Cruising the past: 1936 Nazi Color Film-Berlin in the Year of the Olympic Games.

CLICK ABOVE TO PLAY THE COLOR 1936 FILM:

Nazi propaganda complete color film from 1936. An outstanding portrait of daily life in Berlin in this rare, well preserved film, with the magical feeling of the pastel colors of Agfachrome.  Strangely, it appears that parts of this documentary were filmed in 1939, after the Siegessäule was moved to it’s new location.

A New Way to Look at World War 2:

The second World War has usually been seen in black and white, but after endless research a new film outlet has unearthed an abundance of superb color film that shows what it really looked like to those who were there. “Unknown World War 2 in Color” is a stunning and vivid new account of the epic conflict. Visit their website by clicking here.

THE 1936 OLYMPICS

Portrait of a Women’s United States Olympic Team Arriving Home: The fairer of Uncle Sam’s Olympic stars who competed in Berlin, are pictured upon their return to America’s shore on the SS President Roosevelt. They arrived in New York City on August 28, 1936.

American teams heading for the Olympics aboard ships including the Bremen.

(Left: Hitler with American Olympic athlete.  Right:  German athletes who played in the 1936 Games.  One of them was gay and sent to a concentration camp where he was killed in 1943.)

The 1936 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad, was an international multi-sport event which was held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain on April 26, 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona (two years before the Nazis came to power).

American Olympic cycling team aboard the Bremen.

It marked the second and final time that the International Olympic Committee would gather to vote in a city which was bidding to host those Games. The only other time this occurred was at the inaugural IOC Session in Paris, France, on April 24, 1894. Then, Athens, Greece, and Paris were chosen to host the 1896 and 1900 Games, respectively.

American skating team aboard the Bremen.

Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, a favorite of Hitler’s, was commissioned by the IOC to film the Games. Her film, entitled Olympia, introduced many of the techniques now common to the filming of sports.

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1865 – CRUISE AND TRANS-ATLANTIC HISTORY: Enterprise and Prosperity of the Transatlantic Steamship Companies.; The Great Ferries Across the Ocean. Extensive Preparations and Extra Accommodations for the Summer Travel following the American Civil War.

A “travel story” from the New York Times… June 7, 1865

Thousands of our citizens who had no heart for making pleasure trips abroad during the past four years of internecine strife, are, now that the war is happily ended, casting about for the best, the safest, the cheapest and the most expeditious means of making the Transatlantic trip. For the especial benefit of this class, we have collected a variety of information concerning the several steamship lines, now in operation between this country and Europe, and publish it to-day, confident that it will prove timely and useful, not only to those who are contemplating a voyage across the Atlantic, but also to the general reader. We give on account of the seven leading steamship lines, all of which, it will be seen, are owned entirely by foreign companies; a fact which should carry with it considerable humiliation to ourselves as a maritime people.

INMAN LINE

The Liverpool, New-York and Philadelphia Steamship Company (usually known as the “Inman Line”) commenced their Transatlantic operations in 1850, with the well-known screw-steamers City of Glasgow, City of Manchester and Kangaroo. It will thus be seen that this line has been in successful operation for nearly fifteen years. This company was the first to perceive the important fact that there existed among the great multitudes of emigrants from England and the continent a certain class, known in Europe as “the middle classes,” and that a new field could be at once gained by providing a better style of cheap passage for this especial class.

Acting upon this obvious view of the actual wants of the better classes of emigrants, the company commenced with three steamers, the first screw marine to cross the Atlantic, and they were the first steamships to carry emigrant passengers; and they have been so successful and prosperous that from a fleet of three steamers, making monthly trips, they have steadily progressed until now, after fifteen years of uninterrupted prosperity, the company finds itself with a gigantic fleet of sixteen vessels, running semi-weekly trips between Liverpool and New-York.

The first opening of the line took place between Liverpool and Philadelphia, carrying in the beginning none but first-class cabin passengers, but the vessels were soon after changed in their interior arrangements to permit of their receiving emigrant passengers. After a few years, however, the port of New-York was decided upon as the Western terminus of the route, and the wisdom of the change was at once apparent. This line claims to have landed, during late years, about half the passengers (all classes) carried across the ocean by steam, and that also the health of their passengers has been remarkably good, and that rarely a case of death has occurred on board. “In fact,” says the passenger clerk, “out of 42,000 passengers carried last year, I do not recollect hearing of a single death being reported.” We give our authority for the statement, as it is remarkable that so many persons could be transported across the ocean without at least some small percentage of deaths, and it speaks well both for the company’s care of their passengers, and the general health of the class of emigrants who avail themselves of the advantages of steam transportation.

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JULY 2012 – Cruising The Past: Website Of The Month – THE WARD LINE

We applaud Michael Andelson’s THE WARD LINE terrific website!

The Ward Line is best remembered for the ill-fated Morro Castle of 1930.

Andelson’s site not only explores the Morro Castle disaster but gives you a unique history of The Ward Line.

Footage from the fire of 1934 to the aftermath of the Morro Castle luxury liner.

The turbo-electric liners Morro Castle and Oriente were the largest and finest Ward Line ships ever built, though hardly the most successful.

Launched in the early stages of the Great Depression, the so-called “millionaire’s yachts” were fast, well-appointed, and safer than most ships of their era.

On the Oriente in 1939 – The bar of the Oriente of 1930 was one of the few shipboard locations that betrayed her Art Deco origins. All in all, the interiors of the Morro Castle and Oriente were quite traditional.

But a strange series of circumstances led to the Morro Castle’s destruction by fire in September 1934, resulting in the loss of 134 lives– the largest loss of life at sea in peacetime in U.S. history.

This tragedy has been the subject of many articles, books, and television programs, so this page is dedicated solely to images and memorabilia related to the Morro Castle and her sister.

Hopefully, these images give a better insight into the ship before her tragic loss– the “feel” of the ship, how she was advertised, and life onboard the Ward Line’s most infamous liner.

The Morro Castle, like the Titanic, was a scene of great tragedy.

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