The new container ship Cap San Antonio with destination Port of Hamburg in April 2014

Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft A/S & Co KG, widely known as Hamburg Süd, was a German container shipping company. Founded in 1871, Hamburg Süd was among the market leaders in the North–South trade. It also served all significant East–West trade lanes. The shipping entity was formerly part of the Oetker Group, but was sold to A.P. Moller–Maersk Group's shipping division

Maersk Line Maersk Line is a Danish international container shipping company and the largest operating subsidiary of Maersk, a Danish business conglomerate. Founded in 1928, it is the world's second largest container shipping company by both fleet size ...

in 2017. Since 2023, the Mark Livery and the red colour is not used anymore, all went under Maersk brand.

History

In 1871, ''Hamburg Südamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-Gesellschaft'' (Hamburg–South America Steam Shipping Company, or Hamburg South America Line) was established by a conglomerate of 11 Hamburg-based merchant houses. Three steam-ships totalling 4,000 GRT provided a monthly shipping service to Brazil and Argentina. By 1914, the company was operating over 50 ships, totaling about 325,000 GRT. World War I culminated in the loss of all Hamburg Süd's ships, and the company was forced to begin again by chartering ships. HMT Empire Windrush FL9448

The early 1950s saw the company embark on tramp shipping and tanker shipping, and caused the large growth of refrigerated cargo. In 1955, the Dr.

August Oetker August Oetker (; January 6, 1862 – January 10, 1918) was a German inventor, food scientist and business person. He is known as the creator of baking powder as a ready-to-use product, and also as the founder of the Dr. Oetker company. He was t ...

company took over the entity, and began rapid expansion on its liner and passenger services. The takeover of Deutsche Levante Linie in 1956 saw the company commence its first foray into the Mediterranean. In 1957, liner services began between North America and Australia/New Zealand, with the ''Columbus New Zealand'' being the first container ship to ply trade lanes in the region in 1971, pioneering

containerization Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using intermodal containers (also called shipping containers, or International Organization for Standardization, ISO containers). Containerization, also referred as container stuf ...

in the Pacific.

Wartime roles

was a brand-new passenger liner, having been completed only on March 1, 1914 and had commenced her maiden voyage only on March 10, 1914. Germany had lightly armed the ship with two 10.5 cm guns and six heavy machine guns, and had removed one of her three funnels and re-painted the ship to disguise it as a British liner. She encountered the more heavily armed

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

armed merchant cruiser An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...

HMS , which also was a converted passenger liner, about 700 miles east of the Brazilian coast, near the island of Trindade, at 9:30 a.m. on September 14, 1914. After a heated exchange of fire between the two ships, ''Cap Trafalgar'' began listing to port, then sank bow-first. was converted to serve the

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

(German Navy) as a transport ship in 1940. At the end of 1944 she was commandeered as a

troopship A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable to land troops directly on shore, typic ...

, primarily transporting refugees and prisoners of war on the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the ...

. Loaded with 4,500 prisoners at

Lübeck Bay Lübeck (; or ; Latin: ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 220,000 inhabitants, it is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and the second-largest city in the state of Schle ...

, she was attacked and sunk by

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...

Typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

s in an air-raid. It remained capsized in Lübeck Bay until 1950 and was then dismantled by divers over a period of several years and scrapped. The wreckage was registered and photographed in detail by

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

, which had produced the RAF's rockets, to assess their effectiveness.

Corporate takeovers

Hamburg Süd also owned

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

ian operator Aliança. It has taken over many companies over the years including Ellerman, Kien Hung, South Seas Steamship, Deutsche-Nah-Ost-Linie, Royal Mail Line,

Pacific Steam Navigation Company The Pacific Steam Navigation Company () was a British commercial shipping company that operated along the Pacific coast of South America, and was the first to use steam ships for commercial traffic in the Pacific Ocean. At one point in the 1870s, ...

, Swedish Laser Lines, Rotterdam Zuid-America Lijn (RZAL), Havenlijn and the Inter-America services of Crowley American Transport, and in 2015 the Chilean CCNI. In the past parts of Hamburg Süd have been known as Columbus Line. Since 2004, the services of Columbus Line are directly integrated into Hamburg-Süd. The current container fleet of dry boxes has a distinctive red color with a huge flag and white HAMBURG SÜD logo on the side. The refrigerated boxes are white with the flag and navy blue lettering.

Humanitarian aid

Hamburg Süd supports international aid organisations with in-house shipping facilities. In the shortest possible time, relief supplies and technical or medical equipment are transported where needed, typically after natural disasters such as

hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

earthquakes An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they c ...

, and

volcanic eruption A volcanic eruption occurs when material is expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure. Several types of volcanic eruptions have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior h ...

s. Hamburg Süd maintains a long-term relationship to

SOS Children's Villages SOS Children's Villages is an independent, non-governmental, nonprofit international development organization headquartered in Innsbruck, Austria. The organization provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to families facing difficultie ...

, supporting their projects in different countries. Hamburg Süd also supports various initiatives in the fields of education and culture, including the

United Buddy Bears ''Buddy Bears'' are painted, life-size fiberglass bear sculptures developed by German businesspeople Klaus and Eva Herlitz, in cooperation with sculptor Roman Strobl. They have become a landmark of Berlin and are considered unofficial ambassa ...

exhibitions.''Buddy Bear Berlin''. 4th edition, Berlin 2015, Pages 51-52 and 59,

References

External links and references