North German Lloyd [Transportation Map of Europe]

Diagrammatic transportation map of Europe from the interwar period.

This effective promotional map showcases the rapidly evolving transportation methods available to European travelers in the mid-1920s. The ports of the North German Lloyd steamers are connected by rail (red) and air routes (green) to scores of destinations across the continent. Distances between points are noted, though no indication of travel time is given.

Text in the lower left advertises the various ships of the German line, then still ostensibly limited by the Treaty of Versailles and plying heavily the Transatlantic crossing. Most of them, including the Bremen and Columbus, would be sunk during World War II.

The map was copyrighted in 1926 by the North German Lloyd Company in Bremen. That same year, Deutsche Luft Hansa, an air transport subsidiary, was officially organized as the first commercial airline in Germany.