|
Lead: Expanded to huge dimensions and filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas, German airships became an important element of Adolf Hitler's prewar propaganda machine. Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 one of the most important champions of the German Airship was Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. The Fuhrer himself refused to set foot in a dirigible feeling they were a creation contrary to nature. Without Goebbel's enthusiasm the Zeppelin program would probably have died since the construction of the large airships was as costly as that of a heavy battleship. Backed by the government, Zeppelin began work in the mid-1930s on his crowning achievement, Hindenburg. At 804 feet in length it was enormous; the largest airship ever constructed. Launched in early 1936, the company planned to use Hindenburg and her sister ship, Graf Zeppelin, to ferry passengers across the Atlantic to North and South America. They were a propaganda triumph. Hindenburg's tail fins were painted with giant swastikas and the sides with Olympic rings signifying the Berlin games of 1936. The two ships made between them twenty-nine successful round trips from Germany to the Americas in 1936, with the Hindenburg alone carrying over 1000 passengers to the United States. Confidence in airship safety was growing. Traveling at close to 80 mph, the dirigibles cut the transatlantic trip by nearly two-thirds. Passengers rode in quiet, plush luxury high above the sea-lanes in an enormous flying Nazi billboard. On the first trip of 1937, the Hindenburg completed its transatlantic crossing in brisk order and cruised confidently across the New York skyline awaiting its landing at the U.S. Naval Station at Lakehurst, N.J. Next time: The end of the passenger airship. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. A Moment in Time is produced by Steve Clark.
Resources
Dick, Harold G. The Golden Age of the Great Passenger Airships, Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. Washington, D.C. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.
Hoehling, Adolph A. Who Destroyed the Hindenburg? Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1962.
Meyer, Henry Cord. Airshipmen Businessmen, and Politics, 1890-1940. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.
Mooney, Michael Macdonald. The Hindenburg. New York: Dodd, Mead Publishing, 1972.
Vaeth, Joseph. Graf Zeppelin: The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter. New York: Harper Publishing Company, 1959.
Copyright 2002 by Dan Roberts Enterprises LLC
|
indicates an external link 
