Blohm und Voss

On April 5, 1877, Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss founded the Blohm+Voss Schiffswerft und Maschinenfabrik shipbuilding and engineering works as a general partnership. A shipyard was built on the island of Kuhwerder, near the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, covering 1½ hectares, with a quarter-kilometer of water frontage and three building berths, two suitable for ships of up to 100 meters length.

The company has continued to build ships and other large machines for 125 years. Despite being almost completely demolished after the end of World War II, it now builds warships both for the Deutsche Marine and for export, as well as oil drilling equipment and ships for numerous commercial customers.

From about 1930 to 1945 the Blohm und Voss company also designed and built aircraft for use by both the German state airline, Lufthansa, and the air-force, Luftwaffe. These included both land-planes and flying boats. Some of the designs were remarkable for the imagination and ingenuity employed.

The company's Web site is http://www.blohmvoss.com, and an excellent (though copyrighted and hardly NPOV) summary of the company's history can be seen in English at http://www.blohmvoss.com/e/info/presse_02042002_2.html and in German at http://www.blohmvoss.com/d/info/presse_02042002_2.html.