Portal:Germany/Selected article/2006/September

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Zeppelin is a type of dirigible, more specifically a type of rigid airship pioneered by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century based in part on an earlier design by David Schwarz. Due to the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships.

These giant aircraft were used for passenger transport as well as for military purposes. The DELAG (Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG), which can be considered the first commercial airline, served scheduled flights well before World War I, and after the outbreak of the conflict, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts.

Under the guidance of Hugo Eckener, the successor of the deceased count, civilian Zeppelins experienced a renaissance in the 1920s. They reached their zenith in the 1930s, when the airships LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and LZ129 Hindenburg operated regular transatlantic flights between Germany and both North and South America. The Hindenburg disaster in 1937 triggered the fall of the "giants of the air", though other factors, including political issues, contributed to the demise of the Zeppelin. More...