Ferdinand von Zeppelin.html



Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf von Zeppelin¹ also called Count Zeppelin) (July 8, 1838 – March 8, 1917) was a German aircraft manufacturer, the founder of the Zeppelin Airship company. He was born in Konstanz, Grand Duchy of Baden (now part of Baden-Württemberg, Germany). He was the inventor of the Airship which was made in the 1900s.

Family

Ferdinand was the son of Württemberg Minister and Hofmarschall Friedrich Jerôme Wilhelm Karl Graf von Zeppelin (1807–1886) and his wife Amélie Françoise Pauline (born Macaire d'Hogguer) (1816–1852). Ferdinand grew up in Schloss Girsberg in Emmishofen (Switzerland) with siblings Eugenia and Eberhard, and lived there until his death.²

In Berlin on 1869-08-07 Ferdinand married Isabella Freiin von Wolff. They had a daughter, Helena (Hella) von Zeppelin (1879–1967) who in 1909 married Alexander Graf von Brandenstein-Zeppelin (1881–1949).

Ferdinand had a nephew Baron Max von Gemmingen who was to later volunteer at the start of World War I, after he was past military age, to become general staff officer assigned to the military airship LZ 12 Sachsen.³

Life

Zeppelin attended the polytechnic at Stuttgart from 1853, and in 1855 he joined as Cadett of the military school at Ludwigsburg.

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Airships

Ferdinand von Zeppelin visited the balloon camp of Prof. Thaddeus S. C. Lowe during the Peninsular Campaign of the American Civil War. The balloons were placed off limits to civilian riders and Lowe was not to entertain the curious von Zeppelin. He sent him to another balloon camp where the German aeronaut John Steiner could be of more help to the young man. In 1869 von Zeppelin returned to America to meet and learn from the experienced Prof. Lowe to gain all the knowledge he could in ballooning.

From the 1880s onward, Zeppelin was preoccupied with the idea of guidable balloons. In 1899, he started constructing his first guidable rigid airship, following an overall system he had outlined in 1874,⁴ designs he had detailed in 1893,⁵ that were reviewed by committee in 1894,⁵ and that he patented in 1895.⁶

Legends later arose that Zeppelin had used the patent and design of David Schwarz's airship of 1897,⁷⁸ but these were rejected by Eckener in 1938⁸ and by later reviewers. Zeppelin's design was "radically different"⁹ in both its scale and its framework from that of Schwarz.

Zeppelin made three flights with the LZ 1 over the Bodensee. The flights became more and more successful, igniting a public euphoria which allowed the Count to pursue the development of his vehicle. In fact, the second version of his airship was entirely financed through donations and a lottery. The final financial breakthrough only came, ironically, after the Zeppelin LZ4 crashed in 1908 at Echterdingen. The crash sparked public interest in the development of the airships. A subsequent collection campaign raised 6.5 million German marks and the money was used to create the 'Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin GmbH' and a Zeppelin foundation.¹⁰

The same year the military administration bought the LZ3 and put it to use as the renamed Z1. Starting in 1909, Zeppelins also were used in civilian aviation. Up until 1914 the German Aviation Association (Deutsche Luftschiffahrtsgesellschaft or DELAG) transported 37,250 people on over 1600 flights without an incident.¹¹

Count Zeppelin died 1917, before the end of World War I. He therefore did not witness either the provisional shutdown of the Zeppelin project due to the Treaty of Versailles or the second resurgence of the zeppelins under his successor Hugo Eckener.

Legacy

Unfinished WWII German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin and airships LZ 127 and LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin were named after him.

The British rock group Led Zeppelin's name derives from his airship as well. His granddaughter, Countess Eva Von Zeppelin, even once threatened to sue Led Zeppelin for illegal use of their family name while performing in Copenhagen, Denmark on February 28, 1970.¹²

In the Monty Python's Flying Circus skit, "The Golden Age of Ballooning" (from episode 40), Count Zeppelin was featured. He became outraged at suggestions that his airship was just a balloon and that he was thinking of naming it after Bismarck. The offending parties (including Von Bulow and Tirpitz) were hurled out of the zeppelin, crashing through the roof of a house.

References

Further reading

• Vömel, Alexander (1909-1933). Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Ein Mann der Tat. 

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Ferdinand von Zeppelin

• Airship
• Zeppelin
• Hindenburg disaster
• Timeline of hydrogen technologies