Model of motorised cargo ship, IV FRIEDEN type

• scale: 1:250
• in the shipyard delivery colours black/red
• length: 65 cm
• model constructor: Jürgen Schlanstedt, Halberstadt

Merchant ships were urgently required for building. At the start of the 1950s a programme was developed by VVB Schiffbau that envisaged four types of ships. Type IV, planned from 1952, was a motorised cargo ship with a load capacity of 10,000 tonnes. In October 1954 the first ship in the series, the FRIEDEN, was keel laid. After a building time of almost three years it was delivered to the Deutsche Seereederei (DSR) in June 1957. Until 1978 the FRIEDEN travelled under the flag of the DSR as part of the regular service to Asia, Africa and Latin America.

GDR shipbuilders were faced with enormous difficulties when building the ship. Lack of materials, insufficient supplies and inadequate technical equipment at the Warnow shipyard, which was still under construction, meant that orderly construction cycles were impossible.

Official requirements to manufacture the new type of ship without using imported goods necessitated the development of new technologies and ship equipment, as well as the creation of their own supply industry. The biggest handicap was finding suitable main machines for the new type of ship. Out of necessity – in the GDR there were no manufacturers of large diesel motors for ships at that time – it was decided to use two diesel machines on shafts in each case, which meant that the ships were fitted with four (!) main machines from EKM Halberstadt. By 1961, 15 of this type of ship had been manufactured for voyages to East Asia, of which 12 were for the Deutsche Seereederei Rostock (DSR), two for China and one for Cuba.