return passage to Germany Bremen took the eastbound Blue Riband with a time of 4 days 14 hours and 30 minutes and an average speed of , the first time a liner had broken two records on her first two passages. The mailplane was launched on the eastbound voyage in the English Channel near Cherbourg carrying 18,000 letters to Bremerhaven where it delivered the mail many hours ahead of the ship's arrival. Bremen lost the westbound Blue Riband to her sister Europa in 1930, and the eastbound Blue Riband to Italian in 1932. Before World War II As Nazism gained power in Germany, Bremen and her pier in New York were often the site of Anti-Nazi demonstrations. On 26 July 1935 a group of anti-Nazi demonstrators boarded Bremen just before she sailed and tore the Nazi flag from the jackstaff and tossed it into the Hudson River. At the time there was a dual flag law, by which both the black-white-red horizontal tricolor (previously the flag of the German Empire), and the swastika flag were simultaneously official national flags of Germany. As the ship's swastika flag was the one tossed into the river, US authorities claimed that no symbol of Germany had been harmed. On 15 September 1935 Germany changed its flag law, removing the status of the black-white-red flag of imperial Germany, lest it be used by reactionaries. The Nazis on coming to power had used it as a co-national flag to replace the black-red-gold flag of the Weimar Republic. Bremen started her South America cruise on 11 February 1939, and was the first ship of this size to traverse the Panama Canal. On 22 August 1939, she began her last voyage to New York. After ten years of service, she had almost 190 transatlantic voyages completed. World War II On 26 August 1939, in anticipation of the invasion of Poland, the Kriegsmarine high command ordered all German merchant ships to head to German ports immediately. Bremen was on a westbound crossing and two days from New York when she received the order. Bremens captain decided to continue to New York to disembark her 1,770 passengers. She left New York without passengers on 30 August 1939 and on 1 September, coincident with the start of the Second World War, she was ordered to make for the Russian port of Murmansk. Underway, her crew painted the ship grey for camouflage.