a philosophy that blends history, current technology and genealogical research. In the words of Jen Nitschke, the exhibition’s designer, “The museum should be a three-toned harmony between the past, the present and the future.” The authentic location and the carefully recreated buildings offer insight into BallinStadt's history. In a special interactive research area, museum visitors can use computer stations to look for their ancestors. In fact, the Hamburg museum’s comprehensive genealogical database is one of its strongest assets.

BallinStadt by night
The recreated BallinStadt halls in the evening. Photo: BallinStadt Museum Hamburg

BallinStadt’s Genealogical Advantage
Although Bremerhaven got a two-year headstart with its Emigration Center museum, BallinStadt has one big advantage that Bremerhaven lacks: A database of 5.2 million passengers who departed Hamburg between 1850 and 1934. Unlike those in Bremerhaven, the Hamburg passenger lists survived the heavy Allied bombing of WWII. They are also unusual in their thoroughness. With German bureaucratic precision, the records detail not only where each passenger was going, but where they came from and what they did for a living.

One exhibit includes biographies and records for some now-famous American names: Heinz, Levi-Strauss, and Kellogg. But many more people with less famous names also tell their stories. Thanks to BallinStadt’s technology, visitors are only a few mouse clicks away from possibly finding an ancestor and printing out copies of actual historical documents.

The Hamburg State Archive has been in the process of digitizing the handwritten records since 1999. Visitors can use BallinStadt’s computers to search for their ancestors – not all of whom were German. Many of the people passing through Hamburg came from Eastern Europe, czarist Russia, the Balkans and other regions of the dying Austro-Hungarian Empire. Like Ballin himself, many of the emigrants were Jewish. Eighty percent of the European Jews who migrated to North America departed from Hamburg.

Video of BallinStadt
Special Exhibit for the German Blumenau colony in Brazil

In German with views of the museum and the
computer center for genealogical research.

See the web links below for more information about BallinStadt and Hamburg genealogical research.

BACK > Albert Ballin - Part 2

CONTENTS > FAMOUS PEOPLE >
  ALBERT BALLIN > ALBERT BALLIN 2 > BALLINSTADT (Germanic Genealogy)

On the Web

NOTE: We are not responsible for the content of external websites that we link to.

Related Pages
Find a famous person poster!
Search:

Original Web content ©1997-2010 Hyde Flippo | Graphic design by Erik Flippo www.erikflippo.com
Hyde Flippo is solely responsible for the content of this site and, other than permission granted to publish copyrighted material, McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Publishing has no direct involvement, financial or otherwise, with this site. When in Germany, Do As the Germans ©2002 McGraw-Hill; The German Way ©1997 McGraw-Hill/Passport Books. All rights reserved | Site Map | Advertise with us!