Why Paul Nathan Attacked Albert Ballin: The Transatlantic Mass Migration and the Privatization of Prussia's Eastern Border Inspection, 1886–1914

Abstract

Albert Ballin was one of Imperial Germany's most successful business leaders. He early recognized the impact and possibilities of the expansion and integration of global markets. Within little more than a decade after he had joined the management of theHamburg-Amerikanische-Paketfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft(HAPAG) in 1886, he turned an already significant enterprise into the world's largest steamship line. As a leading manager and later as HAPAG director general, Ballin was a major force behind Hamburg's rise to Imperial Germany's second largest city. Due in no small part to HAPAG's spectacular growth, Hamburg emerged as a key global port for passengers and freight by the turn of the century. But Ballin was not just a gifted business leader in a highly innovative economic sector; he also had access to some of the highest figures in Berlin. Ballin repeatedly met with theKaiserand government members, and he used his long-standing contacts in England on several diplomatic missions to ease rising tensions between the two powers, albeit without lasting success.