The Zeppelin

By Michael Belafi

This authoritative history of the Zeppelin covers the entire course of the airship’s development “extensively illustrated with . . . photographs and drawings” (Toy Soldier & Model Figure).

Named after the German Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin, an early pioneer of rigid airship development, the Zeppelin was first flown commercially by Deutsch Luftschiffahrts (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid–1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1500 flights. When war hit, it was employed to military advantage, wreaking carnage upon Britain's towns and cities.

German defeat in 1918 temporarily halted the airship business. Though it bounced back with the construction of the Graf Zeppelin in the thirties, a series of accidents signaled the demise of the Zeppelin. Following the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, and in the midst of numerous political and economic issues, the Zeppelin was soon to be consigned to the history books. This new publication explores each facet of its history, and concludes by assessing the legacy of rigid airship development, still felt to this day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473854482

Book preview

Chapter One

Zeppelin

1.1 A Son of the Aristocracy with a Carefree Childhood

2 August 1838, Constance. Parson Partenheimer: ‘On August 2nd, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, at ten-thirty in the morning, a boy was born of this parish in wedlock and baptised on the 2nd of August: Ferdinand Adolph August Heinrich.’

None of the few godparents and legal witnesses on this beautiful 2 August could foresee in the slightest that this little bundle of a person, lying in the arms of his mother, would write a new chapter in the history of technology after having almost completed an entirely different phase of his professional life. Nor that he would link his very name to his invention in a manner quite unlike anyone before him.

Ferdinand and his sister Eugenia, older by two years, in parental embrace. Their younger brother Eberhard was born three years later.

The name Zeppelin – originally Zepelin – appeared for the first time at the end of the thirteenth century in the region of Mecklenburg. There, the small village Zepelin, near Bülow, still commemorates the original homeland of Count Zeppelin. In this region the masters of Zepelin lived for centuries as landlords. Since the Thirty Years’ War they increasingly served as officers and mercenaries in many European armies. Three descendants of the von Zepelin family entered the service of the Württemberg court and held high offices in the administration, diplomacy and military there. Zeppelin’s father came from this younger line of counts. The Wurttembergians pronunciation differed to that of the Mecklenburgians, and it was they who introduced the double ‘p’ spelling.

On the maternal side Zeppelin’s ancestors were characterised by entirely different attributes. The great-grandfather of Count Zeppelin bought the little island by Constance, complete with the now secularised Dominican monastery, from the Austrian imperial dynasty. The only condition: trades and industries had to be set up in the buildings there. So a cotton factory was established in what is now the Hotel ‘Insel’. It experienced an astonishingly rapid rise. David Macaire, the son of the company founder, continued the industrial enterprise, and bought further small and medium sized businesses in the area around Constance. His marriage produced Amalia Francisca Paulina, the mother of Count Zeppelin. Twenty-two years after the birth of his mother and in the very same rooms of the refurbished Dominican monastery in which she was born, Count Zeppelin came into the world, on 2 August, 1838.

At that time the parents of the count had already resigned from court life in Württemberg and had followed in the footsteps of their Mecklenburg ancestors. They took over the castle estate Girsberg, near Kreuzlingen in the immediate vicinity of Constance. Almost all agricultural and craft activities were studied by the count’s father, and they were also studied by the count himself. For most of the time, apart from the harvest, he had only one assistant. Of course little Ferdinand did not stand apart hereby, especially since there were no other distractions on the slightly remote estate.

The birthplace of Count Zeppelin in Constance, now the Hotel ‘Insel’.

A private tutor was hired for the education of the three children, Eugenia, Ferdinand and Eberhard.

The education and upbringing of the young Zeppelins differed greatly from the standards customary in aristocratic circles of the time. History, science and geography were the main subjects taught by the tutor, Moser. He spent much time and effort on the good spoken and written style of his charges. The correspondences, articles and essays by Zeppelin still impress today with their clear manner of expression and elegant penmanship. In hundreds of handwritten documents, including several volumes of diaries, the count made no significant orthographic or grammatical mistakes. According to Moser’s own statements, he always directed his focus on the development of independent thought and work, and joyful learning. In contrast to their teacher, all the Zeppelins mastered the French language perfectly.

The Castle estate Girsberg near Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. In the middle of the picture is the former residence of the Zeppelin family.

All the year round, the children made use of the splendid natural environment and the nearby Lake Constance for all manners of physical activity, possibly because of which the later airship architect was spared childhood illnesses. He kept strictly to this lifestyle in later years. It is certainly no coincidence that he was of remarkable health all through his life.

After the death of their mother in 1852, the Zeppelins let the Girsberg estate and moved to the Münster estate near Cannstatt in order to hand over the further education of the two boys to academies of higher learning. Moser had reached the limits of his didactic skills, especially in questions of trigonometry and analysis, but he also felt overtaxed in the field of languages.

Due to his preference for the sciences, Ferdinand was enrolled in the final year of the middle and polytechnic school in Stuttgart. The attendance at such a polytechnic school was not at all common for a member of his social class.

In the whole of Germany, several such polytechnic academies had been founded around that time. Their purpose was to promote the rapidly increasing interpenetration of the exact sciences and modern technology, for which most of the traditional universities in their ossified structures had not yet embraced themselves up. Some polytechnic schools developed subsequently into technical colleges and universities. Scarcely half a century later, the technicians and technological scientists that were to prove so extraordinarily important to the Zeppelin project – von Bach, Kober, Kübler, Dürr, Daimler, Maybach and Baumann – studied or taught at the Stuttgart institution.

Zeppelin as a fifteen-year-old student at the polytechnic school.

In those years Zeppelin was not entirely clear yet about his future course in life. In this he was no different from other youths of his age. He was thirsty for knowledge, studious and among the best students of his year. The adolescent was fascinated by Rosseau’s concepts of natural philosophy and a staunch Württembergian patriot with a matching anti-Prussian attitude.

1.2 Cadet, Technical Studies, General Staff Officer

December 1859. Eugenia, his sister, to Zeppelin: ‘I would be very grateful to Mr General Staff if he would let you take a little breath.’

After graduating from the polytechnic school it did not come naturally to Zeppelin to commence a military career, following his family’s tradition, especially since his father allowed him free rein in choosing a profession.

As lieutenant of the general quarter master staff in Ludwigsburg.

Nonetheless Ferdinand entered the Royal Army College in Ludwigsburg as a cadet on 21 October 1855. It was directly under the command of the general quarter master staff. Yet apparently the young Zeppelin did not feel entirely at ease at this cadet school, as time and again he suffered from short term depression. The practised drill ran contrary to the young man’s nature.

After graduation from the his three-year military college course, Zeppelin was promoted to lieutenant on 20 September 1858 and shortly after transferred to the general quarter master staff in Ludwigsburg.

Selected technically talented officers served in the German general quarter master staffs. Without a doubt Zeppelin counted among these, despite his youthful age and the lack of troop and war experience.

However, the count remained only a little less than three months in the staff. He was again drawn back to the studies of modern technological sciences. Therefore in November he took leave from his duties and enrolled at the University of Tübingen. He was particularly interested in the disciplines of the mechanical department, a very new and upcoming field. Its graduates formed the nationwide training ground for Germany’s future engineering elite, especially in the Association of German Engineers.

If everything had gone according to Zeppelin’s wishes, now twenty-one years old, his studies would have certainly lasted longer than a mere two semesters, and he would have perhaps become a capable engineer. Yet the beginning of a military conflict between Napoleonic France on the one side and Habsburg and Italy on the other, and the subsequent mobilisation in several German states, meant the end of his university education. He was once more enlisted and was seconded to the engineering department of the general quarter master staff in Ludwigsburg.

At that time the engineering departments of the staffs and armies, and the artillery schools, embodied the technical progress within the feudal armies of Europe. Within the cavalry, and most of the other branches of the military, the nobility ruled almost absolutely – often without any regard to the particular abilities of the individual – and rejected new ideas because of arrogant pride. In contrast a few far-sighted representatives in the general staffs and academies realised that in the engineering departments and artillery schools, the technical sciences could lead to a significant improvement of war technology. They provided access to leading positions in these military areas to numerous capable, but less connected aristocrats, and also to commoners or scientists.

So Zeppelin was convinced that he would therefore find here (in particular) that environment in which he could work best and most usefully for the defence of his Württembergian homeland.

In the engineering department of the general quarter master staff, Count Zeppelin drew up his first significant extensive engineering project on the topic ‘The Fortification’ in 1859.¹

Drawing by Zeppelin from the general staff project ‘The Fortification’, 1859.

In it he gave proof, not only of his remarkable engineering knowledge, but also of his outstanding mathematical and geodetic learning.

Zeppelin remained almost four years in the general quarter master staff, and consolidated and extended his knowledge of topography, ballistics, statics and the art of fortification – all disciplines to which he could later refer while working on his groundbreaking ideas for the construction of a rigid airship.

1.3 Volunteer and Adventurer in the War of Secession

March 1863. Zeppelin explains to his father why he travels to America: ‘I hope to grab with my hands the subject, which I had to choose as the main study of my life, in its bloody truth.’

In the last months of his time in Ludwigsburg (until the end of Spring 1863), Zeppelin travelled almost continuously throughout Europe on behalf of the army. This intense travelling was authorised by the higher echelons of the general quarter master staff. The secret order for the staff officer might have been: How can the sovereignty of Württemberg be safeguarded in the future in military terms? How is the military potential of the European states to be evaluated? Which allies would be conceivable for Württemberg in a war against France, or in the case of a fratricidal war between Prussia and Habsburg?

Count Zeppelin with some officers of the general quarter master staff.

On the first leg, Zeppelin travelled to Austria, France and Italy, where he was welcomed everywhere due to the traditionally good relations of his family to the ruling families there, and also due to his suave manner as well as his good knowledge of foreign languages.

Captive observation balloons were added to the latest war technology of the North Americans.

The second leg led Zeppelin to Northern and Western Europe, for example to England, Belgium and Denmark. Here doors were open to him which were closed to others. An interesting culmination and final point of his intensive military study tour as Württembergian officer of the general staff was the excursion to America, where the fratricidal war started two years between the southern and northern states escalated further in spring 1863.

Until then no war had been documented so thoroughly. The European military personnel could therefore follow each individual battle in great detail. Newspaper reports did not suffice for Count Zeppelin though. He wanted to be on the ground.

As a civilian Zeppelin inspected, for several months in 1863, different armies of the union troops in the American Civil War.

On 30th April he sailed from Liverpool to America. Having arrived in New York, he received an invitation to the White House by President Abraham Lincoln. It has to be mentioned here, that apart from three high-ranking French envoys, Zeppelin was the only foreigner who Lincoln made an official war correspondence – something which Zeppelin used for his own benefit.

In Philadelphia, Zeppelin was fortunate to get to know the ‘charming niece’ of the commander of the confederates so closely that she presented him with a ‘warm letter of recommendation’ to her father which would at least save his life in the event of him being taken prisoner.

After a sojourn of almost seven months in America, however, he reached a disappointed verdict of the conduct of war on both sides: ‘Nowhere planned team work, no local security force, no intelligence on the enemy, no general staff, no maps, no corps combined of various weapons, and no tactics adapted to the area.’²

Much praise was lavished by Zeppelin on the role of the armies of volunteers for defence purposes and the strikingly companionable relationship of the officers to their men. The officer, with his excellent training in engineering, was particularly impressed by the ability of the Americans to use modern technology for military purposes. They were herein ‘very inventive’. Nonetheless, for an entirely different reason, the American journey of young Zeppelin formed his future course in life as the most important constructor of airships of all times; during a short ceasefire he joined the adventurous trip undertaken by two Russians with two Native American companions into the still ‘wild’ north-west of the US.

Zeppelin next to a 7.6cm cannon.

Zeppelin amongst the staff of General Gilmore (seated) in Charleston.

As an artilleryman Zeppelin was especially interested in the fortification technology of the Americans seen here a Parrot cannon with a reach of 6km.

Zeppelin (with shouldered gun) as an adventurer in the headwaters of the Mississippi.

At the end of this adventurous expedition, Zeppelin reached St Paul in Minnesota where he wanted to rejoin the Potomac army.

However, there on 17 August 1863 a remarkable meeting took place between the count and the balloon pilot of German origin, John H. Steiner, who belonged to the troop of airship pilots as a scout in a captive hydrogen balloon.

If Zeppelin had not been the passenger with whom Steiner ascended in a captive balloon on 18 August 1863, nobody might have noted this ascent. But Zeppelin wasn’t just anybody. He sensed the fantastic possibilities offered by a steerable balloon in the future. He later wrote to his father: ‘While I hovered over St Paul, the idea of air navigation struck me.’³

However, he knew – Steiner had explained this to him in detail over many conversations – that the current state of science and technology were still miles away from the solution of the problem of steering a balloon.

1.4 Swashbuckler in the German-French War

2 September 1870, Sedan, proclamation of the emperor, Zeppelin at his wife Isabella’s side: ‘It is outstanding to have experienced the greatest day of the century.’

On 10 April 1865, one and half years after his return to his home and consecutive service in Ludwigsburg, Zeppelin gladly followed the wish of his king, Charles I of Württemberg, to become the latter’s royal adjutant.

In the 1865s the national question in Germany came to a head. Prussia claimed the unrestricted supremacy. At that time, Count Zeppelin still felt like a convinced particularist, who aspired after a militarily strong German Confederation as regards foreign policy, but strictly disapproved of a superpower Prussia within the Confederation and at the cost of the other states. In July 1865 he doubted in his diary that Prussia, ‘could and would represent the general German interests.’ He became even more explicit in May of the next year: ‘We have been led by the sad robber baron politics of Prussia into situations where the threatening war seems almost more desirable than an indefinite prolongation of circumstances unsustainable for the long term.’ He called Bismarck, ‘not classy, but reckless and brutal.’ And finally: ‘It is the duty of the Confederation to act against Prussia.’ Of course he kept such thoughts to himself.

Shortly after, the ‘fratricidal war’ took place. Yet it did, not only more quickly, but also entirely differently than foreseen by Zeppelin. Already at the end of July, under the impression of the total Prussian superiority, he suggested surrender to his King, which followed a few days later. Austria, as previous protecting power of the South German states, was excluded from the Confederation for good.

On 24 July even before the commencement of the actual combat operations between Germany and France, Zeppelin entered French territory and created a mighty stir on both sides of the border.

Count Zeppelin as wing adjutant to the King of Württemberg 1869.

Zeppelin received the Knight’s Cross of the Württembergian Military Order of Merit in honour of his services.

According to an agreement of all German confederate states, the deputation of the most able staff officer for half a year to the Tactical Department of the Great General Staff in Berlin followed. In Württemberg, Zeppelin, of all people, was chosen.

At the time of his sojourn in Berlin he made the acquaintance of Isabella von Wolff from Livland, his future wife. After their wedding the young Zeppelins moved back to Girsberg, together with his father.

How happily the young couple lived in Girsberg is made clear in a letter from Isabella to her brother dated 15 October 1869: ‘Our stay [in Girsberg – M.B.] is a delightful, incomparably happy time, we live in quiet privacy. No duties and invitations rob my husband from me, and our