TEUTONIC EMPRESS
Having practically invented the modern luxury liner with the 22,225grt Amerika of 1905, which featured a Ritz Carlton grill restaurant, passenger lift and décor by Charles Mewès, architect of the Ritz hotels, HAPAG’s dynamic President Albert Ballin immediately commissioned a larger, even more luxurious running mate.
Unlike the Belfast-built Amerika, the new ship (to be named Europa) was ordered from a German shipyard, Vulkan-Werft’s Stettin yards. This symbol of German maritime invention and industry was deserving of a royal christening, and she was launched by Kaiserin Auguste Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Empress of Germany (1858-1921), on 29 August 1905. As a gesture to her godmother, Ballin had the ship instead named in her honour.
The 24,581grt was the most luxurious ocean liner in the world and the largest until . Her maiden voyage from Hamburg to New York began on 10 May 1906. With war clouds gathering after her final crossing from New York on 11 July 1914, was seized by the Allies as reparations and awarded to Britain’s Shipping Controller, but was initially turned over to the Americans to help repatriate troops from Europe.
