Hapag-Lloyd: Anniversary of a German icon

On 27 May 2022, it will be 175 years since a group of Hanseatic merchants founded the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft in Hamburg.

The beginning was quite modest with three small packet sailers. First, the DEUTSCHLAND, a full-rigged ship of 538 gross register tonnes, left Hamburg on 15 October 1848 bound for New York. The company, which was later known simply as the Hamburg-America Line or Hapag for short, launched its first steamship in 1855 with the HAMMONIA, which was already 2026 gross register tonnes in size. A little later, on 20 February 1857, Norddeutscher Lloyd, the second parent company of Hapag-Lloyd AG, was founded in Bremen, the other major Hanseatic city on the North Sea. It began its business in the same year it was founded, initially with a service to England, but opened transatlantic traffic a year later with the steamer BREMEN (2674 GRT). In the years that followed, the shipping company was often simply called "der Lloyd" or NDL for short.