Germanischer Lloyd

Before the merger, as a technical supervisory organization, Germanischer Lloyd conducted safety surveys on more than 7,000 ships with over 100 million GT. Its technical and engineering services also included the mitigation of risks and assurance of technical compliance for oil, gas, and industrial installations, as well as wind energy parks. On 16 March 1867, a group of 600 shipowners, shipbuilders and insurers met in the big hall of the Hamburg Stock Exchange on the occasion of the founding convention of Germanischer Lloyd. On behalf of the founding committee, the merchant and shipowner August Behn signed the statute of the young institution. The founding committee consisted of representatives of shipowners J. C. Godeffroy & Sohn, A. J. Schön & Co., A. J. Hertz & Söhne, as well as R. M. Sloman. The new society was founded as a non-profit association based in Hamburg. The reason for forming a German classification society was to achieve transparency. Merchants, shipowners, and insurers used to get little information about the state of a ship.