I have always had a few questions about the air-ship...but could never Find/Search very much in way of answers: 1. What was Hitlers opinion on "the accident".? Did it get play much in his world...become part of his political strategy...or did The Nazi Party move on passed it and continue on with their bigger pans.....did they just see it as an accident.? 2. Who was making money from it in The USA.? Were there lucrative "docking fees" to be had...any type of travel/booking/hotel kinds of money to be made from the passengers like there might be with trains or boats.? Thank You
From what I recall, Hitler wasn't a fan of airships. However, Goebbels loved the use as National Socialist propaganda. The US had a monopoly on helium production before the war. Which explains why hydrogen use was significant in Germany until the disaster.
I am asking because: 1. It happened while The Nazis were a big deal... so relates to this forum. 2. I just watched a very interesting documentary on Youtube.....done in the style of a movie, it was very interesting. "You" always learn so much about events that seem to be such a Common part of history. Just one example.....I had No Awareness of the relationship between The builder of the Airships and the Naval Commander in New Jersey. He stayed at The Commanders house during the investigation. The topic of Helium is, kind of, a bad mark for all involved. It is completely amazing, to me, that Anybody survived that fire.!
I certainly think the Hindenburg is worth discussing. Lighter than air craft played a role in WW1, the inter war years and WWII. How so?
Not only did we have a monopoly on helium production, there was not a lot of it being produced. I recall reading that in the 1920s, when the Navy wanted to fly one of the big airships, they had to take the helium from one of the others. Apparently we were doing a bit better by WWII since we operated a large number of blimps; of course they were much smaller than the airships had been.
