Albert Ballin

Albert Ballin was a German shipping magnate, born on 15 August 1857, who became general director of the Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft, known as HAPAG or the Hamburg America Line, which for a time was the largest shipping company in the world. His father, a Danish Jew, had been part owner of an emigration agency arranging passages to the United States; Ballin took over that business in 1874, built it into an independent shipping line and was hired by HAPAG in 1886, becoming general director in 1899. He is credited with the concept of the cruise ship: the first modern cruise sailed on 22 January 1891, and in 1901 he built the Emigration Halls on the island of Veddel, now the BallinStadt museum. He tried to mediate between Britain and Germany before the First World War and died in Hamburg on 9 November 1918, two days before the armistice.