The Erste (, literally ''First-Danube-Steamboat-Shipping Company'') or DDSG was a

shipping Freight transport, also referred as ''Freight Forwarding'', is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been ex ...

company founded in 1829 by the Austrian government for transporting passengers and

cargo Cargo consists of bulk goods conveyed by water, air, or land. In economics, freight is cargo that is transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. ''Cargo'' was originally a shipload but now covers all types of freight, including trans ...

on the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

History

The company built its first steamship building factory the so-called "Óbuda Shipyard" on the

Hajógyári Island Hajógyári Island (Shipyard Island, for the shipyard companies that once operated there) or Óbudai-sziget (Óbuda Island, or Island of Old Buda) is the largest Danubian island in Budapest. Located in District III, it is a popular recreational ...

in Kingdom of Hungary in 1835, which was the first industrial scale steamship building company in the Habsburg Empire. In 1880, the DDSG was the world's largest river shipping company with more than 200

steamboat A steamboat is a boat that is propelled primarily by steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels. Steamboats sometimes use the prefix designation SS, S.S. or S/S (for 'Screw Steamer') or PS (for 'Paddle Steamer'); however, these ...

ships and about 1000 cargo tubs. During Nazi rule, the DDSG was involved in transporting Austrian Jews after ''

Kristallnacht () or the Night of Broken Glass, also called the November pogrom(s) (german: Novemberpogrome, ), was a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazi Party's (SA) paramilitary and (SS) paramilitary forces along with some participation from ...

'', when the Jews were pressured to emigrate elsewhere. Beginning in 1938, the DDSG transported Jews who were on so-called "B-immigration transports". The DDSG was also involved in taking excessive amounts of money and property from Jews in order to transport them. The '' SS'' worked with the DDSG in making the exit permits for Jews easier to obtain, since, at this point, the Nazis apparently just wanted them to leave the country. Although the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organis ...

had leverage over the DDSG, the DDSG was a group that operated on its own will, in order to profit from forced Jewish emigration.Jews for Sale? Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933-1945, by Yehuda Bauer (New Haven/London: Yale U.P., 1994; pp. xiii + 306. See page 48 In 1991 the company was split into a passenger transportation enterprise and a cargo transport company. The company was sold to a private owner in 1993. Today the DDSG exists in the form of the two private companies DDSG-Blue Danube Schiffahrt GmbH (passenger transport) and the DDSG-Cargo GmbH. Since the

German spelling reform of 1996 The German orthography reform of 1996 (') was a change to German spelling and punctuation that was intended to simplify German orthography and thus to make it easier to learn, without substantially changing the rules familiar to users of the lang ...

, "Schifffahrt" is written with three "f"s; however, since the name belongs to a company that existed before the spelling reform, the old form of the name is used when referring to the company. The name of the company is well known in German-speaking countries as a starter to humorously construct even longer

compound word In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...

s. ' is such a word, which potentially might even have been used, but probably never actually was. It means a "DDSG captain's hat". Another common example is ' which means "DDSG captain's cabin key".

References

External links

DDSG-Cargo GmbH

DDSG-Blue Danube Schifffahrt GmbH
* Shipping companies of Austria Danube The Holocaust in Austria 1829 establishments in the Austrian Empire Companies established in 1829 River cruise companies Companies based in Vienna {{Austria-company-stub

History

See also

References

External links