S - H. Vogemann

Then it came about that Mr Siemens in Rotterdam succeeded
in raising interest in the passage with the steamship “Delia” in which we had
a financial interest. This steamship made several voyages. It soon emerged
that there were considerable differences between the captain who had a share
in the ship and his remaining financial backers, so that in the end we had to
detain the ship in Rotterdam until we had succeeded in recovering the funds
which had been advanced. We had acquired part of the means to purchase
the ships through profits attained by the company in New Orleans, but a portion
came from America through the so-called Settlement of War Claims Act.
The Hamburg-America Line and Norddeutsche Lloyd, which had suffered
the greatest war losses in America, had started compensatory action for the
steamships lost during the war through Dr Kiesselbach in the United States
and which was successfully carried out. Our steamship “Vogesen” which had
been seized in 1917 in Pensacola, was, as far as I can recall, evaluated at M
1,200,000, even though it had only cost us M 650,000 as a newbuild in 1909. We
received several payments on account of these settlement amounts, in total
around M 550,000 and and at a later data, a further sum of around M 120,000
from the German government in accrued interest. When the National Socialist
government came into power, payments from the United States stopped because,
allegedly, the German government were not fulfilling their obligations
to the American creditors which had made claims against Germany.
Relatively good results were obtained by the two steamships
“Vogesen” and “Vogtland” until 1929; then the rates on the freight market became
so bad that every voyage finished with a loss. My brother later accused
me of keeping the ships in service for much too long so that they had lost
more through this than if they had been laid up. However, he had not taken
into account that it was more advantageous to have a slight loss with the
ships in service, because, first of all, the upkeep for ships whilst they are laid
up is quite high, as the ships need to be maintained and, secondly, the lack of
revenue in New Orleans so that the stoppage from commissions there would
have been a major loss. In fact, on several occasions it proved to be the case
that it was possible to calculate a small profit based on the prospective cargo
from New Orleans but that after it had been subsequently loaded it turned out
that the actual resulting cargo was lower. Even at that time my brother was
paying less attention to the business details as he usually only appeared in
the office around midday, but he was nevertheless exceedingly good at criticising
with the benefit of hindsight and in claiming that nobody ever listened
to him and that he would have been much better at doing things.
Chapter 1 – History of the H. Vogemann Company 1886 – 1946 33
1926
Establishment of Deutsche Lufthansa
AG through merger of Junkers
Luftverkehr and Aero Lloyd.
The American dancer Josephine Baker
is a guest performer at the Berlin
Nelson Theatre.
Introduction of a standardised
Highway Code.
Job creation programme to reduce the
high unemployment figures.
Max Schmeling German Light
Heavyweight Boxing Champion.
Admission of Germany into the
League of Nations.
Arthur Schnitzler:
“Dream Story” (narrative)
1927
The Allied Military Commission ends its
activities in the German Reich.
Protests against construction of the
Battleship A.
Martin Heidegger: “Being and Time“
(philosophical discourse).
Fritz Lang: “Metropolis” (film).