Back to Sea

Along the oil-soaked quays of Hamburg, West Germany's biggest port, 200,000 people cheered wildly last week as the S.S. Hanseatic hove into view, ending its maiden voyage to New York exactly on schedule. For Hamburg and all of West Germany, the voyage was indeed cause for celebration. The newest, biggest (30,029 gross tons), fastest (21 knots) liner under the German flag, the Hanseatic represents a mighty step forward in a mighty comeback for West Germany's merchant marine. For the first time, total tonnage has climbed above prewar levels.

Taxes & Tourists. With many former German shipyards now in Communist territory, West Germany still ranks only tenth in world tonnage, v. fifth before the war. But the fact that it has climbed even that high is remarkable, because World War II wiped out the German merchant marine. Ninety-seven percent of Germany's total tonnage was sunk or captured, the rest confiscated. Scraping together what slim funds were available, German shipbuilders started in 1949 to rebuild their fleet. To help them along, the government decreed that money invested in merchant ships could be deducted from income tax. By 1957, Germany's merchant tonnage had soared from next to nothing to 4,300,000 tons.

Lines that were out of business started up again, new ones were organized. The owner of Germany's Hanseatic is the new transatlantic Hamburg-Atlantic Line, which was formed in 1957, paid out $3,000,000 for the 28-year-old Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Scotland. The Hanseatic was completely refurbished (sixth deck, new aluminum superstructure, new stacks) in Hamburg's Howaldtswerke yard by 2,000 artisans who worked around the clock to finish it in six months.

Last week the German press lifted the well-kept secret of the Hanseatic's financial backers, revealed that the Hamburg-Atlantic Line is 60% owned by Greek Shipper Nicos Vernicos-Eugenides, president of Home Lines, one of the world's biggest transatlantic carriers, and 40% owned by wealthy German Cigarette Maker Philipp F. Reemtsma. Vernicos and Reemtsma put up $2,400,000 of their own money, borrowed the rest from German banks, got the big Hamburg-American Line (which has 41 freighters, one passenger ship) to manage the Hanseatic. In a poll of transatlantic traffic, they discovered a trend to tourist-class travel, shrewdly made the 1,254-passenger Hanseatic 93% tourist class and expect full booking.

Old & New. Though Hamburg-Atlantic is moving fast on Atlantic sealanes, the wonder boy of German shipping is a handsome, lean, baking-powder scion named Rudolf August Oetker, who started from scratch and now surpasses both Hamburg-American and its fellow giant, North German Lloyd. Taking advantage of the government tax law (which was repealed 3^ years ago), Oetker invested his big baking-powder profits in shipping. Oetker today controls the largest single German merchant fleet in terms of tonnage, consisting of 40 modern freighters and tankers totaling 375,000 tons.

For Oetker and other shippers, Germany's booming shipyards offer efficient, craftsmanlike production, low labor and materials costs. They compete evenly in price and production with Japan (now seventh in world shipping tonnage) and are second in world ship orders (just behind Great Britain), with contracts at the beginning of this year for 517 merchant vessels totaling 5,400,000 gross tons. More than a fifth of the total will go to West Germany's own merchant marine. And to back up the new ships, German shippers are prowling world markets for old vessels that can be converted, like the Hanseatic, into big moneymakers. North German Lloyd, which now has 37 freighters, one passenger liner, is hard at work on the old French liner Pasteur, turning it into a new Bremen that will carry 1,100 passengers across the Atlantic at 24-knot speeds that match all but the biggest superliners. Maiden voyage: May 1959.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.