LZ 129 Hindenburg (; registration: D-LZ 129) was a German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of its class, the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume. It was designed and built by the Zeppelin Company () on the shores of Lake Constance in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and was operated by the German Zeppelin Airline Company (). It was named after Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who was President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934.
The airship first flew from March 1936 as a Nazi propaganda vessel until it burst into flames 14 months later on May 6, 1937, while attempting to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey, at the end of the first North American transatlantic journey of its second season of service. This was the last of the great airship disasters; it was preceded by the crashes of the British R38, the US airship Roma, the French Dixmude, , the British R101, and .
Design and development
The Zeppelin Company had proposed LZ 128 in 1929, after the world flight of the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin. This ship was to be approximately long and carry of hydrogen. Ten Maybach engines were to power five tandem engine cars (a plan from 1930 showed only four). The disaster of the British airship R 101 prompted the Zeppelin Company to reconsider the use of hydrogen, therefore scrapping the LZ 128 in favour of a new airship designed for helium, the LZ 129. Initial plans projected the LZ 129 to have a length of , but was dropped from the tail in order to allow the ship to fit in Lakehurst Hangar No. 1.
Manufacturing of components began in 1931, but construction of the Hindenburg did not commence until March 1932. The delay was largely due to Daimler-Benz designing and refining the LOF-6 diesel engines to reduce weight while fulfilling the output requirements set by the Zeppelin Company.
Hindenburg had a duralumin structure, incorporating 15 Ferris wheel-like main ring bulkheads along its length, with 16 cotton gas bags fitted between them. The bulkheads were braced to each other by longitudinal girders placed around their circumferences. The airship's outer skin was of cotton doped with a mixture of reflective materials intended to protect the gas bags within from radiation, both ultraviolet (which would damage them) and infrared (which might cause them to overheat). The gas cells were made by a new method pioneered by Goodyear using multiple layers of gelatinized latex rather than the previous goldbeater's skins. In 1931 the Zeppelin Company purchased of duralumin salvaged from the wreckage of the October 1930 crash of the British airship R101."R101: the Final Trials and Loss of the Ship." The Airship Heritage Trust. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
Hindenburgs interior furnishings were designed by Fritz August Breuhaus, whose design experience included Pullman coaches, ocean liners, and warships of the German Navy.Lehmann 1937, p. 319. The upper "A" Deck contained 25 small two-passenger cabins in the middle flanked by large public rooms: a dining room to port and a lounge and writing room to starboard. Paintings on the dining room walls portrayed the Graf Zeppelins trips to South America. A stylized world map covered the wall of the lounge. Long slanted windows ran the length of both decks. The passengers were expected to spend most of their time in the public areas, rather than their cramped cabins.Dick and Robinson 1985, p. 96.
The lower "B" Deck contained washrooms, a mess hall for the crew, a bar, and a smoking lounge. Harold G. Dick, an American representative from the Goodyear Zeppelin Company,"The Goodyear Zeppelin Company." Ohio History Central. Retrieved October 27, 2010. recalled "The only entrance to the smoking room, which was pressurized to prevent the admission of any leaking hydrogen, was via the adjacent bar, which had a swiveling air lock door, and all departing passengers were scrutinized by the bar steward to make sure they were not carrying out a lit cigarette or pipe."Dick and Robinson 1985, p. 97."LZ-129 The Latest Airship," Popular Mechanics, June 1935.
Use of hydrogen instead of helium Helium was initially selected for the lifting gas because it was the safest to use in airships, as it is not flammable.MacGregor, Anne. "The Hindenburg Disaster: Probable Cause" (Documentary film). Moondance Films/Discovery Channel, Broadcast air date: 2001. One proposed measure to save helium was to make double-gas cells for 14 of the 16 gas cells; an inner hydrogen cell would be protected by an outer cell filled with helium, with vertical ducting to the dorsal area of the envelope to permit separate filling and venting of the inner hydrogen cells. At the time, however, helium was also relatively rare and extremely expensive as the gas was available in industrial quantities only from distillation plants at certain oil fields in the United States. Hydrogen, by comparison, could be cheaply produced by any industrialized nation and being lighter than helium also provided more lift. Because of its expense and rarity, American rigid airships using helium were forced to conserve the gas at all costs and this hampered their operation.Vaeth 2005, p. 38.
Despite a U.S. ban on the export of helium under the Helium Control Act of 1927, the Germans designed the airship to use the far safer gas in the belief that they could convince the U.S. government to license its export. When the designers learned that the National Munitions Control Board refused to lift the export ban, they were forced to re-engineer Hindenburg to use flammable hydrogen gas, which was the only alternative lighter-than-air gas that could provide sufficient lift. One of the side benefits of being forced to utilize the flammable yet lighter hydrogen was that more passenger cabins could be added.
Operational history
Launching and trial flights
Four years after construction began in 1932, Hindenburg made its maiden test flight from the Zeppelin dockyards at Friedrichshafen on March 4, 1936, with 87 passengers and crew aboard. These included the Zeppelin Company chairman, Dr. Hugo Eckener, as commander, former World War I Zeppelin commander Lt. Col. Joachim Breithaupt representing the German Air Ministry, the Zeppelin Company's eight airship captains, 47 other crew members, and 30 dockyard employees who flew as passengers.Lehmann 1937, p. 323. Harold G. Dick was the only non-Luftschiffbau representative aboard. Although the name Hindenburg had been quietly selected by Eckener over a year earlier,"The Airship". British Quarterly Journal, Spring 1935. only the airship's formal registration number (D-LZ129) and the five Olympic rings (promoting the 1936 Summer Olympics to be held in Berlin that August) were displayed on the hull during its trial flights. As the airship passed over Munich on its second trial flight the next afternoon, the city's Lord Mayor, Karl Fiehler, asked Eckener by radio the LZ129's name, to which he replied "Hindenburg". On March 23, Hindenburg made its first passenger and mail flight, carrying 80 reporters from Friedrichshafen to Löwenthal. The ship flew over Lake Constance with Graf Zeppelin.
The name Hindenburg lettered in high red Fraktur script (designed by Berlin advertiser Georg Wagner) was added to its hull three weeks later before the on March 26. No formal naming ceremony for the airship was ever held."Today in History: Hindenburg's First Flight, March 4, 1936". Airships.net. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
The airship was operated commercially by the , which had been established by Hermann Göring in March 1935 to increase Nazi influence over airship operations.. Airships.net. Retrieved October 27, 2010. The DZR was jointly owned by the (the airship's builder), the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (German Air Ministry), and (Germany's national airline at that time), and also operated the during its last two years of commercial service to South America from 1935 to 1937. Hindenburg and its sister ship, the (launched in September 1938), were the only two airships ever purpose-built for regular commercial transatlantic passenger operations, although the latter never entered passenger service before being scrapped in 1940.
After a total of six flights made over a three-week period from the Zeppelin dockyards where the airship had been built, Hindenburg was draftedover Hugo Eckener's objectionsfor a formal public debut in a Nazi Party propaganda flight around Germany (, ) made jointly with the from March 26 to 29.Lehmann 1937, pp. 323–332. This was to be followed by its first commercial passenger flight, a four-day transatlantic voyage to Rio de Janeiro that departed from the Friedrichshafen Airport in nearby Löwenthal on March 31.Lehmann 1937, p. 341. After again departing from Löwenthal on 6 May on its first of ten round trips to North America made in 1936,"Hindenburg Begins First U.S. Flight". The New York Times. May 7, 1936. all Hindenburgs subsequent transatlantic flights to both North and South America originated at the airport at Frankfurt am Main."Hindenburg is off on 2d U.S. Flight". The New York Times. May 17, 1936."Hindenburg Flight Schedules". Airships.net. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
Although designed and built for commercial transatlantic passenger, air freight, and mail service, at the behest of the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda ( or ), Hindenburg was first pressed into use by the Air Ministry (its DLZ co-operator) as a vehicle for the delivery of Nazi propaganda."Propaganda 'attack' made by Zeppelins". The New York Times. March 29, 1936. On March 7, 1936, ground forces of the German Reich had entered and occupied the Rhineland, a region bordering France, which had been designated in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles as a de-militarized zone established to provide a buffer between Germany and that neighboring country.
In order to justify its remilitarization—which was also a violation of the 1925 Locarno Pact"Belgium Insistent on Locarno Terms". The New York Times. March 12, 1936.—a post hoc referendum was quickly called by Hitler for March 29 to "ask the German people" to both ratify the Rhineland's occupation by the German Army, and to approve a single party list composed exclusively of Nazi candidates to sit in the new Reichstag. The Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin were designated by the government as a key part of the process."Two Reich Zeppelins on Election Tour". The New York Times. March 27, 1936. As a public relations ploy, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels demanded that the Zeppelin Company make the two airships available for a tour of Germany (), flying "in tandem" around Germany over the four-day period prior to the voting with a joint departure from Löwenthal on the morning of March 26.Photograph of Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin preparing to depart Löwenthal on Die Deutschlandfahrt. specialcollections.wichita.edu. Retrieved January 11, 2010.
The Zeppelin Company chairman, Dr. Hugo Eckener, disapproved of this propaganda use of his craft. According to American reporter William L. Shirer, "Hugo Eckener, who is getting [the Hindenburg] ready for its maiden flight to Brazil, strenuously objected to putting it in the air this weekend on the ground it was not fully tested, but Dr. Goebbels insisted. Eckener, no friend of the regime, refused to take it up himself, but allowed Captain [Ernst] Lehmann to. [Goebbels] is reported howling mad and is determined to get Eckener."Shirer, William L. (2011) [1st pub. 1941]. "March 29, 1936". Berlin Diary. Rosetta Books.