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2.2 count zeppelin’s airships: a brief overview 13
but had never seen a technical object – and by no means one of over
120 meters in length – fly in their entire life. Apart from that, analysis
of this fascination for the ship by Frank [15] comes to conclusions
agreeing with what Eckener thought about the ship: the aesthetics of
form and material of the ship were very appealing (»Ich habe immer
das Gefühl gehabt, dass solche Wirkungen, wie sie vom Zeppelin-
Luftschiff ausgingen, zu einem großen Teil auf ästhetischen Empfindungen
beruhten«, [12, 403]). Further factors that played a role are
the subject of my analysis and will be analyzed in later chapters as I
think those reasons given above are not all there is to tell about that
issue. Particularly the step from passive admiration to active support
seems to have drawn upon more than just an appealing exterior and
the fact this appealing shape was flying. This point is going to be
revisited later on as its key to my analysis. The 24-hour test had to be
paused once due to a defect near Mainz and then to be canceled after
about 3/4 of the scheduled distance because of a failing engine after
all. Therefore, the ship landed in Echterdingen near Stuttgart. The
site was chosen because nearby the Daimler workshops, responsible
for the zeppelin’s engines, were located. Thus, Zeppelin hoped for a
quick and easy repair. A storm in the afternoon of August 5th, however,
destroyed the ship. It caught fire and burned down completely
before the ship could be fixed [11, 161]. Similarly to what happened
to the famous LZ-129 »Hindenburg« 28 years later at Lakehurst, New
Jersey, early zeppelins were filled with easily flammable hydrogen
and hence very vulnerable to fire. The destruction of LZ-4 put an
end to the endurance test without having fulfilled the military’s conditions
for purchasing LZ-3 and LZ-4. It seemed like the final failure
of his project, and Zeppelin was prepared to burry his dream at this
point.
But his fate turned fast: within hours after the crash, all over Germany
a grassroots-movement started to donate money for Zeppelin.
During the past weeks and culminating in his test flight that day, his
endeavor was no longer seen as a foolish attempt but as a project of
national pride. Eckener makes a remark about the pride with which
the zeppelin was regarded after the trip over Switzerland (original
quote: »Das deutsche Volk las mit ungeheurem Stolz die Berichte
über den Eindruck, den sie auf die ganze Welt gemacht hatte.« [11,
159]. Within 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of Marks were donated
to von Zeppelin, adding up to over 6 million Marks after a couple of
weeks [11, 163]. This »miracle at Echterdingen« [16, 18] became the
turning point for Zeppelin’s endeavor: finally equipped with sufficient
funds, he was able put together an actual corporation and found
subsidiaries to supply the actual airship construction with parts and
know-how. As the military’s willingness to buy ships stayed small,
DELAG, the world’s first airline was founded in order to purchase