SS Vaterland was an ocean liner launched on 3 April 1913 and began service in 1914 for Germany's Hamburg America Line. The ship, second of three running mates and then the largest passenger ship in the world, made her first voyage to New York arriving on 21 May 1914 under the command of a Commodore and four Captains of the German Naval Reserve to celebrations featuring German and American officials at the line's Hoboken facilities.
German ocean liner Vaterland, seen in 1914.
Launch of Vaterland, 3 April 1913
Vaterland (largest ship) and other German liners laid up in New York, 4 April 1917
USS Leviathan in dazzle camouflage
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)