Leseprobe

13 In 1898, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große created a sensation when it became the fastest liner to cross the Atlantic. Completing the journey in five days and twenty hours, the German liner marked the end of Britain’s unrivalled domination of the transatlantic passenger route (Figure 1). Owned by the Bremen shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große (1897) was the first German ship to win the Blue Riband, the unofficial and highly prestigious prize awarded to the fastest liner to cross between Europe and North America. The largest and most luxuriously appointed liner yet built, it was also a product of a German shipyard. It was a tangible symbol of Imperial Germany’s emergence as an economic and industrial power since the mid-nineteenth century. Those decades of rapid industrialisation witnessed the establishment of two liner companies that became the largest in Germany: the Hamburg - Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (known in English as HAPAG or Hamburg America Line) in 1847 and NDL in 1856. In the last years of the nineteenth century, the launch of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große marked the beginning of an intense international rivalry between the British and German transatlantic shipping companies. Competition extended to the interior design of liners, with shipping lines seeking to surpass each other by offering increasingly luxurious rooms on board. Far more was at stake than just a prize. Capturing the Blue Riband was a question of national pride, as liners became floating national symbols. The idea that liners embodied their country was often made plain in the choice of patriotic names. This was especially true of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große and successive German ships named after members of the imperial family. The largest machines ever built, liners were cast as symbols of national unity and pride for the new German state. Until the outbreak of the Second World War, German liners played a crucial role in the international transatlantic race, spurring a rivalry between companies and nations. HAPAG and NDL initially promoted historicism in the early years of the twentieth century, but they were also among the first shipping lines to invite modern designers to work on their liner interiors. RIVALRY AT SEA: THE INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE OF GERMAN PASSENGER LINERS Anna Ferrari KaiserWilhelmder Große (1897) Photographed c. 1900 1