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2.3 literature bodies about and around zeppelins 15
low relation of speed and own length is responsible for the majestic
appearance) they were easy to hit targets at the front. Bombing raids
to Britain proved to be possible yet to be very ineffective. Navigation
was a big issue; airship crews weren’t even able to tell which city they
were bombing. Additionally, many ships were lost - crew losses were
actually higher than the casualties caused on the British side. In the
end, airship operations were discontinued even before the end of the
war. Zeppelin himself had seen the failure of his technology (and
the increasing potential of developing airplanes) coming. During the
last years of his life, he promoted and funded plane developments
for several years before dying in 1917 [11, 182 f.]. With the Versailles
treaty, construction of airships was forbidden. It took several years
for the struggling company (manufacturing other goods in the mean
time) to begin building airships again (now under Hugo Eckener’s
leadership). This second cycle of airships was the time of the famous
big zeppelins that are most commonly remembered (especially LZ-
127 »Graf Zeppelin« and LZ-129 »Hindenburg«) and which were the
first vehicles to provide intercontinental flight services. This short era
lasted only about 10 years, though: With the infamous crash of LZ-129
»Hindenburg« in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 the era of airships
ended. Remaining airships were disassembled and the material used
for airplane production. In Friedrichshafen, one of the succeeding
firms of Luftschiffbau Zeppelin started to build airships again in the
1990s. Nevertheless, Airships remain a means of transportation from
the past and its modern successors (as the one that can be seen on the
Facebook-Screenshot above) have only little practical use – they serve
mostly advertising and sightseeing purposes.
2.3 literature bodies about and around zeppelins
As Zeppelin airships are a famous technology that is still fascinating
to many and known to everybody (at least in Germany), literature
about them is manifold. Surrounding coverage of the issue apart
from the technology itself or praise for its inventor deals with various
issues. As it is a technological artifact of iconic status, all kinds
of reports about it are numerous. While many of them are largely
redundant - the zeppelin history I have shortly summarized above is
part of most accounts along with many ever reprinted photographs
and other materials that are able to cater to the myth those books are
feeding on. If looking for reliable sources for scientific studies, only
such books that give sources and accomplish a certain degree of transparency
and accountability for the claims they make can be considered.
Many of the books on zeppelins are primarily concerned with
depicting the artifact and its fascination respectively its creators and
care little about giving accurate accounts about it and many do not
give sources. Knäusel [30, 10] puts it nicely: He states trivial literature