Die HOHENZOLLERN und Tirpitz - eine Strandung

Abstract

In 1908, the "marine minister" of the German Reich, Alfred von Tirpitz, had the Norddeutsche Lloyd's passenger steamer Hohenzollern ex Kaiser Wilhelm II take him from Marseille to his estates on Sardinia. This meant a deviation from the usual route that represented a fundamental violation of maritime-legal usages and laws to the disadvantage of the passengers and shipping agents; what is worse, however, the ship ran aground in the process and became a "total loss." Both the shipping company and the Reich played down the case, but no plausible explanation was found for the laconic role of the press. The article embeds the core event in technical, political and maritime-historical elucidations.