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Photo postcard of the German passenger-carrying hydrogen-filled rigid airship.
Marked in front of the airship ‘GRAF ZEPPELIN’ and midship ‘D-LZ127’
Logo on back ‘WW’, possibly photographic paper manufacturer Dresdner Photochemische Werke Fritz Weber, Heidenau-Dresden
Unused.
LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was a German passenger-carrying hydrogen-filled rigid airship that flew from 1928 to 1937. It offered the first commercial transatlantic passenger flight service. The ship was named after the German airship pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin, a count (Graf) in the German nobility.
Graf Zeppelin made 590 flights totalling almost 1.7 million kilometres (over 1 million miles). It was operated by a crew of 36 and could carry 24 passengers. It was the longest and largest airship in the world when it was built. It made the first circumnavigation of the world by airship, and the first nonstop crossing of the Pacific Ocean by air
The crew heard of the Hindenburg disaster by radio on 6 May 1937 while in the air, returning from Brazil to Germany; they delayed telling the passengers until after landing on 8 May so as not to alarm them. The disaster, in which Lehmann and 35 others were killed, destroyed public faith in the safety of hydrogen-filled airships, making continued passenger operations impossible unless they could convert to non-flammable helium.
Graf Zeppelin was permanently withdrawn from service shortly after the disaster
WIKIPEDIA
