Program Information

Expanded to huge dimensions and filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas, German airships became an important element of Hitler's propaganda machine.

A Moment in Time is a brief, exciting and compelling journey into the past. Created to excite and enlighten the public about the past, its relevance to the present and its impact on the future, A Moment In Time is a captivating historical narrative that is currently broadcast worldwide.

Transcript

Lead: Expanded to huge dimensions and filled with highly flammable hydrogen gas, German airships became an important element of Hitler's propaganda machine.

Intro: A Moment In Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, one of the most important champions of the German airship was Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. The Fuhrer himself was not impressed, refusing to set foot in a dirigible because he felt they were a creation contrary to nature. Without Goebbel's enthusiasm, the Zeppelin program would probably have died since the construction of the large airships was as costly as that of a heavy battleship.

Backed by the government, Zeppelin began work in the mid-1930s on its crowning achievement, Hindenburg. At 804 feet in length it was enormous, the largest airship ever constructed. Launched in early 1936, the company planned to use Hindenburg and her sister ship, Graf Zeppelin, to ferry passengers across the Atlantic to North and South America. They were a propaganda triumph. Hindenburg's tailfins were painted with giant swastikas and the sides with Olympic rings signifying the Berlin games of 1936. They made the French government so uneasy that it refused the airships passage over French territory, in the belief that such a successful example of German technology would dampen French public morale.

The two ships made between them 29 successful roundtrips from Germany to the Americas in 1936, with the Hindenburg alone carrying over 1,000 passengers to the United States. Confidence in airship safety was growing. Traveling at close to 80 mph, the dirigibles cut the transatlantic trip by nearly two-thirds. Passengers rode in quiet, plush luxury high above the sea-lanes in an enormous flying Nazi billboard.

On the first trip of 1937, the Hindenburg completed its transatlantic crossing in brisk order and cruised confidently across the New York skyline, awaiting its landing at the U.S. Naval Station at Lakehurst, N.J.

Next time: The end of the passenger airship.

The producer of A Moment In Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

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