Zeppelin! : Germany and the airship, 1900-1939 / Guillaume de Syon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Syon, Guillaume de, 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Airships--Germany--History.

Airships.

Zeppelin, Ferdinand, Graf von, 1838-1917.

Zeppelin, Ferdinand.

History.

Germany.

Physical Description:

xi, 295 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Summary:

"Whenever the airship flew over a village, or whenever she flew over a lonely field on which some peasants were working, a tremendous shout of joy rose up in the air towards Count Zeppelin's miracle ship which, in the imagination of all who saw her, suggested some supernatural creature." As this paean to the Zeppelin from an early twentieth-century issue of the German newspaper Thuringer Zeitung makes clear, the airship inspired a profound sense of awe. These phenomenal rigid, lighter-than-air craft -- the invention of Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin (1838-1917) -- approached the size of a small village. Although they moved slowly, there was no mistaking their exciting -- or ominous -- potential. Friends of the machine believed that it would revolutionize commerce, carry scientists to otherwise inaccessible places, and deliver bombs with great accuracy. Before the airship proved its reliability and superior practicality -- and before the fiery crash of the Hindenburg in 1937 -- Zeppelins made the strongest impressions of any flying machine on Europe's collective memory, especially in Germany.

In Zeppelin! Guillaume de Syon offers a captivating history of this technological wonder, from development and production to its impact on German culture and society. De Syon chronicles the various ways in which the airships were used -- transport, war, exploration, and propaganda -- and details the attempts by successive German governments -- autocratic, democratic. fascist -- to co-opt Count Zeppelin's invention. Between 1900 and 1939, Germans saw the Zeppelin as a symbol of national progress, and de Syon uses the airship to better understand the dynamics of German society and the place of technology within it. Though few people actually flew in any of the 119 Zeppelins built, the rigid airship captivated universal attention: for Germans, it was the wonder of the age. Six decades later, a mystique continues to surround these technological leviathans, one that Zeppelin! addresses with insight and wit.

Contents:

Introduction: Visions of the Sublime 1

1 Balloons into Dirigibles 6

The Floating State 7

From Enthusiasm to Obsession: The First Zeppelin 15

Building a Zeppelin Culture 25

Collapse and Recovery 34

2 The Machine above the Garden: Airship Culture in Imperial Germany 40

"Zeppelinism" and Its Expressions 41

How German Is It? 50

Finding a Use for the Airship 56

3 Zeppelin Myth and Reality in the Great War 71

Zeppelinitis 72

Technology and War Planning 75

Demonizing the Dirigible 88

Fantasy and Fact of Zeppelin Operations 99

4 The Airship as a Business Tool in Weimar Culture 110

Rescuing the Airship from Oblivion 111

Nostalgia and Fund-raising 124

Symbol in the Best and Worst of Times 132

5 Ideologies of Science and Adventure: The Arctic Airship 147

Polar Dreams 148

Conflicting Projects 154

Selling Science as Entertainment 163

6 Political Zeppelinism: Manipulating Airship Culture, 1933-1939 172

Nazifying the Airship 173

Airship Travel Comes of Age 186

Helium, Hydrogen, and Humble Endings 195.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 213-272) and index.

ISBN:

0801867347

OCLC:

45750231