Deutschland incident (1902)
Encyclopedia
The Deutschland incident of 1902 occurred in March of that year with a German passenger steamer from the Hamburg America Line
named SS Deutschland
. During a famous passage over the Atlantic, where the ship was carrying Prince Heinrich
, the brother of the Kaiser back to Europe from a highly publicized visit to the United States, the steamer was prevented from using her Slaby-d'Arco system of wireless telegraphy as the Marconi
radio stations refused its radio traffic through their nets and blocked the rival system. Prince Henry, who tried to send wireless messages to both the US and Germany, was outraged.
Marconi shore stations refused, except in the case of emergency, to accept messages from ships operating equipment from other sources. This brought up a number of questions of fairness — competitors claimed the Marconi companies were trying to set up a worldwide monopoly, while Marconi charged that his competitors were little more than parasites, wanting to take advantage of the investment his company had made in setting up the expensive shore stations.
Hamburg America Line
The Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany during...
named SS Deutschland
SS Deutschland (1900)
SS Deutschland was a passenger liner owned by the Hamburg America Line of Germany. She sailed for over 25 years under three different names. The second ship to have been built as a four funnel liner, she was built by Hamburg America as a response to the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. She was the...
. During a famous passage over the Atlantic, where the ship was carrying Prince Heinrich
Prince Heinrich of Prussia
Prince Henry of Prussia was a younger brother of German Emperor William II and a Prince of Prussia...
, the brother of the Kaiser back to Europe from a highly publicized visit to the United States, the steamer was prevented from using her Slaby-d'Arco system of wireless telegraphy as the Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
radio stations refused its radio traffic through their nets and blocked the rival system. Prince Henry, who tried to send wireless messages to both the US and Germany, was outraged.
Marconi shore stations refused, except in the case of emergency, to accept messages from ships operating equipment from other sources. This brought up a number of questions of fairness — competitors claimed the Marconi companies were trying to set up a worldwide monopoly, while Marconi charged that his competitors were little more than parasites, wanting to take advantage of the investment his company had made in setting up the expensive shore stations.