SS Vaterland was a transatlantic ocean liner that was launched for the Hamburg America Line in 1940 but left incomplete because of the Second World War.

After the Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919, the Allies seized many German merchant ships as part of World War I reparations.

HAPAG lost almost its entire fleet, including its three large Imperator-class ocean liners Imperator, Vaterland and the uncompleted Bismarck.

[4] In 1941 the German government formed a new Deutsche Amerika Linie, based in Bremen, to consolidate HAPAG and NDL's North Atlantic services.

[4] In July 1943, RAF Bomber Command and the USAAF Eighth Air Force bombed Hamburg for several days to destroy the city.