Albert Ballin was a German shipping magnate. He was the general director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) or Hamburg-America Line, which for a time was 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. Albert Ballin was a risk-taker who was willing to challenge his colleagues, foreign competitors, and domestic politics in order to build a successful shipping company. He focused on British rivals and was determined to expand HAPAG's global reach, he also worked closely with the Kaiser and supported expansion of the German navy.
Albert Ballin
Postage stamp issued by the Deutsche Bundespost in 1957 in commemoration of Ballin's 100th birthday
Albert Ballin's gravestone in Hamburg, Germany. It is located on landlot Q9, 430–433 in Ohlsdorf Cemetery.
Augusta Victoria as launched, about 1890
The Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), known in English as the Hamburg America Line, was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, in 1847. Among those involved in its development were prominent citizens such as Albert Ballin, Adolph Godeffroy, Ferdinand Laeisz, Carl Woermann, August Bolten, and others, and its main financial backers were Berenberg Bank and H. J. Merck & Co. It soon developed into the largest German, and at times the world's largest, shipping company, serving the market created by German immigration to the United States and later, immigration from Eastern Europe. On 1 September 1970, after 123 years of independent existence, HAPAG merged with the Bremen-based North German Lloyd to form Hapag-Lloyd AG.
1899 ad in The Mail and Express (New York City)
Postcard of the view from the water of the Hamburg-American Steamship Lines docks in Hoboken, New Jersey, in about 1910
Postcard from the Hamburg-American Line steamship König Friedrich August, issued 1911
Advertisement for the Hamburg-American Line (1930)