7:25 p.m., May 6th, 1937
May 6, 2017 1:23 PM   Subscribe

Eighty years ago today, Luftschiff Zeppelin #129 Hindenburg crashed, killing 13 passengers, 22 crew members, and one worker on the ground. Radio reporter Herbert Morrison's cry of "Oh, the humanity!" quickly became one of the most famous broadcasts in history, and the film reel of the disaster essentially ended the dirigible industry.

There is only one living survivor of the disaster -- Werner Doehner was 8 years old when his mother threw him and his brother out of the port dining room as the cabin descended.

The disaster has long captured the American imagination, from why it happened (including a take from MeFi's own asavage) to its importance to our "true" timeline. Eyewitness accounts even become family heirlooms.
posted by Etrigan (23 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
holy shit I didn't know there was color footage
posted by postcommunism at 1:24 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wow.
posted by 80 Cats in a Dog Suit at 1:25 PM on May 6, 2017


I'm kind of amazed only 36 people were killed. I just assumed it was hundreds.
posted by paulcole at 1:37 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


holy shit I didn't know there was color footage

While commercial color film had just become available, the relevant Wikipedia article doesn't mention any color footage from the disaster, but mentions that the Pathé footage has been colorized.
posted by effbot at 2:08 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm kind of amazed only 36 people were killed. I just assumed it was hundreds.

It only held around a hundred people including crew. One thing airships are not is space-efficient.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:13 PM on May 6, 2017


On dirigibles: related (abstractly erotic) (allegedly)
posted by Wordshore at 2:15 PM on May 6, 2017


.
posted by scratch at 2:44 PM on May 6, 2017


Somebody will eventually post this, might as well be me.
posted by HuronBob at 2:58 PM on May 6, 2017 [9 favorites]


Even as a little kid, I never thought much of it other than it was a Nazi thing that was burned up.
posted by shockingbluamp at 3:46 PM on May 6, 2017


The first 2.5 minutes of this newsreel show what a successful docking looked like.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 4:14 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Several years ago I attended an all-day event at Seattle's Museum of Flight contered on early aviation topics centering on the First World War in conjunctin with the unveiling of a large collection of scratch-built models of wartime aircraft, including a two-meter model of a nighttime heightclimber, among the last of the warrime zeppelins built.

A coworker of the modeler also spoke. Both men were doctors on the East Coast. The coworker's father worked directly under Hugo Eckener at the Zeppelin company as a managing engineer. He told of being accompanying his father into the hangar as they trimmed the Hindenburg for neutral bouyancy, a necessary pre-flight procedure in which the balance of water ballast and lifting gas is brought into balance. Properly trimmed, one of the ships literally weighs nothing.

That eighty-year old man on the stage reached out to the air in front of his face and for a moment became a toddler again, bouncing the Hindenberg on the palm of his tiny hand at his father's direction.

The auditorium gasped in amazement. It was a hell of thing to see.
posted by mwhybark at 4:26 PM on May 6, 2017 [35 favorites]


Somebody will eventually post this, might as well be me.

Came here for the huge manatee, left satisfied.

"...and the film reel of the disaster essentially ended the dirigible industry."

The Hindenburg was made obsolete before it's first flight by the Pan Am China Clipper. And by cost, safety, and better technology.
posted by Rob Rockets at 4:29 PM on May 6, 2017


Even as a little kid, I never thought much of it other than it was a Nazi thing that was burned up.

there's a lot to unpack in the h story. it's the landmark intersection of motion picture and disaster. also, there's a chain of events that highlights unintended consequences. trying to complicate dirigible technology for the germans, ended it for everyone.
Because of the Helium Control Act (1927), which banned the export of scarce helium on which the US then had a production monopoly, together with the prohibitive cost of the gas, the Hindenburg, like all German Zeppelins, was forced to use hydrogen as the lift gas.
posted by j_curiouser at 4:30 PM on May 6, 2017 [6 favorites]


HuronBob, I wonder how many of us tend to flash right to that "Oh, the huge manatee" meme?

I know I did, also, and yet when I read the articles (especially the story of Werner Doehner's father disappearing and his sister who died the next morning.) I am a wee bit ashamed.

Morrison's narration sounds as if he was in tears by the time he speaks that well rembered phrase.
posted by BlueHorse at 5:15 PM on May 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


My great aunt and uncle were there that day. I once asked my great aunt about it and she would not talk about it, just said something along the lines of "those poor people" and that some things should not be talked about.
posted by gudrun at 5:22 PM on May 6, 2017 [8 favorites]




Well if HuronBob is going to post this, I guess it's okay for me to link that.
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 8:51 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]




I'm still astounded by how *fast* it happens.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:03 PM on May 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


apologies for the typos. I was killing time waiting for my life partner to be ready to attend a wedding and struggling how to tell the anecdote as concisely as possible while being asked for reassurance opinions. as a result, edits did not receive my full attention.
posted by mwhybark at 11:34 PM on May 6, 2017


we have no interest in hearing your excuses
posted by thelonius at 3:02 AM on May 7, 2017 [4 favorites]


Well, if Trinity-Gehenna is going to post that, I guess I should probably post this.
posted by HuronBob at 4:29 AM on May 7, 2017


Once upon a time, I was stationed at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. I spent time in Hanger 1, the giant structure built to contain the Hindenburg. I once made a lunch hour attempt to climb the stairs inside which went up to the ceiling. I didn't get half way before I had to turn back.

Rigid airship technology has its place.
posted by Goofyy at 5:58 AM on May 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


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