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LZ 129 as the airship was officially titled was later named after the late German president, Paul von Hindenburg 1847–1934, German field marshal and president (1925–34), b. Poznan (then in Prussia). His full name was Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Hindenburg und Beneckendorff. He fought in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 to 71 and was appointed to the general staff in 1878. Though retired after 1911, he was made commander in East Prussia early in World War I. President Von Hindenburg who was succeeded by Adolf Hitler was 87 years old when he died.
Paul Von Hindenburg
The manufacture of LZ 129 Hindenburg started in autumn 1931 at Friedrichshafen, Germany and lasted until the spring of 1936. Below a photo depicts the Hindenburg as she completes construction March 1936
After completion of the ship in the beginning of 1936 she made a great number of test rides, on March 19th she was approved for passenger service by the air vehicle test office of the State Aviation Ministry. In the further course of this year until December she made fiftyfive rides, covering over 300,000 km (186,000 miles) she crossed the north or south Atlantic thirtyfour times, carried 2800 passengers and 170 tons of cargo, all without incidents. Before resumption of service in March 1937 she was examined again by the test office, and the approval was renewed. At 804 feet long, 136 feet wide and 150 feet high, the LZ129 Hindenburg was the worlds largest flying ship ever made. Even to this day nothing as large has been built to fly, she was enormous...a giant of the air. She was held aloft by 7 million cubic feet of flammable hydrogen gas and could achieve 84 mph with her four Daimler diesel engines. Because she was built during the reign of the Nazis, her tail fins were adorned with huge Nazi Swastikas. The illustration below is to scale and gives a comparative look at the Hindenburg's size in respect of a Modern Boeing 747 Jumbo jet and the Titanic
THE BEST WAY TO TRAVEL Launched in March 26 1936, she was the worlds first transatlantic commercial air liner. The overall accommodation for the passenger was of the highest luxury that was available at the time. And the experience aboard her was meant to remain in one's memory long after the journey. The fare was $400 one way or $720 return. To those that were a passenger on her they said that it was the best way to travel. The Hindenburg spoke of wealth and prosperity and at the time it symbolized Germany as a great nation. The Hindenburg prepares for its first flight, and this picture below shows a view of the control room where the Hindenburg was piloted from. There were two decks for the passengers aboard the Hindenburg, Decks A and B.
Deck A Comprised of stately accommodation and was situated on the lower part of the airship. It offered exquisite luxury to the passengers, though it initially contained twenty-five two-berth passenger cabins, an extra set of nine two-berth and one four-berth cabins were added in December 1936. This increased the passenger capacity and enabled the Hindenburg to actually carry a maximum of seventy-two passengers. Within deck A was situated a reading room, a writing room, a lounge with a small grand piano, and the dining room.
The sides of the lounge and dining room offered a panoramic view of the outside world through the large windows. Deck B contained water closets and a shower, the galley, crew quarters, a cocktail bar, and a pressurized smoking room, that could only be entered through an airtight sealed door. Passengers embarking on the Hindenburg actually had any pocket cigar lighters and matches taken from them. The only lighter was in the smoking room attached to a chain to the table, as a safety precaution. If the passengers were not aware of how highly flammable hydrogen was then certainly the crew did !
This photo of the kitchen aboard the Hindenburg may be a surprise to many due to the reasonable size of it. Most people would assume the kitchen area to be a pokey hole where a cook struggled to cook in cramped conditions. Not so, the kitchen was the same as any kitchen found in any moderate establishment. Fully equipped to cook fantastic cuisine for its exclusive passengers and crew. At this time in history the Germans were not capable of manufacturing the non volatile helium gas. The USA was the world largest producer of helium and they would not sell any to Germany. This was because of the fact that Germany used Zeppelins in the first world war to fly over enemy territory and drop bombs on them, so the fear that Hitler would put helium gas to some sort of military application was a real concern and therefore it was avoided. Germany therefore had to make do with the next best thing...the volatile hydrogen.
The Hindenburg flying over New York in May 6th 1937
The Hindenburg, unbeknown at the time, was on her final voyage. She left Frankfurt, Germany on May 3rd, 1937 and flew across the Atlantic, due to arrive at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey USA at 06:00 am. Strong winds and bad weather over the Atlantic Ocean made her progress much slower than normal.
The weather was unrepentant when the Hindenburg was over the States and the ship had to make a detour away from Lakehurst and headed toward Atlantic City. The rain started to fall quite heavily for ten minutes or so and then as the skies cleared up, the Hindenburg got back on her original course. She flew on to her fate and into history...
Painting by the artist Ken Marschall seconds before she erupted into flames. The Last Twenty Five Minutes: At exactly 7:00 pm the Hindenburg approached Lakehurst Air Station from the South West. The crowds in their hundreds had gathered to see this marvel of the skies come in. They were enthralled by its magnitude and grace as she cruised in nearer and nearer. On board were sixtyone crew and thirtysix passengers. At 7:07 The Hindenburg executed a sharp turn at full speed towards the West at an altitude of about 700 feet. At 7:11 Now at about 600 feet the Hindenburg vents out some gas to bring her in lower towards the docking mast. At 7:12 The Captain of the Hindenburg circles the ship around and slows its engines down to idle speed. At 7:14 The ship is on course for the docking tower and the Captain begins to reverse engines to slow her down. The approach is correct the speed and altitude at about 400 feet is also correct. Everything is running smoothly and without problems. At 7:17 The Hindenburg releases water ballast to help adjust the altitude of the ship to get it perpendicular with the docking tower. All is going perfect and the Hindenburg floats majestically in to the correct position. At 07:22 The first mooring rope is dropped from the starboard bow, the ships altitude is 300 feet and she is 700 feet from the docking mast. She closes in and all appears well. 7:25 At the same altitude and 600 feet from the docking mast the greatest airship ever to grace the skies erupts into a ball of flame as fire shoots along it from the rear fin. The Hindenburg fell tail first with flames shooting out the nose. It crashed into the ground thirty-two seconds after the flames was first spotted. It was miraculous that any of the people on board her managed to escape at all when we consider the amount of heat and fire that was generated.
Painting by artist Ken Marschall
The Worlds Most Famous Radio Broadcast All of this time the radio announcer Herbert Morrison, a correspondent with Chicago's WLS, was commentating on the arrival of the Hindenburg and he managed to keep on talking while the horrific events unfolded.
Herbert Morrison 1906 - 1989 Listen to the Full broadcast by clicking on the arrow below.
Herb Morrison Reporting... An abridged transcript of the world famous Radio broadcast is also printed below.
"........It's practically standing still now. They've dropped ropes out of the
nose of the ship, and it's been taken a hold of down on the field by a number
of men. It's starting to rain again; the rain had slacked up a little bit. The
back motors of the ship are just holding it, just enough to keep it from
........"
The Youtube clip below is a special treat in that the old newsreel footage has been colorized.
The flames rush along from front to rear of the ship. With 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen aboard she now only has seconds left.
She looses altitude as the flames take hold and the ship begins to blaze rapidly. The Hindenburg is past the point of no return.
Most of the flammable hydrogen now erupts into a huge ball of fire as the Hindenburg plummets toward the ground.
She hits the ground and passengers cascade out of her, fighting and running for their lives.
The blazing hulk of the Hindenburg collapses on passengers and other people on the ground.
LOSS OF LIFE Thirty-six people died in the crash. One of them was Captain Ernst Lehmann. He survived the initial crash, and as he was lead away he was heard to mutter " I just can't under stand it " but due to the injuries that he had received he died the following day. The Hindenburg 36 + 1 the Naval Grounds man. * indicates those that survived the initial crash but later died as a result of the injuries that they sustained.
The loss of only thirty-seven people makes one think that the loss of the Hindenburg hardly constitutes a great loss or indeed a really terrible tragedy as so often advertised, even on this web page. A sorry loss of life yes, as always in any incidents such as these. Why I believe the loss of the Hindenburg was such big news at the time and why it is still talked about is: 1. The mysterious circumstances of the ships demise. 2. The huge amount of publicity that followed it. 3. The spectacular way the ship unexpectedly and inexplicably burst into flames, as fire always grips human imagination. 4. The Hindenburg was the largest ship that has ever flown, even today she still holds the record. Publicity of the Hindenburg's loss was highlighted by the fact that it was filmed as it burst into flames and crashed in a gigantic ball of fire, this helped to increase the dramatisation of the tragedy. Today we are sadly used to stories of 747 jetliners crashing or similar disasters where 100 or 300 people die at a time but in the late 1930's this type of accident was quite unprecedented. Maybe because it was perhaps the first air disaster of this kind that ultimately helped its infamy just as the loss of the Titanic some twenty-five years earlier did for maritime disasters.
Speculation About The Hindenburg's Demise Many theories and much speculation about the initial spark of flame that set off the catalyst that burned the Hindenburg to destruction have been tendered over the years, including sabotage. Destroying the Hindenburg could serve to discredit the Nazi regime and Germany as a result. Another theory is that it was purely an accident. There had been an electrical storm that night, it is possible that the highly flammable hydrogen gas was touched off by a spark. It has been suggested that when the mooring lines where caught by the groundsman, the airship earthed out with a charge of static electricity enough to ignite a possible minor and unnoticed leak of gas. I would like to remind you here that the Hindenburg actually vented gas as she came into the docking mastl, this may have been what actually ignited. Also the Hindenburg did NOT explode, it simply burned rapidly, the flammable paint on the canvas was said to have been just as volatile as the hydrogen. When recent tests on preserved pieces of the ships canvass were carried out, it was found that it did indeed burn very rapidly. Addison Bain is the former manager of NASA's hydrogen program for the space shuttle rockets and he states that hydrogen actually burns without much of a visible flame but testimonies from witnesses who saw the ship erupt into flames state the fire was extremely colorful. The compound is a layer of iron oxide and this is saturated with a mixture of cellulose butyrate acetate and powdered aluminum. This mixture is very similar to a mixture used to power solid fuel rockets, painting the Hindenburg with rocket fuel based paint would certainly not have helped its case. We may never know the truth, but I tend to go along with the spark and canvass theory.
There is an interesting website that attempts to dispose of many theories that have surfaced as to the Hindenburg's demise. As the website is very good and presents a plethora of information about airships, then I gladly provide the link below...
www.airships.net It states on the website that the covering of rocket fuel type paint had no real cause or effect on the Hindenburg disaster and is just a myth, then I have this reply: The airships hydrogen gas was indeed somehow ignited and it was this ignition that ultimately destroyed the airship. The covering of a flammable type of paint certainly did not help the Hindenburg but this may not have been the cause of its eruption. The photo on the website shows some unburnt canvas and this photo is reproduced below. I suggest that this part of the surviving canvas did not have any of the flammable paint on it at all as they probably ran out of the first batch and hashed up some ordinary less nonvolatile paint mixture.
The website suggests that what I have written here on my webpage as regard to the volatile paint helping to destroy the Hindenburg airship is just rubbish, but I am only offering what I believe to be the best solution so far as to why the airship erupted so fast, i.e. accelerated by the volatile paint. In the old footage of the airship as it erupts into flame you will notice at how fast the canvas burns in particular from frame 00:27 onwards, almost in milliseconds. Whole sections just vaporize and this is a strong indication that the covering was indeed highly volatile. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are an abundance of Zeppelin links for further reading about this interesting topic. Click on the image below.
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