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[Illustration: Albert Ballin]
ALBERT BALLIN
By
Bernhard Huldermann
_Translated from the German
by
W. J. EGGERS, M.A. (London)_
[Illustration: decoration]
Cassell and Company, Limited
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1922
To the Memory of
ALBERT BALLIN
in true veneration and heartfelt gratitude
"_He was a man; take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again._"
SHAKESPEARE, _Hamlet_ (_Act I, Scene 2_).
PREFACE
My principal reason for publishing the information contained in this
volume is to keep alive the memory of Albert Ballin. I particularly
desire to show what was his share in bringing about the economic advance
of Germany during the golden age of the Empire's modern history, and to
relate how he--unsuccessfully, alas!--strove to prevent the proud
structure which he had helped to raise, from falling to ruin in the time
of his country's distress. I believe that much that concerns the latter
aspect of his work will be new to most readers. In spite of all that has
been said and written concerning the political activities which Ballin
displayed (and is alleged to have displayed) both before and during the
war, their object--and, more important still, their intimate connexion
with his economic activities--is scarcely known. Eminently successful
though Ballin had been in creating an atmosphere of mutual understanding
between the various nations in the economic sphere, his attempts to
reconcile the contending ambitions of those same nations where politics
were concerned ended in failure. And yet it is impossible to understand
his failure in one respect without first understanding his success in
the other; indeed, the connexion between the two sides of his work forms
the key to the character of the man and to the historical significance
of his achievements.
It is possible that this volume may shed some new light on the causes of
Germany's collapse; this idea, at any rate, was before my mind when I
decided upon publication. Frederick the Great somewhere remarked that,
to the great loss of mankind, the experiences gained by one generation
are always useless to the next, and that each generation is fated to
make its own mistakes. If this is true, it is nevertheless to be hoped
that Germany, considering the magnitude of the disaster that has
overtaken her, will not allow the spirit of resignation implied by this
remark to determine her actions in the present case.
In thus submitting to the public the information contained in this book,
I am carrying out the behest of the deceased, who asked me to collect
his papers, and to make whatever use I thought fit of them. Moreover,
the fact that I had the privilege of being his collaborator for more
than ten years gives me perhaps a special right to undertake this task.
My best thanks are due to Director A. Storm for supplying me with
material illustrative of Ballin's early career; to Chief Inspector Emil
F. Kirchheim for assistance with the technical details, and to Professor
Francke, who was on intimate terms of friendship with Ballin during a
number of years, for information concerning many matters relative to
Ballin's personal character.
My constant endeavour has been to describe persons and events _sine ira
et studio_, and to refrain from stating as a fact anything for which no
documentary evidence is available.
THE AUTHOR.
_October, 1921._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1. MORRIS AND CO. 1
2. GENERAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CARR LINE 12
3. HEAD OF THE PACKETFAHRT'S PASSENGER DEPARTMENT 21
4. THE POOL 28
5. THE MORGAN TRUST 40
6. THE EXPANSION OF THE HAMBURG-AMERIKA LINIE 69
7. THE TECHNICAL REORGANIZATION OF THE HAMBURG-AMERIKA LINIE 121
8. POLITICS 131
9. THE KAISER 193
10. THE WAR 213
11. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 287
EXTRACT ANNOTATED BY WILLIAM II 316
INDEX 317
ALBERT BALLIN
CHAPTER I
MORRIS AND CO.
Albert Ballin was a native of Hamburg. Before the large modern harbour
basins of the city were built, practically all the vessels which
frequented the port of Hamburg took up their berths along the northern
shore of the Elbe close to the western part of the town. A long road,
flanked on one side by houses of ancient architecture, extended--and
still extends--parallel to this predecessor of the modern harbour.
During its length the road goes under different names, and the house in
which Ballin was born and brought up stood in that portion known as
Steinhöft.
A seaport growing in importance from year to year is always a scene of
busy life, and the early days which the boy Ballin spent in his father's
house and its interesting surroundings near the river's edge left an
indelible impression on his plastic mind.
Those were the times when the private residence and the business
premises of the merchant and of the shipping man were still under the
same roof; when a short walk of a few minutes enabled the shipowner to
reach his vessel, and when the relations between him and the captain
were still dominated by that feeling of personal friendship and personal
trust the disappearance of which no man has ever more regretted than
Albert Ballin. Throughout his life he never failed to look upon as
ideal that era when every detail referring to the ship and to her
management was still a matter of personal concern to her owner. He
traced all his later successes back to the stimulating influence of
those times; and if it is remembered how enormous was then the capacity
for work, and how great the love of it for its own sake, it must be
admitted that this estimate was no exaggeration. True, it is beyond
doubt that the everyday surroundings in which his boyhood was spent, and
the impressions gained from them, powerfully influenced his imagination
both as boy and growing youth. It may, however, also be regarded as
certain that the element of heredity was largely instrumental in
moulding his character.
Ballin belonged to an old Jewish family, members of which--as is proved
by ancient tombstones and other evidence--lived at Frankfort-on-Main
centuries ago. Later on we find traces of them in Paris, and still later
in Central and North Germany, and in Denmark. Documents dating from the
seventeenth century show that the Ballins at that time were already
among the well-to-do and respected families of Hamburg and Altona. Some
of the earliest members of the family that can be traced were
distinguished for their learning and for the high reputation they
enjoyed among their co-religionists; others, in later times, were
remarkable for their artistic gifts which secured for them the favour of
several Kings of France. Those branches of the family which had settled
in Germany and Denmark were prominent again for their learning and also
for their business-like qualities. The intelligence and the artistic
imagination which characterized Albert Ballin may be said to be due to
hereditary influences. His versatile mind, the infallible discernment he
exercised in dealing with his fellow-men, his artistic tastes, and his
high appreciation of what was beautiful--all these are qualities which
may furnish the key to his successes as a man of business. His sense of
beauty especially made him extremely fastidious in all that concerned
his personal surroundings, and was reflected in the children of his
imagination, the large and beautifully appointed passenger steamers.
Ballin always disliked publicity. When the Literary Bureau of his
Company requested him to supply some personal information concerning
himself, he bluntly refused to do so. Hence there are but few
publications available dealing with his life and work which may claim to
be called authentic. Nevertheless--or perhaps for that very
reason--quite a number of legends have sprung up regarding his early
years. It is related, for instance, that he received a sound business
training first in his father's business and later during his stay in
England. The actual facts are anything but romantic. Being the youngest
of seven brothers and sisters, he was treated with especial tenderness
and affection by his mother, so much so, in fact, that he grew up rather
a delicate boy and was subject to all sorts of maladies and
constitutional weaknesses. He was educated, as was usual at that time,
at one of the private day-schools of his native city. In those days,
when Hamburg did not yet possess a university of her own, and when the
facilities which she provided for the intellectual needs of her citizens
were deplorably inadequate for the purpose, visitors from the other
parts of Germany could never understand why that section of the
population which appreciated the value of a complete course of higher
education--especially an education grounded on a classical
foundation--was so extremely small. The average Hamburg business man
certainly did not belong to that small section; and the result was that
a number of private schools sprang up which qualified their pupils for
the examination entitling them to one year's--instead of three
years'--military service, and provided them with a general education
which--without any reflection on their principals--it can only be said
would not bear comparison with that, for instance, which was looked upon
as essential by the members of the higher grades of the Prussian Civil
Service. Fortunately, the last few decades have brought about a great
improvement in this respect, just as they have revolutionized the
average citizen's appreciation of intellectual culture and refinement.
Albert Ballin did not stand out prominently for his achievements at
school, and he did not shine through his industry and application to his
studies. In later life he successfully made up for the deficiencies of
his school education by taking private lessons, especially in practical
mathematics and English, in which language he was able to converse with
remarkable fluency. His favourite pastime in his early years was music,
and his performances on the 'cello, for instance, are said to have been
quite excellent. None of his friends during his later years can furnish
authoritative evidence on this point, as at that time he no longer had
the leisure to devote himself to this hobby. Apart from music, he was a
great lover of literature, especially of books on _belles lettres_,
history, and politics. Thanks to his prodigious memory, he thus was able
to accumulate vast stores of knowledge. During his extended travels on
the business of his Company he gained a first-hand knowledge of foreign
countries, and thus learned to understand the essential characteristics
of foreign peoples as well as their customs and manners, which a mere
study of books would never have given him. So he became indeed a man of
true culture and refinement. He excelled as a speaker and as a writer;
although when he occasionally helped his adopted daughter with her
German composition, his work did not always meet with the approval of
the teacher, and was once even returned with the remark, "newspaper
German."
In 1874, at the age of seventeen, Ballin lost his father. The business,
which was carried on under the firm of Morris and Co., was an Emigration
Agency, and its work consisted in booking emigrants for the
transatlantic steamship lines on a commission basis. Office premises and
dwelling accommodation were both--as already indicated--located in the
same building, so that a sharp distinction between business matters and
household affairs was often quite impossible, and the children acquired
practical knowledge of everything connected with the business at an
early age. This was especially so in the case of young Albert, who loved
to do his home lessons in the office rooms. History does not divulge
whether he did so because he was interested in the affairs of the
office, or whether he obtained there some valuable assistance. The whole
primitiveness of those days is illustrated by the following episode
which Ballin once related to us in his own humorous way. The family
possessed--a rare thing in our modern days--a treasure of a servant who,
apart from doing all the hard work, was the good genius of the home, and
who had grown old as the children grew up. "Augusta" had not yet read
the modern books and pamphlets on women's rights, and she was content to
go out once a year, when she spent the day with her people at Barmbeck,
a suburb of Hamburg. One day, when the young head of Morris and Co. was
discussing some important business matters with some friends in his
private office, the door was suddenly thrust open, and the "treasure"
appeared on the scene and said: "Adjüs ook Albert, ick gah hüt ut!"
("Good-bye, Albert, I am going out to-day!") It was the occasion of her
annual holiday.
The firm of Morris and Co., of which Ballin's father had been one of the
original founders in 1852, had never been particularly successful up to
the time of his death. Albert, the youngest son, who was born on August
15th, 1857, joined the business when his father died. He had then just
finished his studies at school. The one partner who had remained a
member of the firm after Ballin's death left in 1877, and in 1879 Albert
Ballin became a partner himself. The task of providing for his widowed
mother and such of his brothers and sisters as were still dependent on
his help then devolved on him, and he succeeded in doing this in a very
short time. He applied himself to his work with the greatest diligence,
and he became a shining example to the few assistants employed by the
firm. On the days of the departure of the steamers the work of the
office lasted until far into the night, as was usually the case in
Hamburg in former years. An incident which took place in those early
days proves that the work carried on by Morris and Co. met with the
approval of their employers. One day the head of one of the foreign
lines for which the firm was doing business paid a personal visit to
Hamburg to see what his agents were doing. On entering the office young
Albert received him. He said he wanted to see Mr. Ballin, and when the
youthful owner replied that he was Mr. Ballin the visitor answered: "It
is not you I want to see, young man, but the head of the firm." The
misunderstanding was soon cleared up, and when Ballin anxiously asked if
the visitor had come to complain about anything connected with the
business, the reply was given that such was by no means the case, and
that the conduct of the business was considered much more satisfactory
than before.
To arrive at a proper understanding of the conditions ruling in Hamburg
at the end of the 'seventies, it is necessary to remember that the
shipping business was still in its infancy, and that it was far from
occupying the prominent position which it gained in later years and
which it has only lost again since the war. The present time, which also
is characterized by the prevalence of foreign companies and
foreign-owned tonnage in the shipping business of Hamburg, bears a
strong likeness to that period which lies now half a century back. The
"Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft," although only
running a few services to North and Central America, was even then the
most important shipping company domiciled in Hamburg; but it counted for
very little as an international factor, especially as it had just passed
through a fierce struggle against its competitor, the Adler Line, which
had greatly weakened it and had caused it to fall behind other lines
with regard to the status of its ships. Of the other Hamburg lines which
became important in later times, some did not then exist at all, and
others were just passing through the most critical period of their
infancy. The competitors of the Packetfahrt in the emigrant traffic were
the North German Lloyd, of Bremen; the Holland-America Line, of
Rotterdam, and the Red Star Line, of Antwerp. Apart from the direct
traffic from Hamburg to New York, there was also the so-called indirect
emigrant traffic _via_ England, which for the most part was in the hands
of the British lines. The passengers booked by the agents of the latter
were first conveyed from Hamburg to a British port, and thence, by a
different boat, to the United States. It was the time before the
industrialization of Germany had commenced, when there was not
sufficient employment going round for the country's increasing
population. The result was that large numbers of the inhabitants had to
emigrate to foreign countries. That period lasted until the 'nineties,
by which time the growth of industries required the services of all who
could work. Simultaneously, however, with the decrease of emigration
from Germany, that from Southern Europe, Austria-Hungary, and the
Slavonic countries was assuming huge proportions, although the
beginnings of this latter were already quite noticeable in the
'seventies and 'eighties. This foreign emigrant traffic was the mainstay
of the business carried on by the emigration agencies of the type of
Morris and Co., whereas the German emigrants formed the backbone of the
business on which the German steamship lines relied for their passenger
traffic. Either the companies themselves or their agencies were in
possession of the necessary Government licences entitling them to carry
on the emigration business. The agencies of the foreign lines, on the
other hand, either held no such licence at all, or only one which was
restricted to certain German federal states or Prussian provinces--such,
for instance, as Morris and Co. possessed for the two Mecklenburgs and
for Schleswig-Holstein. This circumstance naturally compelled them to
tap foreign districts rather than parts of Germany; and since the German
lines, in order to keep down their competition, refused to carry the
passengers they had booked, they were obliged to work in conjunction
with foreign ones. They generally provided the berths which the
sub-agencies required for their clientèle, and sometimes they would book
berths on their own account, afterwards placing them at the disposal of
the agencies. They were the connecting link between the shipping
companies and the emigrants, and the former had no dealings whatever
with the latter until these were on board their steamers. The Hamburg
emigration agents had therefore also to provide accommodation for the
intending emigrants during their stay in Hamburg and to find the means
for conveying them to the British port in question. A number of taverns
and hostelries in the parts near the harbour catered specially for such
emigrants, and the various agents found plenty of scope for a display of
their respective business capacities. A talent for organization, for
instance, and skill in dealing with the emigrants, could be the means of
gaining great successes.
This was the sphere in which the youthful Albert Ballin gave the first
proofs of his abilities and intelligence. Within a few years of his
entering the firm the latter acquired a prominent position in the
"indirect" emigration service _via_ England, a position which brought
its chief into personal contact with the firm of Richardson, Spence and
Co., of Liverpool, who were the general representatives for Great
Britain of the American Line (one of the lines to whose emigration
traffic Morris and Co. attended in Hamburg), and especially with the
head of that firm, Mr. Wilding. An intimate personal friendship sprang
up between these two men which lasted a lifetime. These close relations
gave him an excellent opportunity for studying the business methods of
the British shipping firms, and led to the establishment of valuable
personal intercourse with some other leading shipping people in England.
Thus it may be said that Ballin's connexions with England, strengthened
as they were by several short visits to that country, were of great
practical use to him and that, in a sense, they furnished him with such
business training as until then he had lacked.
How successfully the new chief of Morris and Co. operated the business
may be gauged from the fact that, a few years after his advent, the firm
had secured one-third of the volume of the "indirect" emigration traffic
_via_ England. At that time, in the early 'eighties, a period of grave
economic depression in the United States was succeeded by a trade boom
of considerable magnitude. Such a transition from bad business to good
was always preceded by the sale of a large number of "pre-paids," i.e.
steerage tickets which were bought and paid for by people in the United
States and sent by them to those among their friends or relatives in
Europe who, without possessing the necessary money, wished to emigrate
to the States. A few months after the booking of these "pre-paids" a
strong current of emigration always set in, and the time just referred
to proved to be no exception to the rule. The number of steerage
passengers leaving Hamburg for New York increased from 25,000 in 1879 to
69,000 in 1880, and 123,000 in 1881.
It was quite impossible for the biggest Hamburg shipping company--the
Packetfahrt--to carry successfully this huge number of emigrants. And
even if this had been possible, the Packetfahrt would not have
undertaken it, because it intentionally ignored the stream of non-German
emigrants. Besides, the Company had neglected for years to adapt its
vessels to the needs of the times, and had allowed its competitors to
gain so much that even the North German Lloyd, a much younger
undertaking, had far outstripped it. The latter, under its eminent
chairman, Mr. Lohmann, had not only outclassed the Packetfahrt by the
establishment of its service of fast steamers--"Bremen-New York in 9
days"--which was worked with admirable regularity and punctuality, but
had also increased the volume of its fleet to such an extent that, in
1882, 47 of the 107 transatlantic steamers flying the German flag
belonged to this Company, whereas the Packetfahrt possessed 24 only. For
all these reasons it would have been useless for Morris and Co. to
suggest to the Packetfahrt that they should secure for it a large
increase in its emigrant traffic; and even if they had tried to extend
their influence by working in co-operation with the Packetfahrt, such an
attempt would doubtless have provoked the liveliest opposition on the
part of the firm of August Bolten, the owner of which was one of the
founders of the Packetfahrt, and which, because they were acting as
general agents for the North American cargo and passenger business,
exercised a powerful influence over the management of the Packetfahrt.
The firm of August Bolten, moreover, had, like the line they
represented, always consistently refused to have any dealings with the
emigrant agencies.
Ballin, knowing that the next few years would lead to a considerable
increase in the emigrant traffic, therefore approached a newly
established Hamburg shipping firm--which intended to run a cargo service
from Hamburg to New York--with the proposal that it should also take up
the steerage business. His British friends, when they were informed of
this step, expressed the apprehension lest their own business with his
firm should suffer from it, but Ballin had no difficulty in allaying
their fears.