SS Deutschland (1900)

SS Deutschland was a passenger liner owned by the Hamburg America Line of Germany. She sailed for over 25 years under three different names. The second ship to have been built as a four funnel liner, she was built by Hamburg America as a response to the 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 from the British, she suffered 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 against the Deutschland by ordering three more liners, the Kaiser class.

Built by AG Vulcan in Stettin and launched in 1900, she won the Blue Riband from the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse of the North German Lloyd line, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in just a little over five days. She was the first and only four-stacker built for Hamburg-Amerika. She was 684 ft long, 67 ft wide and measured 16,502 gross tons. Her service speed was 22 kn and she carried 2,050 passengers in first, second and third class.

In March 1902, she played a role in the Deutschland incident. 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 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 converted 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) that ran aground and was destroyed off the coast of Jamaica in 1906.

In World War I Viktoria Luise was converted for use as an auxiliary cruiser, but because of her still-troublesome engines, she was not used as such by the Imperial German Navy.

As the emigrant carrier Hansa


In 1921, she was pressed into emigrant carrier service and renamed Hansa. But since the United States had recently passed laws restricting immigration, this service was less than successful and Hansa was sold for scrap in 1925.