B. Burger & Finagra Co. Ltd., 1935-1944

The future of Hungarian navigation was imegined in many different ways by so many a dreamer at the end of the 1920's decade. The 1929. I. Hungarian law on free shipping meant some solution. With the help of captain Rákos and the Barta brothers and in the wake of the new law several shipping companies established with Dutch, German, Italian and British capital investements started operation under Hungarian flag. Later, the 1934. IV., V. and VI. law further faciliteted the state of Hungarian sea shipping and sailors. This was when the Hungarian honorary consul in Genoa, Bernat Burger and later his brother József Burger bought ships and transferred them to Hungarian flag. By the beginning of 1932 newly founded companies hired 108 Hungarian officers and 216 crew on board their 13 Hungarian registered freighters. However, suspicion of Hungarian ships involved in insurance frauds - among them was one of Burger's ship the ÁRPÁD - and the deepening economic crisis caused that by 1934 only seven ships sailed under Hungarian flag on world seas. By this time only two companies could survive and sail on. One of them was Bernat Burger's venture. Even though they faced problems, the tanker was sold after a year and the above mentioned ÁRPÁD sank, they managed to establish the Neptun Sea Nav. Co. with two newly purchased ships, the s/s KELET and the s/s NYUGAT. Besides Neptun, Burger founded another shipping company, the Switzerland (Genf) based Finagra S.A., and with 50 % Hungarian share brought under Hungarian flag the 4000 tonnes s/s TURUL. Two years later, the TURUL's sisters the ADRIA and the ALBA were put in service by the Finagra S. A. with Panama flag but Hungarian crew on board. At the same time a lot larger steamer the ATLAS started her service with the company, too. The ALBA was lost at St. Ives, two Hungarians and an Italian sailor died in the shipwreck. In 1940, after the KELET belonging to Burgers' Neptun Co. had been torpedoed and sunk by the German UA submarine on the Atlantic Ocean, the Hungarian Maritime Authority ordered the owners to abandon the unofficial and coumuflaged British charter. With regards to the fact that war transport meant good business to them a compromise solution was worked out. It was authorised by the minister of transport and commerce for the owners of the four remaining Hungarian ships to raise neutral flag on the condition that same BRT would be brought back under Hungarian flag after the war. The TURUL changed flag at Port Said, but her name and the majority of her crew remained the same and she served her owners even after the war.

József Horváth: What happens to you, Hungarian sea navigation? Aqua Magazin, vol. 20., 2001.