How Onassis Helped Rebuild Germany—One Tanker at a Time

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Aristotle Onassis, the celebrated Greek shipping tycoon, played a important relation successful helping post-WWII Germany’s system done his shipbuilding activities.

After WWII, Germany’s shipbuilding industry—especially successful places similar Hamburg and Kiel—was heavy damaged but began rebuilding rapidly with the assistance of the Marshall Plan and overseas investment. Onassis, who was already an established fig successful planetary shipping by the precocious 1940s and aboriginal 1950s, saw an opportunity.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Onassis ordered a fig of ample tankers and cargo ships from German shipyards. His contracts were highly lucrative and offered a much-needed boost to German shipbuilders, injecting superior and restoring planetary assurance successful German concern capacity.

He was known for negotiating hard, often utilizing competitory bids betwixt German, Japanese, and Scandinavian yards, but helium remained loyal to immoderate cardinal German shipyards that met his standards.

The Hamburg-based Howaldtswerke would play a cardinal role. In 1952, helium founded his shipping institution Olympic Maritime, of which helium automatically established a German subdivision based successful Hamburg. Through this company, Onassis would put 300 cardinal Deutsche Marks (worth astir $818 cardinal today, adjusted for inflation) successful the pursuing years successful the operation of lipid tankers successful Germany.

This shipbuilding concern provided jobs and income during Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle). Onassis’s tankers were cutting-edge for the time, and his orders pushed German engineering to innovate, particularly successful super-tanker construction. It besides helped rebuild Germany’s estimation arsenic a reliable concern and shipbuilding power.

Tina Onassis revolutionized Germany’s shipbuilding

Onassis built astir 20 tankers successful Germany’s shipyards. The astir illustrious of each was the tanker Tina Onassis successful 1953, which was a gyration successful presumption of the size of a tanker should be.

The tanker was named aft Onassis’ woman Tina Livanos, an English-born Greek-French socialite and shipping heiress.

At the opening of 1952, the Howaldtswerke successful Kiel received an bid to physique 8 tankers with a capableness of 32500 DWT for the institution World Tanker Inc. At the time, it was assumed that this was the maximum size of a tanker and they were called “supertankers”. But the Onassis institution wanted much than this size. On October 15, 1952, the nationalist was amazed by the pursuing property release:

Gigantic tanker launched!
Yesterday, the archetypal tanker with a capableness of 45000 tons, hull fig 885, was laid down astatine the Hamburg Howaldtswerke. The largest tanker successful the satellite – 2 sister ships person besides been ordered – was commissioned by the Central American Steamship Company, which belongs to the tanker proprietor Onassis. This tanker volition beryllium launched betwixt May and June 1953. It volition beryllium astir 220 m agelong and, erstwhile completed, volition scope a velocity of 16 knots with an output of 17500 hp.

The Howaldtswerke successful Hamburg had taken a large hazard with the project. The bid required a vessel that could transportation up to 50000 cubic meters of oil, with a azygous propeller driven by steam turbines and a velocity of up to 16 knots.

In addition, the vessel had to beryllium capable to walk done the Suez Canal erstwhile loaded with nary much than 4000 tons little than its maximum capacity. The Suez Canal accepted ships with a maximum draught of 10,5 m.

A peculiar vantage of the vessel was its pumping system. It had a capableness of up to 1,000 tons of lipid per hour. This meant the vessel could beryllium filled oregon emptied successful conscionable 9 hours, reducing the enactment successful larboard to astir ten.

The cabins were spacious, and the furnishings was of precocious quality. In general, the unit accommodation was equivalent to that of a 2nd people connected committee an water liner of the 1950s, which was rather a luxury.

TINA ONASSIS (1953) and AL-MALIK SAUD AL-AWAL (1954) astatine 45000 dwt and 47000 dwt marked modulation to supertanker epoch pic.twitter.com/GnMpbArmSH

— John Kemp (@JKempEnergy) May 4, 2015

The motorboat of Tina Onassis took spot connected July 25, 1953

It was a historical lawsuit for Hamburg, with 20000 invited guests astatine the shipyard and astir 80000 from the shore. All ships and harbor ferries were afloat booked. The city’s Senate had acceptable the day for a Sunday to let arsenic galore citizens arsenic imaginable to be the celebration. The day was agreed with meteorologists to guarantee “Greek weather.” All of Hamburg’s celebrities stood adjacent to the ship.

At the ceremony, Schecker, the manager of Howaldtwerke, gave the opening speech, and helium introduced the stars of the event: the Onassis family.

It was two-and-a-half-year-old Christina Onassis who pressed the fastener to sprout the champagne vessel against the hull and sanction the vessel aft her parent Athina Mary “Tina” Onassis, and her five-year-old brother, Alexander Onassis who pressed the fastener to motorboat the ship. A database of 200 VIPs celebrated with the Onassis mates that evening astatine the Hotel Atlantik. Tina Onassis was acceptable to statesman her career.

Her vocation was palmy and without notable incidents. But by the mid-1970s, what was erstwhile the largest tanker successful the satellite had go a tiny ship. Tankers similar the Tina Onassis simply could not vie with them astatine the time. For this reason, the Tina Onassis was sent to the Yung Tai Steel & Iron Works Company successful Kaohsiung, Taiwan, wherever dismantling operations began connected September 3, 1975.

In the pursuing video, Onassis visits the then-bankrupt Germans, who greeted him with Greek flags raised successful their shipping yards.

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