MS Schwabenland (1925)
steamship launched in 1925
MS Schwabenland was a German catapult ship owned by the Deutsche Luft Hansa. It took part in the 1938-1939 Third German Antarctic Expedition.
Characteristics
Schwabenland was a Hansa liner of 8,500 gross register tons (GRT), built in 1925. It was converted into a catapult ship in 1934; a Heinkel-built K-9 catapult was installed on the ship's stern, along with a crane for lifting aircraft. The K-9 could accelerate a 15-ton aircraft to 94 miles per hour (151 km/h). Schwabenland's twin diesel screws gave it a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).
Lufthansa air mail
Lufthansa sought to engage in air mail service to the Americas using seaplanes launched off catapult ships, with Schwabenland being the second of those ships. The craft flew with a payload of 500 kg (1,100 lb) over 5,000 kilometres (3,100 mi); each flight carried 100,000 air mail letters.
Two Dornier Do 18 Lufthansa seaplanes christened Zephir and Aeolus were used for air mail flights from the Azores to the United States and from Fernando de Noronha to Natal.
Third German Antarctic Expedition
Schwabenland was borrowed from Lufthansa for the 1938-1939 Third German Antarctic Expedition.
“MS Schwabenland (1925)” enters the record as steamship launched in 1925. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Schwabenland, steamship and launched can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1556187. Authority coordinates are 58.173, 10.757. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1939, 1925 and 1934.
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This entry incorporates text from “MS Schwabenland (1925)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.