Steamship nationalism: Transatlantic passenger liners as symbols of the German Empire

Abstract

Between 1912 and 1914, the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) launched a trio of transatlantic passenger liners: the Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck. These have attracted considerable scholarly and popular interest, but their promotion and reception as national monuments has received little detailed consideration. This article shows how and in what manner the Imperator-class vessels were presented to the German public in various media as monumental symbols of the achievements of their nation. In particular, it offers a detailed analysis of the ceremonies that accompanied the launch of these liners, especially the speeches designed for national and international audiences. These reveal, in concentrated and explicit form, how the Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck were expressly construed and presented to Germans as foci for collective identification. Evidence also demonstrates that the vessels were greeted as floating symbols of the German Empire in the British and American press. The article argues that the function of Germany’s premier passenger liners as national monuments in the nation’s popular culture, and in the foreign press, deserves serious study for at least two reasons: what it reveals about the construction and contestation of national identity in Germany, and what it demonstrates about popular responses to the German Empire in the transatlantic world.