Johann Heinrich Christoph Wiegand (17 August 1855 in Bremen – 29 March 1909 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe) was a lawyer who served as general director of the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipping company during a period of great expansion.
In particular he attempted to make Bremen the base of operations for American development of electric trams in Germany through the Ludwig Loewe company of Berlin.
[7][8] These efforts having failed, he was on the point of moving to Berlin[7] when Johann Georg Lohmann died suddenly on 9 February 1892 and he was chosen to succeed him as director of Norddeutscher Lloyd from 1 April 1892.
[6][9] Initially two vice presidents were to assist him; after two years both had retired and until his own death in 1909, he worked with Geo Plate, the head of the board of directors and the man who had proposed his name.
[7] In 1905, Wiegand was offered the position of State Secretary for the Colonies, but refused it;[9] Chancellor von Bülow considered having Kaiser Wilhelm II order him to accept.
[20] Wiegand had a close and friendly relationship with the company's head of engineering, Max Walter, and adopted technical innovations rapidly where safety was concerned; for example, the telegraph was installed in 1899 on the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, and by 1913 most NDL steamers had it and also sonar.
[23] At the end of his life, in autumn 1918, Ballin told a meeting of the Hamburg-America board that the only person he knew who could have helped them in the crisis of the losing war was the late Heinrich Wiegand.