Orion (HSK-1) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine which operated as a merchant raider in World War II. Blohm & Voss built her in Hamburg in 1930–31 as the cargo ship Kurmark. The navy requisitioned her at the start of World War II, had her converted into the auxiliary cruiser Orion, and commissioned her on 9 December 1939. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 36, her Royal Navy designation was Raider A. She was named after the constellation Orion.

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.