[7] In the following years, passenger connections to Baltimore and New Orleans were added to the schedule, and the company first rented (and then purchased in 1869) facilities on the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Beginning in 1881 with Elbe, eleven fast steamships of from 4500 to 6,900 GRT of the so-called "Rivers-class" (all named for German rivers), were introduced to serve the North Atlantic route.

NDL was also carrying more transatlantic passengers to New York than any other company, due to its dominance in steerage, which consisted mostly of immigrants.

In 1897, with the completion of Kaiser Wilhelm der Große, the NDL finally had a major ship for the North Atlantic route.

With these ships the company offered a regular service across the Atlantic to its docks at Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from New York.

[14] In 1900, fourteen of NDL's passenger ships were requisitioned as troop transports due to the Boxer Rebellion in China.

He succeeded in signing both HAPAG and NDL to a profit-sharing agreement, but was unable to acquire the British Cunard Line, or the French Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT).

Because of the high investment costs and an international economic crisis, the company celebrated at this time but also realized that it had considerable financial difficulties.

It was sold in 1942 to Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau and, when that company was broken up into its constituent parts after World War II, passed to AG Weser.

The NDL responded with smaller but prestigious ships such as Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm and George Washington, and transferred Berlin from Mediterranean service to the New York run.

[22] During 1900–1914, the three NDL ships carried the most transatlantic migrants, Rhein, Main and Neckar, each brought over 100 thousand steerage passengers to New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

[23] The economic downturn following the Panic of 1907 led to a sharp fall-off of migrant traffic to America, only partially offset by increased steerage flows back to Europe.

[28] NDL owned a majority interest in the Deutsche Ozean-Reederei ("German Ocean Shipping Service"), which used U-boats for trade and made some successful Atlantic crossings.

In 1923, it combined with HAPAG's air transport subsidiary to form Deutscher Aero Lloyd, which merged with Junkers Luftverkehr AG on 6 January 1926 to become Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G., the predecessor of Lufthansa.

In August 1920, the NDL made an agency agreement with the U.S. Mail Steamship Co. (beginning in 1921, United States Lines).

The NDL and the HAPAG therefore entered into a cooperation agreement in 1930, and beginning in 1935, instituted joint operations in the North Atlantic.

Following the death of Stimming, Heinrich F. Albert briefly became head of NDL, followed after some eighteen months by the National Socialist Rudolph Firle.

In 1939, Erlangen slipped out of Lyttelton Harbour (New Zealand) on 28 August, on the eve of World War II, ostensibly for Port Kembla, New South Wales, where it was to have filled her coal bunkers for the homeward passage to Europe.

It then headed for the subantarctic Auckland Islands, successfully evading the cruiser HMNZS Leander, and re-stocked with food and wood.

The freighter then made a desperate and successful escape, using jury-rigged sails, to Valparaíso, Chile, in South America.

Erlangen then made her way into the South Atlantic where, on 24 July 1941, it was intercepted off Montevideo by HMS Newcastle and scuttled by her crew.

At the end of World War II, the company's headquarters (which had been sold in 1942[46]) had been severely damaged by bombing and all its large ships had either been destroyed or seized.

Relicensed by the American military administration on November 29, 1945 as a "coastal shipping and stevedoring company," it started again, as after World War I, practically from zero, offering tugboat and daytripper services.

In 1950, NDL placed its first post-war orders at the Bremer Vulkan shipyard for the Rheinstein-class ships (2,791 GRT, 13 knots).

In 1955, NDL resumed passenger service on the North Atlantic routes using a rebuilt 1924 Swedish ship, the 17,993 GRT Gripsholm.

Passenger service was running at an increasing deficit, and the rapidly growing container traffic required cost-intensive retooling in the freight business.

Since the NDL was already carrying out three quarters of its freight business in association with HAPAG, a merger of the two largest German shipping companies was entirely logical.

[53] On September 1, 1970, NDL merged with HAPAG to form Hapag-Lloyd AG, based in Hamburg with a secondary headquarter in Bremen.

[28][54] On 20 February 2007, a small group of dedicated, former member of NDL organized a meeting at the Bremer Ratskellerfor for the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the company.

They take place annually on the twentieth of February in Bremen in the former Lloyd's building – today Courtyard Marriott hotel.