Kosmos Line

Kosmos Line, a Hamburg shipping line organized in early 1872 primarily to enter the competition for the Pacific coast freight service. Known as the Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft Kosmos (German Steamship Service Company Kosmos), it originally served only South America's Pacific coast, but by the early 1880s, it was running ships up to Central America during the six-month coffee season. Later, Kosmos extended its service northward to San Francisco. About 1880, Bremen shippers responded with the formation of the Roland Line to compete with Kosmos for the trade of the Pacific coast. Later Kosmos also developed trade with the Caribbean area, and it received a British mail subsidy to establish the first regular steamer service to Las Malvinas (Falkland Islands). In 1901, the Hamburg-Amerika Linie (HAPAG) obtained a large interest in Kosmos through an agreement by which they shared access to the Pacific coast. Kosmos suspended service to Latin America from 1914 until mid-1921. In 1926, HAPAG absorbed Kosmos, but re-formed a shipping company for Latin American service under this name in 1976.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Edwin J. Clapp, The Port of Hamburg (1911).

Otto Mathies, Hamburgs Reederei 1814–1914 (1924).

Ludwig Wendemuth and W. Böttcher, The Port of Hamburg (1932).

Raymond A. Rydell, Cape Horn to the Pacific: The Rise and Demise of an Ocean Highway (1952).

Additional Bibliography

Schoonover, Thomas David. Germany in Central America: Competitive Imperialism, 1821–1929. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998.

                                     Thomas Schoonover