Albert Ballin

Albert Ballin (15 August 1857 – 9 November 1918) was a German shipping magnate. He was the general director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) or Hamburg-America Line, which for a time was the world's largest shipping company. Being the inventor of the concept of the cruise ship, he is known as the father of modern cruise ship travel. Albert Ballin was a risk-taker who was willing to challenge his colleagues, foreign competitors, and domestic politics in order to build a successful shipping company. He focused on British rivals and was determined to expand HAPAG's global reach, he also worked closely with the Kaiser and supported expansion of the German navy.

, named after the German Empress Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein entered transatlantic service on 10 May 1889, from Hamburg to New York City via Southampton. Two years later, in 1891, she made the World's first Mediterranean cruise.

In 1901, Ballin built the Emigration Halls on the Hamburg island of Veddel to accommodate the many thousands of people from all over Europe who arrived at the Port of Hamburg every week to emigrate to North and South America on his company's ships. The island is now the ''BallinStadt'' Museum. In 1913, HAPAG owned three of the world's biggest ocean liners; however all were later seized as part of World War I reparations.

Facing the loss of his company's ships after World War I, Ballin committed suicide in Hamburg as the war ended.

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