The Golden Age of The Rigid Airship
Refused funds by the impecunious Weimar government, Eckener and his colleagues began a nationwide fund-raising lecture tour in order to commence construction of Graf Zeppelin, which became the most successful rigid airship ever built.
The first flight to America was fraught with drama; on the outbound flight the airship was nearly lost after becoming caught in a severe storm. Fabric was ripped off the left fin. The ship was saved only by Eckener's skilled piloting and the courage of his son, Knut Eckener, and other crew members who climbed out onto the fin to repair the damage. Upon arrival in America, a country which Eckener grew to love, he and the crew were subject to the first of two New York ticker tape parades.
Eckener captained Graf Zeppelin during most of its record-setting flights, including the 1928 first intercontinental passenger airship flight, the 1929 flight around the world (the only such flight by an airship, and the second by an aircraft of any type) and the 1931 Arctic flight.
A master of publicity as well as a master airship captain, Eckener used the Graf Zeppelin to establish the Zeppelin as a symbol of German pride and engineering.
After these flights the public treated Eckener as a national hero. During the early 1930s, Eckener was one of the most well-known and respected figures in Weimar Republic Germany.
In the German presidential election, 1932 Eckener had intended to run against Hitler, and this angered the Nazi party. In supposed anger and fear of Eckener, Hitler's de facto deputy, Hermann Esser, once called him the "director of the flying weisswurst". He was encouraged to campaign for the presidency to oppose the National Socialist German Workers Party. Contrary to popular belief, Eckener accepted to campaign for president, but stopped when Paul von Hindenburg campaigned for President again.
Read more about this topic: Hugo Eckener
Famous quotes containing the words golden, age and/or rigid:
“Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Every age develops its own peculiar forms of pathology, which express in exaggerated form its underlying character structure.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
“During our twenties...we act toward the new adulthood the way sociologists tell us new waves of immigrants acted on becoming Americans: we adopt the host culture’s values in an exaggerated and rigid fashion until we can rethink them and make them our own. Our idea of what adults are and what we’re supposed to be is composed of outdated childhood concepts brought forward.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)