The origins of the shipyard
Ships have been constructed at our shipyard in Rostock for around 170 years. Our company was founded in 1850 as a mechanical engineering institute and shipyard. The first vessels were built under the leadership of engineer Albrecht Tischbein – two iron screw steamers that were later used for regular services between Rostock and St. Petersburg. In 1890, the shipyards owned by Albert Tischbein and Witte & Abendroth were brought together under the stock corporation “NEPTUN, Schiffswerft und Maschinenfabrik”.
1997: the start of a new era
The shipyard had to survive numerous crises over the decades that followed, such as the First World War, high inflation in the 1920s, and the separation of Germany after the Second World War. As a result, the East German VEB NEPTUN WERFT focused on the markets in the former Eastern block. Following the reunification of Germany, the capacity of our shipyard was redefined with the emergence of the EU. This is when Neptun Industrie Rostock (NIR) stopped building new ships and turned its attention to the reparation and modernisation of vessels, the supply of components and the preparation of ro-ro ships.
1997 was the dawn of a new era: NIR was taken over by MEYER Group, and the shipbuilding company in Rostock started focusing on the construction of river cruise ships, a line of business that has remained a key feature of our shipyard operations to this day. Today we also build floating engine room units, which are the centrepiece of the cruise ships constructed by MEYER WERFT in Papenburg and MEYER TURKU in Finland.
