Albert Ballin (15 August 1857 - 9 November 1918) was a director of Hamburg-America Line, and is the person who is credited with the invention of cruise ships.

He was born into a modest Jewish family of Hamburg. His father was part owner of an emigration agency that arranged passages to the United States, and when he died in 1874, young Albert took over the business. He developed it into an independent shipping line, saving costs by carrying cargo on the return trip from the US. This brought him to the attention of Hamburg-America, who hired him in 1886, and made him general director in 1899.

Although extremely successful in developing the business, as a Jew he was not accepted by Hamburg society. Nevertheless, he became friends with Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Before World War I many different ship companies started including cruise ships among their fleet, to add luxury and comfort to sea travel. However, many of those ships suffered considerable damage during that war, and in 1918, Ballin, thinking that his creation would eventually be an economical flop, committed suicide.

Perhaps less well known was Ballin's role as a mediator between England and Germany in the last tense years prior to the outbreak of World War I. Terrified that he would lose his ships in the event of naval hostilities, Ballin attempted to broker a deal whereby England and Germany would continue to race one another in passenger liners but desist their attempts to best one another's naval fleets. Consequently the outbreak of war deeply disillusioned him and Ballin spent the last years of his life watching his creations destroyed and dismantled throughout the world.

The SS Albert Ballin was named in his honor, as is the Ballindamm street in Hamburg.

Reference

• Lamar Cecil , Albert Ballin; business and politics in imperial Germany, 1888-1918 (Princeton University Press, 1967)
• Bernhard Huldermann , Albert Ballin (Berlin: Gerhard Stalling, 1922)

External link

• Bio at University of Hamburg