Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Hindenburg Disaster

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

In the 1920s and 1930s, one of the most cutting-edge and exciting forms of transportation was the zeppelin.  Germany’s Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Company created lighter-than-air airships that transported passengers millions of miles worldwide.  This new form of transportation which seemed to be the future, came to a sudden and dramatic end on one horrific day in 1937 in New Jersey.  Learn more about the Hindenburg Disaster, its cause, and its aftermath on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1920s and 30s, one of the most cutting edge and exciting forms of transportation was the Zeppelin. Germany's Luftschiffbao Zeppelin Company created lighter-than-air airships that transported passengers over millions of miles worldwide. This new form of transportation, which seemed to be the future, came to a sudden and dramatic end on one horrific day in 1937 in New Jersey. Learn more about the Hindenburg disaster, its cause, and its aftermath on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now.

Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. I previously did an episode on Zeppelin's and their history. Just to briefly recap their story, the idea of later than, air vehicles goes back to the 19th century. The initial problem with them was learning how to control them. Zeppelin crashes were actually pretty common in the early days, as zeppelin were really susceptible to the wind. However, these technical hurdles were eventually overcome, and Zeppelin and Zeppelin. The world leader in airships was the German company Luftschiffbao Zeppelin. Their flagship was known as the Groff Zeppelin. The Groff Seppelin was launched in 1928, and it became

world famous. It was flown on an around-the-world trip in 1929. It flew around the Mediterranean and to South America, the Middle East, and Africa. It had a very good safety record. It flew thousands of passengers over a million miles. And also, if you're not familiar with Zeppelin's, they were enormous. They had an internal metallic skeleton to give it rigidity, and then bags of lifting gas inside to give it buoyancy. The Groff Seppelin was 236 meters, or 776 feet long. You would need two football fields to park it. The airbags would provide the lift, and then propellers on the craft would provide the thrust. Despite their massive size, they really couldn't hold that many people. The Groff Zeppelin had a crew of 32 people, and it could only

hold 24 passengers. When the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Groff Zeppelin became a propaganda symbol for the Nazis. When the Groff Zeppelin was originally proposed, a sister ship was also planned. The construction of this ship was delayed for a host of reasons, including delays in a new lightweight engine designed by the Damier-Benz Corporation. These delays allowed for a redesign of the ship, which would make it larger than the Graf Zeppelin, effectively creating a new class of airship. This new zeppelin was also scheduled to use helium instead of hydrogen as its lifting gas. The name of this new zeppelin was the Hindenberg, in honor of Paul von Hindenberg, who was the president of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. The Groff Seppelin used hydrogen

as its lifting gas because the world's supply of helium was basically monopolized by the United States. Natural helium is a byproduct of radioactive decay from radioactive elements deep within the earth. In the 1920s, almost all of the helium on earth came from oil wells in the U.S. Because of its rarity and how valuable it was to the airship industry, the United States passed the Helium Act of 1925, which banned the exportation of helium. Because Germany couldn't get any helium, they had to use hydrogen. Hydrogen is really easy to produce, but it's also highly explosive. Many people think that German Zeppelin's used hydrogen because Germany was specifically embargoed by the United States. In reality, it was a global embargo, and Germany just took the brunt

of it because it had the largest airship industry. The Zeppelin Corporation sort of just assumed that the United States would make an exception for them and sell them some helium. The plan wasn't even to fill the Hindenburg completely with helium, just partially. Their initial idea was to have hydrogen gas bags in the core and then surround them with helium bags for safety. However, that exception to the embargo never happened. So, the Hindenburg, like the Groff Zeppelin, became a 100% hydrogen airship. Construction of the Hindenburg began in 1931, and its inaugural flight took place in 1936.

The Hindenburg was larger than the Grof Zeppelin, making it the largest airship in history, a distinction that it still holds today. It had a length of 245 meters or 803 feet. It had a crew of anywhere from 40 to 60, and it was capable of carrying 50 to 70 passengers, two to three times the number of the Graf Zeppelin due to its increased size and lighter and more powerful engines. Despite being one of the first passenger airships, the Groff Zeppelin was actually not intended for passenger. use when it was designed. The Hindenburg, however, was designed to be a passenger airship. Oddly enough, though, its first official flight wasn't passenger service, but rather to spread

Nazi propaganda. On March 7, 1936, it was sent to the demilitarized German Rhineland and dropped propaganda leaflets. Later that month, starting on March 29th, it began its passenger service with a trip to Brazil. It spent the rest of 1936 making trips across the Atlantic, with seven trips to Brazil and 10 to the United States. The first trip to the United States arrived at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 9th. And Lakehurst lies about halfway between New York and Philadelphia, but closer to the coast. And I mention this because many people believe that the Hindenberg's last flight was its maiden voyage, and it was not. It actually had made several dockings in New Jersey the year before the disaster. Throughout 1936, the Hindenberg

actually set several records. It set a transatlantic round-trans. trip record in July, traveling from Frankfurt to New Jersey and back in 98 hours, 28 minutes. During this first year of flights, they actually had a custom-built, lightweight piano on board made of aluminum and covered in leather. In August, it did a flyover at the Olympic Games in Berlin, again, mostly as Nazi propaganda. Its last flight of the year was in October before it had to end its season. Flates resumed again in late March of 1937, with the inaugural flight of the season flying to Brazil. The 63rd and final flight of the Hindenburg left Frankfurt on May 3rd, 1937. It was to be the first of 10 flights to the United States that year. On this flight,

it carried 36 passengers and 61 crew. The trip across the Atlantic was pretty uneventful. The only thing of note was stronger than usual headwinds, which put the flight several hours behind schedule. On the morning of May 6th, the Hindenberg flew over Boston and then made an unscheduled flight over Manhattan, which caused quite a ruckus in the city. The ship arrived in New Jersey around 4 p.m., but spent about two and a half hours going up and down the New Jersey coast, waiting for weather conditions to improve. They finally got the go-ahead to dock, which they did around 7 p.m. The Hindenburg was going to do what was known as a high dock. This was where they dropped their mooring cables, and the airmen down below would then attach it to a wench and pull

the airship down. This wasn't the most common way to dock an airship, but it also wasn't unheard of or rare. At 721, the mooring lines were dropped. The line on the port side was connected, but the line on the starboard side never was. And at 725, something happened. What happened still isn't exactly known, despite photos and video footage of the event. A fire started somewhere in the back top of the ship. The exact moment the fire started wasn't captured by any camera, so the exact location isn't known. What also isn't known is what started the fire. It was most probably static electricity, or it could have been something atmospheric like lightning, although nobody reported seeing a lightning bolt. The first signs of flame were a reddish yellow flame, which is important because hydrogen doesn't

have a visible flame when it burns. Most probably what was initially burning was the skin of the ship. The ship's skin was cotton treated with cellulose nitrate to make it rigid, which is highly flammable. and it was also coated with an aluminum powder to help reflect heat. Aluminum powder, too, is highly flammable and is actually used in some rocket propellants. The skin was so flammable, in fact, you sort of have to wonder what they were doing putting this on the exterior of a giant bag of hydrogen. However, while that flame was visible, there could have been a hydrogen leak that caught fire first, but nobody would have seen that flame.

The fire caused a detonation of the gas bags in the rear of the ship, which immediately caused the back of the ship to start to fall, while the front of the ship still had hydrogen and stayed aloft. The entire event was over, shockingly fast. From the initial fire to the ship's skin and hydrogen being completely consumed by flame took less than 30 seconds. The Hindenberg went from being the world's greatest airship to a twisted heap of aluminum. The media coverage of the Hindenburg was greater than usual because it was the first Atlantic crossing to the United States that year. Normally, there wouldn't have been so many photographers or newsreel crews there filming it. There were a total of four film crews present. Most famously, it was the radio

broadcast of the explosion, which was recorded by Herbert Morrison for WLS in Chicago. It was not a live broadcast, but recorded and played the next day. As horrific as the disaster was, most people on board the Hindenburg actually survived. Of the 97 passengers and crew on board, 35 were killed, 13 passengers and 22 crew, with one airmen on the ground also being killed. While this was the most famous airship disaster, it actually wasn't the largest. In fact, in terms of total lives lost, it was only the fifth worst accident in airship history. The worst disaster occurred four years earlier when the Navy Airship, the USS Akron, was launched from the same facility at Lakehurst, New Jersey, and 73 men died when it crashed at sea.

Even though several disasters were worse, none were as high profile as day. the Hindenburg. The film footage was shown in movie theaters, the images were on the front page of newspapers, and the harrowing description of the event by Herbert Morrison served as the soundtrack. The footage of the disaster was actually never shown in Germany until after the Second World War. The destruction of the Hindenburg effectually ended the era of airships. Nobody was interested in flying in a giant bomb anymore. More importantly, commercial transatlantic air travel had begun around the same time the Hindenburg exploded, while not as comfortable or as glamorous, airplanes were significantly faster.

While it effectively ended rigid airships, the Hindenburg wasn't the last one. There was another airship with the same specs as the Hindenburg, which was under construction and it was launched in September of 1938. The Groff Seppelin 2. The Nazi government actually had very little interest in the Grof Zeppelin 2. It flew 30 flights over the next year, never with any passengers, and barely ever left Germany. On February 29, 1940, Herman Geroen, announced that all remaining Zeppelins were to be retired, their metal structures were to be

repurposed for use in aircraft. The age of the airship was officially dead. Given the extraordinary public nature of the disaster, and the fact that Nazi Germany was involved, there were conspiracy theories that sprung up almost immediately. Some said that there was a bomb in the back of the ship and others that it was shot by a high-powered rifle. However, after World War II, the findings of an internal investigation by the Zeppelin Corporation were discovered. Their conclusion was, quote, the actual cause of the fire was the extremely easy flammability of the covering material brought about by discharges of an electrostatic nature, end quote. The Hindenburg disaster has become a cultural touchstone.

Its image was used for the cover of a lead Zeppelin album and it's been used for internet memes. Today, there is a memorial at the site of the crash at the facility now known as Joint Base McGuire Dix Lakehurst. There is an outline on the ground of where the wreckage landed. There is also a small surviving piece of the skin of the Hindenburg on display at the Smithsonian's Udvar Hadesi Center at the D.S. Airport in Washington, D.C. Despite many attempts to bring back airships, it just hasn't happened. As cool as they look, their enormous size makes them expensive to build and maintain. And in a world with jumbo jets, it's hard to justify their existence. So, over 80, five years after its disastrous end, the Hindenburg still remains the largest aircraft of any

kind ever built. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener SBG for Life over at Podcast Addict. They write, As a card-carrying member of the Completionist Club, I must say this podcast is absolutely amazing.

Gary will go down in history as one of the great podcast, hosts of all time. One thing first, though, I feel the need to test his integrity. He said he will read a review with five stars. I hope you read this to the end, Gary. Please don't disappoint. Integrity is important to historians. Gary, brace yourself, this is going to hurt.

Packers stink. Go bears. I hope that wasn't too traumatic. Thanks, SBG for life. I was happy to read it because I had my fingers crossed while I was reading it, which legally means that it didn't count. Also, because I know basic arithmetic, All I have to do is look at the score of last week's Packers' Bears game to know the truth.

Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you two can have it read on the show. It's starting to rain again. The rain had flacked up a little bit. They backed motors with the ship, but just holding it just enough and keep it from... It bursts into flames. Get this, got it, get this, cottage. It's frightening, and it's raging. It's raging terrible. Oh, my, get out of the way, please. It's burning and bursting into flames, and it's...

holding on the mooring fast and all the folks that believe this is terrible this is one of the worst catastrophes in the world oh it's been 20 oh four 500 feet into the sky and it's a terrific nice ladies gentlemen and the smoke and it's flames now and the framers rising to the ground not quite in the morning mass all the humanity and all the fans are screaming around it I don't do it I can't even talk to people and strangers around there I can't talk, ladies and gentlemen. Honestly, it's just laying down massive smoking wrecking. And everybody can't hardly breathe and talk and screaming.

Lady, I'm sorry. Honestly, I can hardly breathe. I'm going to step inside while I can not see it. Charlie, that's terrible. I can't. Listen, folks, I'm going to have to stop for a minute because they have lots of voices that worst thing I've ever witnessed.