SS Deutschland was a passenger liner owned by the Hamburg America Line

Hamburg America Line

The Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft was a transatlantic shipping enterprise established in Hamburg, Germany during...

 of Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. She sailed for over 25 years under three different names. The second ship to have been built as a four funnel liner

Four funnel liner

A four funnel liner, four funnelled liner or four stacker is an ocean liner with four funnels. The SS Great Eastern, launched on January 31st 1858 , became the only ocean liner to ever sport five funnels. As one funnel was later removed, the Great Eastern, by default, became the first ocean liner...

, she was built by Hamburg America as a response to the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. She was the second of five German liners to have four funnels. Though she was very successful at capturing the Blue Riband

Blue Riband

The Blue Riband is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely used until after 1910. Under the unwritten rules, the record is based on average speed...

 from the British, she sufferd from terrible vibrations.

As the transatlantic liner Deutschland

When it became clear that the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was a success, Hamburg America Line decided to join the battle for supremacy on the Atlantic. North German Lloyd retaliated to the Deutschland by ordering three more liners, the Kaiser class

Kaiser class ocean liner

The Kaiser class ocean liners or Kaiserklasse refer to four transatlantic ocean liners of the Norddeutscher Lloyd, a German shipping company. Built by the AG Vulcan Stettin between 1897 and 1907, these ships were designed to be among the largest and best appointed liners of their day...

.

Launched in 1900, she won the Blue Riband

Blue Riband

The Blue Riband is an unofficial accolade given to the passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service with the record highest speed. The term was borrowed from horse racing and was not widely used until after 1910. Under the unwritten rules, the record is based on average speed...

 from the of the North German Lloyd line, crossing the Atlantic Ocean

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

 in just a little over five days. She was the first and only four-stacker built for Hamburg-Amerika. She was 684 ft (208.5 m) long, 67 ft (20.4 m) wide and measured 16,502 gross tons. Her service speed was 22 kn (43.1 km/h; 26.8 mph) and she carried 2,050 passengers in first, second and third class.

Deutschland was indeed a fast ship, but this came at the expense of passenger comfort—her engines were so powerful that they caused severe vibrations in her passenger accommodations (thus the sobriquet The Cocktail Shaker). Despite the amusing name, this made her unpopular with passengers.

In March 1902, she played a role in the Deutschland incident

Deutschland incident (1902)

The Deutschland incident of 1902 occurred in March of that year with a German passenger steamer from the Hamburg America Line named SS Deutschland...

. When she was carrying Prince Henry, the brother of the Kaiser back to Europe from a highly publicized visit to the United States, she was prevented from using her Slaby-d'Arco system of wireless telegraphy as the Marconi

Marconi Company

The Marconi Company Ltd. was founded by Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 as The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company...

 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 U.S. and Germany—was outraged. During a later conference, the Marconi company was forced to give access to their stations to other companies. This incident turned out to be one of the important moments in the early history of wireless transmission.

Second career as cruise ship Viktoria Luise

In 1910, Hamburg-Amerika withdrew Deutschland from transatlantic service and coverted her to a dedicated cruise ship — one of the first liners of the 20th century to operate as such. Her original engines were derated as a high service speed was no longer needed. At the same time, the exterior of the ship was repainted in all white and her passenger capacity was also reduced to only 500 first-class passengers. She was also given a new name, Viktoria Luise. She replaced their first purpose-built cruise ship of similar name (Prinzessin Victoria Luise

Prinzessin Victoria Luise

Prinzessin Victoria Luise was a passenger ship of the Hamburg-America Line of some . She is credited with having been the first purpose-built cruise ship...

) that ran aground and was destroyed off the coast of Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 in 1906.

As the emigrant carrier Hansa

Because of her still-troublesome engines, Viktoria Luise was not used by the German government in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. In 1921, she was pressed into emigrant carrier service and renamed Hansa. But since the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 had recently passed laws restricting immigration, this service was less than successful and Hansa was sold for scrap in 1925.

External links

• The Great Ocean Liners: Deutschland