Passenger ships - Germany: books - history and shipping lines

Passenger Liners from Germany: 1816-1990

In some 300 large-size illustrations, this book shows the whole development of German passenger ships from the first paddle steamers on rivers and lakes, via the early ocean liners still equipped with auxiliary sails and the luxury high-speed steamers before and between the World Wars, to the great car ferries and "dream ships" of our times.

The ocean cruise ships, river steamers and railroad carriers are also shown, as well as their most impressive interior decor and unique scenes from life on board. Much of the photographic material has never before been published.
Technical details are included as well as the history and fate of the ships.

German Luxury Ocean Liners - from Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse to Aidastella

From the 1890s, the German shipping lines had begun to build the fastest and most luxurious liners. It had started when Kaiser Wilhelm had visited Spithead and been transported on White Star Line's Teutonic and had mentioned that Germany must have ships like this. The first four stacker, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, had been named in his honour and the ships that followed were faster and more magnificent than the last.

Introducing the Ritz Carlton restaurants aboard ship as well as other luxuries, the German ships were soon winning the Blue Riband from the British shipping lines. Each year a new German triumph would emerge from the shipyards in Bremerhaven or Hamburg and it took almost a decade for White Star and Cunard to catch up.

Even as Titanic was sinking, Germany was building a huge ship a full 12,000 tons larger. It was to launch the following week. World War One stifled the German merchant marine and post war many ships were taken by the Allies as war reparation. The 1930s saw the triumph of the Bremen and Europa and the post war years the decline of the world's passenger liner fleet.

Germany was not exempt but a new breed of cruise ships, many built by Meyer Werft, soon saw the German cruise industry established. Nils Schwerdtner looks at the growth of the German passenger fleet, the important Hamburg Amerika and North German Lloyd lines, as well as the growth of modern day cruising in this definitive book.

Mit dem Traumschiff ins Nordmeer

Mit der MS Deutschland, dem "Traumschiff", in eine der faszinierendsten Gegenden der Welt - Christian Prager nimmt seine Leser mit auf eine unvergessliche Reise ins Nordmeer.
Von der Küste Norwegens geht es hinauf in zerklüftete Fjorde, weiter zu den Lofoten und schliesslich nach Spitzbergen. Im Westen besticht Grönland mit seinen bizarren Eisbergen. Schliesslich läuft das Schiff Island, die Inseln der Färöer, Shetlands und Orkneys an - eine bildgewaltige Reiseroute, die Sehnsucht weckt!

Die Columbuskaje in Bremerhaven

Die Columbuskaje, Startpunkt unzähliger Auswanderungen, trug einst den Beinamen "Kai der Tränen". Harald Focke und Dirk J. Peters haben aus verschiedensten Archiven die eindrucksvollsten Aufnahmen ausgewählt, um die gesamte Entwicklung von Bremerhavens berühmtestem Kai bis in heutige Tage nachzuzeichnen.
Die Bilder von den Um- und Neubauten, Schiffseinfahrten und berühmten Passagieren sind eine Schatzgrube für alle Schifffahrtsinteressierten.

Passagierschiffe in Hamburg 1951-1969

Obwohl sie längst Geschichte sind, erinnern sich noch viele Hamburger an die schwimmenden Giganten im Hafen: die Homeland, Italia oder Hanseatic, die bis 1969 auf ihren Reisen nach New York auch den Hamburger Hafen anliefen.
Mit über 160 zum Teil unveröffentlichten Fotografien, Zeichnungen und Plakaten dokumentieren der bekannte Autor Harald Focke und der passionierte Sammler Frank Scherer Technik, Geschichte und Alltag der berühmten Schiffe.