The (; ) was a supposed suborganization of the (DDSG), a shipping company based in Vienna that transported passengers and cargo on the Danube before World War I. The DDSG still exists today in the form of the now-private companies DDSG-Blue Danube Schifffahrt GmbH (passenger transport) and the DDSG-Cargo GmbH. However, there is no evidence that the ever existed.
As a compound word
With 79 letters, is a compound word that serves as an example of the virtually unlimited compounding of nouns that is possible in many Germanic languages such as German or Dutch. According to the 1996 Guinness Book of World Records, it is the longest word published in the German language.
The German orthography reform of 1996 abolished the rule that compound words with triple consonants coalesce them into double consonants. The reform affects the noun adjunct , itself a compound of ('ship') and ('transportation'), which is now spelled (with three fs). A modern spellng of the name would thus include 80 letters. However, as the compound is (allegedly) a historical name, the original spelling with 79 letters is kept. That compound word contains the uncommon plural ; ("electricity") is normally used only in the singular.
Long compound words are used sparsely in German conversation, but considerably more often than in English. A pre-World War I Danube steamship captain could be referred to as more naturally than with the somewhat contrived title ("Danube steamboating association captain"). According to the 1995 Guinness Book of World Records, the longest German word in everyday usage is ("legal protection insurance companies") at 39 letters, narrowly beating the description of HDLC as a .