With the Bremen, Norddeutscher Lloyd returned to the top of transatlantic travel barely a decade after the First World War. Built in her home port by the Deschimag shipyard and launched in August 1928, she and her near-sister Europa were designed for speed: a long, low hull with a bulbous bow, powerful steam turbines and two squat funnels gave them a strikingly modern look.
On her maiden voyage in July 1929 the Bremen took the Blue Riband from Cunard's Mauretania, which had held it for twenty years – a sensation that set off a race between the great nations to build ever larger and faster liners. She even carried a catapult-launched seaplane that flew the mail ashore ahead of the ship. When war broke out in 1939 she sought refuge in the Soviet port of Murmansk and, that December, slipped back to Germany through the British blockade. In March 1941 she was gutted by a fire, started by a member of her own crew, in Bremerhaven and was later scrapped.
