carrier
noun · Frachtführer
The Frachtführer owes the carriage itself: under § 407 HGB he is obliged to carry the goods to the destination and deliver them there to the consignee, while the sender owes the agreed freight. He is liable for loss and damage during his custody without fault, but that liability is capped by weight, which is why cargo insurance rather than a claim decides most losses.
Which translation, when
Why
Carrier translates as Frachtführer, and the German term is defined by the obligation rather than by the vehicle. Section 407 Abs. 1 HGB provides that the contract of carriage obliges the Frachtführer to carry the goods to the place of destination and to deliver them there to the consignee; Abs. 2 obliges the Absender, the sender, to pay the agreed freight. The rules apply to carriage by land, on inland waterways and by air where the carriage belongs to the operation of a commercial undertaking, and the maritime carrier has his own vocabulary, being the Verfrachter rather than the Frachtführer, which a translation of a sea-freight document must respect. The liability regime is the part foreign counsel misjudge in both directions. On the one hand it is stricter than an English duty of care: the carrier answers for loss of or damage to the goods occurring between taking over and delivery, and for exceeding the delivery period, without proof of fault, and escapes only on the statutory grounds of exemption. On the other hand the amount is capped, calculated by the gross weight of the consignment in the special drawing right of the International Monetary Fund and converted into euros at the rate applying on the day of taking over, so a container of high-value goods is compensated by weight and not by value unless the parties agreed otherwise or qualified fault removes the limitation. That combination explains why German shipping practice runs on cargo insurance and on declarations of value rather than on litigation, and why the first question in a cross-border loss is whether the domestic rules or the international road carriage convention apply, since both work with the same technique but different figures.
Typical mistakes
- The Frachtführer owes the carriage itself, so using the word for an intermediary who merely arranges it names the wrong party and the wrong liability regime.
- Liability arises without proof of fault but is capped by weight, so describing it as either strict and unlimited or as fault-based misstates it in opposite directions.
- The maritime carrier is the Verfrachter, so applying the land vocabulary to a sea carriage document uses the wrong term of art.
What matters
Assessing a German transport damage claim: the analysis should establish who owed the carriage, test the custody period, and calculate the cap by weight before considering whether qualified fault removes it.
What the machine misses
Machine output for carrier gives Beförderer or Transporteur, neither of which the Commercial Code uses, and the party owing the carriage is the Frachtführer of § 407 HGB, liable without fault during his custody but capped by weight; the loose word also blurs the line to the Spediteur, who only arranges the carriage, and to the Verfrachter of sea carriage.
Examples
| the carrier | der Frachtführer |
| the contract of carriage | der Frachtvertrag |
| loss of or damage to the goods | Verlust oder Beschädigung des Gutes |
| the limitation of liability | die Haftungsbegrenzung |
More notes on these sections
freight Fracht