Kronprinz Wilhelm was a German ocean liner built for Norddeutscher Lloyd, a shipping company now part of Hapag-Lloyd, by the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, Germany (now Szczecin, Poland), in 1901.

She had a varied career, starting off as a world-record-holding passenger liner, then becoming an auxiliary warship from 1914–1915 for the Imperial German Navy, sailing as a commerce raider for a year, and then interned in the United States when she ran out of supplies.

When the US entered World War I, she was seized and renamed USS Von Steuben, and served as a United States Navy troop transport until she was decommissioned.

[11] In September 1902, captained by August Richter, Kronprinz Wilhelm won the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing yet from Cherbourg to New York in a time of five days, 11 hours, 57 minutes, with an average speed of 23.09 kn (42.76 km/h; 26.57 mph).

These included the lawyer and politician Lewis Stuyvesant Chanler (1903),[12] the opera singer Lillian Blauvelt (1903),[12] the theatrical manager and producer Charles Frohman (1904) who died in 1915 aboard RMS Lusitania; businessman John Jacob Astor (1906) who died in 1912 aboard RMS Titanic; the "most picturesque woman in America," Rita de Acosta Lydig, and her second husband, Captain Philip M. Lydig (1907);[13] the author Lloyd Osbourne (1907);[13] the star conductor Alfred Hertz (1909); the ballerina Adeline Genée (1908); the theatrical and opera producer Oscar Hammerstein together with the conductor Cleofonte Campanini and the opera singers Mario Sammarco, Giuseppe Taccani and Fernando Gianoli-Galetti (1909);[14][15] and the multi-millionaire, politician and lawyer Samuel Untermyer (1910).

Cunard executives who visited the Kronprinz and the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse in 1903 described Poppe's interiors as "bizarre, extravagant and crude, loud in colour and restless in form, obviously costly, and showy to an extreme degree.

[17] The Scientific American Supplement noted that "the accommodations are finished on the same rich scale of decoration which obtains on the "Kaiser Wilhelm:" but with the difference that the color scheme is more subdued and, therefore, more restful to the eye.

It was claimed by recorder Charles Rous-Marten that gold was transferred from the Kronprinz Wilhelm to the GWR train, as a payment to the French for the construction costs of the Panama canal.

The close proximity of the British cruiser HMS Suffolk abbreviated the rendezvous, forcing the two German ships to cast off hastily and speed away in different directions.

Kronprinz Wilhelm took a meandering course towards the Azores, arriving on 17 August and rendezvousing with the German steamship Walhalla off São Miguel Island.

On the voyage to the Azores and thence to the South American coast, Kronprinz Wilhelm had to avoid contact with all shipping since she was not ready to embark upon her mission raiding Allied commerce.

The crew worked at a feverish pace in order to be ready, and by the time Kronprinz Wilhelm met Karlsruhe's tender—SS Asuncion—near Rocas Reef north of Cape San Roque on 3 September, preparations were nearly complete.

The prize crew found a cargo composed largely of contraband, but before sinking the ship, Commander Thierfelder wanted to salvage as much of her supplies and fuel as he could.

That event occurred on 7 October, when she hailed the British steamship La Correntina well off the Brazilian coast at about the same latitude as Rio de Janeiro.

On 14 October, she resumed the transfer of fuel but broke off again when she intercepted a wireless message indicating that her captive's sister ship La Rosarina had departed Montevideo two days earlier and would soon pass nearby.

Survivors of La Correntina and the French barque Union were landed at Montevideo by the German liner Sierra Cordoba on 23 November 1914.

Allied newspapers often reported that Kronprinz Wilhelm had been sunk, torpedoed, or interned, but between 4 September 1914 and 28 March 1915, she was responsible for the capture (and often sinking) of 15 ships—10 British, four French, and one Norwegian—off the east coast of South America.

The targeted ships were usually caught by surprise (some did not even yet know that war had been declared), and their captain had to make the quick decision of whether to run, fight, or surrender.

Finally, a dwindling coal supply and an alarming increase in the sick list forced Kronprinz Wilhelm to make for the nearest neutral port.

The apparent cause of the illness was malnutrition from their diet consisting mainly of beef, white bread, boiled potatoes, canned vegetables, and oleomargarine.

At 10:12 that morning, she dropped anchor off Newport News, and ended her cruise, during which she steamed 37,666 mi (32,731 nmi; 60,618 km) and destroyed just under 56000 tons of Allied shipping.

In their internment, the crews of these vessels — numbering about 1,000 officers and men — built in the yard — from scrap materials — a typical German village named "Eitel Wilhelm", which attracted many visitors.

That same day, the Collector of the Port of Philadelphia seized the former German raider for the US on 22 May, President Woodrow Wilson issued the executive order which empowered the United States Navy to take possession of the ship and to begin to repair her.

For the next four weeks, she remained close to American Eastern Seaboard, visiting Hampton Roads, Virginia and New York City in addition to Philadelphia.

At about 09:14 on the morning of 6 December, she was about 40 mi (35 nmi; 64 km) from Halifax when the ship was rocked by a concussion so severe that many thought she had struck a mine or been torpedoed.

Lookouts spied a great flame and a high column of smoke in the direction of the port where the French ammunition ship Mont-Blanc had exploded in Halifax Harbour.

Credit for this must go to Dwinsk's master, who ordered his people to lie low in their craft so that other Allied ships would not be drawn into the waiting U-boat's trap.

Silhouetted by the flames, she would have made a perfect target for any U-boat in the vicinity, but she worked throughout the night and, by morning, had succeeded in embarking Henderson's more than 2,000 troops.

After a short repair period in late July and early August, the ship resumed duty transporting troops to Europe.

Between late August and the Armistice on 11 November, Von Steuben made three more round-trip voyages carrying troops to France and returning the sick and wounded to the US.