History

2020/2021
The shipping sector is also feeling the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Especially at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis and during lockdowns, ferry and passenger shipping companies are confronted with major declines in passenger numbers. The cruise shipping segment, which had been enjoying steady success until then, is more or less completely idled worldwide. Most merchant ships remain in operation, thereby ensuring that national economies are supplied with all kinds of vital goods, especially food, protective clothing and medications. However, in addition to being denied shore leave, the seafarers on board these ships are often unable to return home at the end of their deployment because they are not permitted to disembark, there are hardly any flights to take them home, no possibilities for them to get vaccinated, or their home countries refuse them entry. This often leads to great problems and the VDR and many others repeatedly draw attention to this untenable state of affairs, which has impacted roughly 400,000 seafarers worldwide.

2019
Germany is the world’s fifth-largest shipping nation, with a 4.9% share of the global merchant fleet. At the end of 2019, a total of 2,140 ships with 52.8 million GRT are registered in German shipping registers – which is still much more than before the global boom in shipping that had begun two decades earlier. After the crisis years and their sometimes painful aftermath, most German shipping companies are again looking to the future with at least cautious optimism. Despite a further decline in the number of ships, the number of crew members employed in Germany who are subject to social security contributions has remained more or less stable in recent years. In terms of the national structure of shipping companies, Germany is still characterised by a large number of small and medium-sized companies (SMEs), with roughly 80% of German shipping companies managing fewer than 10 vessels.

2012
The fleet of German shipping companies comprises more than 3,900 vessels (ships of over 1,000 GRT), with roughly 95 million GRT combined. Measured in terms of total GRT and by having an almost 10% share of the global fleet, Germany holds third place – behind Japan and Greece – in the ranking of shipping nations and merchant fleets. In terms of container ships, with roughly 1,800 units and a global TEU share of almost 33%, German shipping companies rank in first place – and far ahead of the country’s rivals. Nevertheless, German shipping companies are facing their most severe and long-lasting crisis since the end of the Second World War, and the German merchant fleet significantly contracts over the next few years.

2011
The crisis on the international shipping and finance markets increasingly threatens Germany’s status as a shipping hub.

2009
The global crisis impacting finance markets and trade reaches the shipping markets.

2008
Almost all submarkets of the global maritime shipping sector are enjoying full employment. Piracy off the coast of Somalia is reaching unprecedented levels, with ships being hijacked and crew members being held for ransom.

2007
The VDR celebrates its 100th anniversary. Germany’s merchant fleet under German and foreign flags reaches the 60 million GRT mark.

2005
With more than 500 ships now sailing under German flag again, the shipping companies represented by the VDR fulfil the pledge they made at the National Maritime Conference held in Lübeck in 2003.

2004
The security-enhancement measures (ISPS Code) introduced in international maritime shipping in the wake of the attacks of 11 September 2001 are reshaping the shipping world, including all processes in intermodal transport chains.

2003
At the third National Maritime Conference, held in Lübeck, German shipowners pledge to have at least 100 more ships operating under German flag again by the end of 2005.

2002
After Germany’s federal government and large parts of the federal ministries have relocated from Bonn to Berlin in the wake of German reunification, the VDR’s office in Bonn is dissolved and a new “satellite office” is opened in Berlin.

2000
The first National Maritime Conference is held in Emden as part of efforts to safeguard Germany’s status as a shipping hub. Germany’s merchant fleet comprises 1,850 vessels with a collective tonnage of roughly 20 million GRT.

1999
Special depreciation rules for ships are replaced by a new tonnage tax system in Germany. More specifically, to promote Germany’s status as a shipping hub and to offer comparable competitive conditions, shipping companies can now elect to use a tonnage-based method of calculating taxable income in accordance with § 5a of the German Income Tax Law (EStG).

1995
On 1 January, the VDR merges with the Association of German Coastal Shipowners (Verband Deutscher Küstenschiffseigner – VDK), which has existed since 1896. Since then, the VDR has been the only umbrella organisation of the German maritime shipping sector at the national level.