The New York Times/1918/11/11/Ballin, Germany's Shipping King, Dies
BALLIN, GERMANY'S SHIPPING KING, DIES
Was Head of Hamburg-American Line and Once One of Emperor's Close Friends.
MADE HAMBURG GREAT PORT
Directed Largest Fleet in World—Said to Have Quarreled with Kaiser About War Policy.
COPENHAGEN, Nov. 10.—Albert Ballin, General Director of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company, died suddenly yesterday, according to an announcement made in Berlin.
Hamburg's Growth Due to Him.
Albert Ballin built up the Hamburg-American Line from a small shipping company, when he was placed at its head in 1887, and until just before the war it was the greatest single steamship line in the world. Hamburg grew with the Hamburg-American Line until it reached and passed Liverpool in its shipping, and became, next to Berlin, the greatest city in Germany.
Hamburg's trade was stopped short at the outbreak of the war. Most of the ships, on which the greatest of the modern Hamburg rested, were either taken over by Germany's enemies or lay idle in her harbors, with the exception of a few used in the Baltic. Hamburg was reduced to a shell, suffering more from the war than any city outside the fighting area.
The creation of the Hamburg-American Line and the expansion of Hamburg were feats of individual enterprise. Although the Kaiser has been personally a large stockholder in the line, and although it has been controlled wholly by the German Government since the war, its growth in peace times was due to personal and individual initiative directed by Ballin.
He opposed plans to tie the steamship company to the German Government by taking subsidies in return for allowing the line to be directly supervised by the German Government, contending that the line would suffer and that Germany would indirectly be the loser if the commerce stretching all over the earth were ruled by rigid and slow-moving Government bureaus.
Had Fleet of 500 Vessels.
The line owned twenty-six vessels of 68,000 tons and was capitalized for $3,750,000 in 1897. It had a fleet of 500 vessels, with a tonnage built and building, of about 1,500,000, including the two greatest liners in the world, the Vaterland and the Imperator, in 1914. Ballin opened new routes until the Hamburg-American was carrying on ore than sixth steamship services, making stops at more than 300 ports.
This growth was encouraged rather retarded by the liberal sea policy of Great Britain, but the great sea empire which sprang up as if by magic under the genius of Ballin created visions of a vaster empire still in Germany, and its influence in inducing Germany to make the gamble for world domination was undoubtedly great.
Not only the dream disappeared during the war, but the sea empire in existence at the beginning melted away irrecoverably and probably caused Ballin's death directly or indirectly.
Ballin was 61 years old. He started his career with the Carr Line and was its passenger agent when that line was absorbed by the Hamburg-American. One year later Ballin, at the age of 31 years, was placed in charge of the Hamburg-American Line.
Under Ballin's enterprising leadership Germany forged ahead as a shipping nation until it threatened to rival England, his genius molding the entire industrial and commercial policy of the country. To take care of the business which Ballin brought to Hamburg a policy of physical development of the port and of co-ordination of industries was started.
Its harbor development and general development were greater than has ever taken place in any city in the same space of time. For years before the war commissions were sent from cities all over the world to study the model of harbor building at Hamburg, and the course of peaceful maritime development all over the world received a stimulus from Ballin.
Brought About Close Co-operation.
All this was accomplished without arousing animosity in other countries. When Ballin recovered after a severe operation in 1911, telegrams of congratulation were sent him by the heads of shipping companies in England, France, Italy, America, and elsewhere, where Ballin enjoyed many close personal friendships. He was in close contact personally with the leading shipping men in other countries through his efforts in 1908 and later to bring about international co-operation among steamship lines to avert cutthroat competition.
Ballin, though a Jew, was generally recognized in Germany before the war as Germany's greatest private citizen. Frederic W. Wile, in his book "Men Around the Kaiser," said that Ballin stood in the same relation to the Kaiser as did those counsellors of an earlier generation to their sovereigns and governments—Rothschild of Paris to Napoleon III. and Bleichroeder of Berlin to Emperor William I. and Bismarck. He continued in the book:
"On one of the various occasions, when the Kaiser sought to saddle a Ministership on Ballin, or tack 'Von' to his plebeian name, or give him hereditary membership in the Prussian House of Peers, Ballin compromised by accepting his Majesty's photograph. The Kaiser inscribed it, 'To the far-seeing and tireless pioneer of our commerce and export trade.'
"Ballin is a thoroughly self-made man. The son of a humble Hamburg emigrant, he followed the practise, (still in vogue among young and ambitious Germans,) of coming to England as a lad to serve his commercial apprenticeship. The irrepressible Hamburg 'volunteer' went in to master the most infinitessimal details of navigation and specialized in emigrant traffic, the gold mine from which the transatlantic lines extract their richest gains.
Genius Commanded Attention.
"On his return to Germany his genius immediately commanded attention. It was not long before the Hamburg-American Line began to take notice that for some reason the Carr Line, on which Ballin was first engaged, was extracting the cream of the emigrant traffic. It was discovered that Ballin was the culprit. The only way to suppress him, it appeared, was to annihilate the competition, and to annihilate the competition was to buy out the Carr line bodily." * * *
"He is a devout but not a bigoted Jew. None of his co-religionists has a position of consequence in his organization. He has resolutely refused to follow the fashion of plutocratic brethren who embrace Christianity for social revenue. It annoys many German aristocrats that the Kaiser consorts so freely with a man who is proud of his origin."
Ballin's attitude toward the war has been reported variously. According to some accounts, he supported the ruthless submarine policy. According to others, he fought against it and was the man wh obrought about the downfall of von Tirpitz. In Germany he was accused of seeking a compromise "business" peace, a charge which he denied.
In an article contributed by Ballin to the Vossische Zeitung on Dec. 25, 1916, and reprinted in Volume III. of The New York Times Current History Magazine, he said:
Ballin's View of the Freedom of the Seas.
"The men who will some day be entrusted with the duty of drawing up the terms of peace will have as their supreme task that of exterminating not only war itself, which has destroyed whole generations, but also the fever of armaments; or at least of restricting the latter within as narrow limits as possible in a Europe, which will remain exhausted for decades. They must also devise some sort of assurance that this bloody war will not be followed by an economic war, which would separate the nations still further from one another. Hence the demand for the freedom of the seas once more comes into prominence.
"It is true, certainly, that in time of peace the seas were always free; but in war, as we know today to our cost, they are governed by the strongest fleet. Means, therefore, must and will be found of assuring the freedom of mercantile traffic by sea, not only in peace, but also in war."
In an intercepted letter written by Ballin to Walter Rathenau in December, 1917, Ballin said:
"Our people have little or no knowledge of the American character. You and I have made a most careful study of it. What stuff our publicists and journalists write about their Mammon worship, their greed, their envy of other nations, their lack of discipline—Oh, that blessed word discipline! You and I know that the Americans are probably the most idealistic nation on the earth's surface. We know that they would not have entered the lists of our foes had they had any doubt as to the justice of their cause. Nonsense to say they have been influenced by Britain. We are mad not to see where we are and whither we are driving. In antagonizing the United States we have done a disastrous thing, a thing which will throw its cold shadow on our economic life for a generation."
Blamed for Lusitania Sinking.
Balling was reported to have lost favor with the Emperor, because of his moderate war views or his wish for an early peace, but the truth of this report has not been established. Ballin in letters and interviews repeatedly declared for a German victory and a strong German peace. Regarding his part in Germany's war policy, Sir Valentine Chirol wrote a letter to The London Times in 1915:
"Lord Haldane was quite right in describing Herr Ballin as one of the most remarkable personalities in Germany, for to him probably more than to any other German do we owe the sinking of the Lusitania. He has been for many years past one of the Kaiser's most trusted advisers in all matters of maritime policy.
"It was a matter of common notoriety in Germany in 1912 that it was largely owing to his advice that the Kaiser shrank from a war over the Agadir question. Ballin held that at that time German submarines were not sufficiently developed to exercise effective reprisals on the British mercantile marine for the tremendous damage which the mere pressure of British sea power would inflict on Germany's mercantile marine.
"During the present war it is Ballin's organs in the press that have from the first loudly advocated the policy of ruthless submarine warfare against the British merchant steamers of which the Lusitania has been the latest and most ghastly victim, and I have heard on good authority that his influence with the Kaiser went so far as to overcome the natural repugnance which lingered in professional naval circles against the adoption of such shameless methods of warfare."
Ballin sought to avert war with the United States early in 1917 by proposing a compromise under which England was to allow non-contraband cargoes to go to Germany and to disarm merchant ships, while Germany was to refrain from sinking ships without warning or without provisions for the safety of passengers and crew. He was reported to have inspired several movements toward peace through neutral agents, which were without result.
Early in the Spring of this year, Ballin is said to have called together the Directors of the Hamburg-American Line and told them that he felt himself too old to undertake the gigantic task of seeking to rebuild the German mercantile marine after the war was over, and that he intended to resign this post as soon as hostilities were at an end.
Power Overrated, Says Gerard.
The power exercised by Albert Ballin in the political affairs of Germany was always greatly overrated, according to Ambassador James W. Gerard, who came to know the late shipping ruler of Germany quite well in the four years Mr. Gerard held his Berlin post.
"I don not believe that Ballin was consulted about the beginning of the war," said Mr. Gerard last night. "At any rate, I don not think the militarists bothered to ascertain whether he was in favor of beginning hostilities. I know, indeed, that once the war was begun, Ballin immediately seemed to lose favor at Court. Prior to August, 1914, Ballin was high in the favor of the Emperor, but with the coming of war days a gulf came between the Hamburg-American Line head and the Kaiser.
"Ballin was nothing like as powerful in home affairs as the public generally supposed. The real industrial rulers of Germany, at least, during the days of the early war they were very much in evidence, were the iron and steel magnates of the Rhine, of Westphalia. Although Ballin, through his shipping connections, was well known to the world, his supremacy even in that field was not complete, for he had a strong rival in the North German Lloyd people."