Blohm + Voss: The Hamburg Shipyard Where PEKING Was Born

A Shipyard without Orders

PEKING now rests at the German Port Museum in Hamburg.

Her four masts rise above the warehouses of the Hansahafen, while her black hull still carries the steelwork of another age.
To follow her life backwards is to return to Blohm & Voss in 1911.

The shipyard had begun much earlier.

On 5 April 1877, Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss established a shipyard and engineering works at Kuhwerder on the southern bank of the Elbe.
The Hamburg authorities leased them approximately 15,000 square metres of land.

Their greatest difficulty was not construction but trust.
Hamburg’s shipowners preferred established British yards, and the new company had no completed ships with which to prove itself.

Blohm and Voss therefore built an iron sailing ship at their own risk.
FLORA had no buyer when construction began, but she was later sold to the Hamburg shipowner M. G. Amsinck.

A small paddle steamer named ELBE became the yard’s first outside order.
Other ships followed, and every completed hull became evidence of what the young company could do.

Blohm & Voss also entered the repair business and built a floating dock.
Repair work brought greater stability than relying entirely on new construction.

By 1887, the yard employed around 1,200 people.
A new lease in 1905 expanded the site to approximately 560,000 square metres and nearly three kilometres of waterfront.

The small yard was becoming a major industrial landscape.

PEKING and the Age of Giant Ships

In 1909, F. Laeisz ordered two four-masted sailing ships from Blohm & Voss.
PEKING became yard number 205, followed by PASSAT as yard number 206.

The enormous five-masted PREUSSEN had already revealed the practical limits of scale.
A larger ship required more crew and enough cargo to fill her hold, something remote Chilean ports could not always provide.

PEKING returned to a more practical design for the nitrate trade.

Steel plates were arranged around her frames and joined with heated rivets.
Her hull measured approximately 115 metres, while four masts rose 62 metres from keel to masthead.

She had no propulsion engine and depended on wind at sea.
Two compact Gnom petroleum engines operated the cargo gear and anchor windlasses.

On 25 February 1911, PEKING slid from the slipway into the Elbe.
She was delivered to F. Laeisz on 16 May.

Yard number 205 demonstrated that Blohm & Voss could combine steel, machinery and sail in a complete ocean-going cargo vessel.

The yard was already preparing for larger ships.

Dock 5 entered service in 1908 and could lift approximately 46,000 tons.
In 1913, a giant crane rose above the riverbank.

HAPAG was preparing three enormous passenger liners for the North Atlantic.
IMPERATOR was built at Vulkanwerft Hamburg, while her two younger sisters came to Blohm & Voss.

VATERLAND was launched in 1913 and replaced IMPERATOR as the world’s largest passenger ship when she entered service the following year.
The third sister, the HAPAG passenger liner BISMARCK, was launched at Blohm & Voss in 1914.

The First World War interrupted her completion.
She was later transferred to Britain and entered service as MAJESTIC.

PEKING crossed the ocean under sail.
VATERLAND moved through the water under the power of turbines.

Both emerged from the same stretch of the Elbe.

Industrial Power and Its Human Cost

The same industrial capacity that produced sailing ships and ocean liners could also serve war.

During the First World War, Blohm & Voss built 98 submarines.
Civilian shipbuilding gave way to military production, while women and prisoners of war entered the workforce.

Military production expanded again under Nazi rule.
During the Second World War, the yard built 224 submarines, approximately one fifth of the German total.

Thousands of forced labourers from across Europe were used at the shipyard.
In October 1944, a satellite camp of Neuengamme concentration camp was established on the site, holding approximately 600 prisoners.

They operated machinery, moved heavy components and cleared debris after air raids.
At least 250 people are known to have died.

The history of Blohm & Voss therefore includes more than famous ships and engineering achievements.
It also includes those who worked beneath the machinery without freedom.

Bombing severely damaged the workshops and slipways at Steinwerder.
The destruction continued after the war.

The British military government closed the yard on 31 December 1945.
Crane structures were blown up, and machinery was removed as war reparations.

Blohm & Voss had lost more than its buildings.
It had lost much of its equipment and the permission to build ships.

The shipyard would have to begin again from an almost empty riverbank.

Rebuilding and Changing

In 1950, only 48 salaried employees and 127 workers remained.

Steinwerder Industrie AG was established in 1951.
Ship repair was permitted again in 1953, followed by coastal and ocean-going ship construction in 1954.

The name Blohm & Voss returned in 1955.
Phoenix-Rheinrohr AG acquired half the shares, bringing the company into the industrial sphere of Thyssen.

The yard did not simply restore its former business.
It gradually shifted towards repair, conversion, mechanical engineering, luxury yachts and naval vessels.

Elbe 17 returned to service in 1967 and became one of Europe’s largest dry docks.
Large ships once again entered from the Elbe, exposing their hulls to workers on the dock floor.

As newbuilding orders increasingly moved to overseas yards, repair and conversion became essential to the survival of Blohm + Voss.

Ownership changed as well.

Lürssen acquired the yard in 2016.
In 2021, Blohm + Voss became part of Naval Vessels Lürssen, or NVL.

In 2026, Rheinmetall completed its acquisition of NVL’s naval activities.
Blohm + Voss entered another industrial group, while remaining at Steinwerder.

Nearly 150 years after its foundation, it is regarded as the last major shipyard still operating in Hamburg harbour.

The Child Returned, while the Parent Kept Working

PEKING no longer carries nitrate around Cape Horn.
She has become part of Hamburg’s maritime memory.

Across the Elbe, Blohm + Voss continues to repair ships and work on naval vessels.
Its owners and tasks have changed, but the docks remain open.

The child returned to the city of her birth.
The parent remained on the riverbank and continued working.

One survives by being preserved.
The other survives by changing.

Across Civilizations

King Kaolie looked at PEKING, then towards the shipyard at Steinwerder.

“Both have come from the past,” he said.
“Why has one stopped, while the other cannot stop?”

Lord Chunshen Huang Xie watched a vessel move along the Elbe.

“Some forms of heritage stop working, so that people can see the past,” he replied.
“Others continue working, and carry the past into another age.”

PEKING preserves the life of an ocean-going sailing ship,
and the distant world Hamburg once reached.

Blohm + Voss does not preserve the appearance of 1877.
It preserves open docks, working machinery, and shipbuilding knowledge that remains in use.

King Kaolie looked once more towards the riverbank.

“So remaining,” he said, “does not always mean remaining unchanged.”

One stopped and was remembered.
The other continued to change and was able to remain.
Neither path is wrong.
There has never been only one way to preserve a civilization.