Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Ferdinand von Zeppelin - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (German: Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name became synonymous with airships and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s. He founded the company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.

This profile of Ferdinand von Zeppelin covers Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame, Airships and Legacy and Influence.

Family Background of Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Ferdinand was the scion of a noble family. Zepelin, the family's eponymous hometown, is a small community outside the town of Bützow, in Mecklenburg.

Ferdinand was the son of Württemberg Minister and Hofmarschall Friedrich Jerôme Wilhelm Karl Graf von Zeppelin (1807–1886) and his wife Amélie Françoise Pauline (born Macaire d'Hogguer) (1816–1852). Ferdinand spent his childhood with his sister and brother at their Girsberg manor near Konstanz, where he was educated by private tutors. Ferdinand married Isabella Freiin von Wolff in Berlin. She was from the house of Alt-Schwanenburg (located in the present-day town of Gulbene in Latvia, then part of Livonia). They had a daughter, Helene (Hella) von Zeppelin (1879–1967) who in 1909 married Graf Alexander von Brandenstein-Zeppelin (1881–1949).

Ferdinand had a nephew Baron Max von Gemmingen, who volunteered at the start of the First World War, after he was past military age, to become general staff officer assigned to the military airship LZ 12 Sachsen.

Count Everhard von Zeppelin, Second Lieutenant in the German Lancers, married November 1895, Mary "Mamie" McGarvey, daughter of Canadian magnate William Henry McGarvey, owner of the oil wells of Galicia and his wife, Helena J. Weslowska. A former Count von Zeppelin married a granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Ranfurly.

Career and Rise to Fame of Ferdinand von Zeppelin

In 1853, Count Zeppelin left to attend the polytechnic at Stuttgart, and in 1855 he became a cadet of the military school at Ludwigsburg and then started his career as an army officer in the army of Württemberg.

By 1858, Zeppelin had been promoted to lieutenant, and that year he was given leave to study science, engineering and chemistry at Tübingen. Würtemberg's mobilising for the Austro-Sardinian War interrupted this study in 1859 when he was called up to the Ingenieurkorps (Würtemberg engineering corps) at Ulm.

In 1863, Zeppelin took leave to act as an observer for the Union's Army of the Potomac in the American Civil War in Virginia. Later, he travelled to the Upper Midwest with a party that probably included two Russians. Led by Native American (probably Ojibwe) guides, they canoed and portaged from the western end of Lake Superior up the St. Louis River and across to Crow Wing, Minnesota, on the Upper Mississippi River. On reaching Saint Paul, Minnesota (via stagecoach and hired carriage), Zeppelin encountered German-born itinerant balloonist John Steiner and made his first aerial ascent with him from a site near the International Hotel in downtown St. Paul on 19 August. Many years later he attributed the beginning of his thinking about dirigible lighter-than-air craft to this experience.

In 1865, Zeppelin was appointed adjutant of the King of Württemberg and as general staff officer participated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross) of the Military Merit Order of Württemberg. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, during which he narrowly avoided capture, made him famous among many Germans.

From 1882 to 1885, Zeppelin was commander of the 19th Uhlans in Ulm, and was then appointed to be the envoy of Württemberg in Berlin. In 1890, he gave up the post to return to army service and was given command of a Prussian cavalry brigade. His handling of this at the 1890 autumn manoeuvres was severely criticised, and he was forced to retire from the Army, albeit with the rank of generalleutnant.

Airships

Ferdinand von Zeppelin served as an official observer with the Union Army during the U.S Civil War. During the Peninsular Campaign, he visited the balloon camp of Thaddeus S. C. Lowe shortly after Lowe's services were terminated by the Army. Zeppelin then travelled to St. Paul, where the German-born former Army balloonist John Steiner offered tethered flights. His first ascent in a balloon is said to have been the inspiration of his later interest in aeronautics.

Zeppelin's ideas for large airships were first expressed in a diary entry dated 25 March 1874. Inspired by a recent lecture given by Heinrich von Stephan on the subject of "World Postal Services and Air Travel", he outlined the basic principle of his later craft: a large rigidly-framed outer envelope containing several separate gasbags. In 1887, the success of Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs' 1884 airship La France prompted him to send a letter to the King of Württemberg about the military necessity for dirigibles and the lack of German development in this field.

After his resignation from the army in 1891 at age 52, Zeppelin devoted his full attention to airships. He hired the engineer Theodor Gross to make tests of possible materials and to assess available engines for both fuel efficiency and power-to-weight ratio. He also had air propellers tested and strove to obtain higher purity hydrogen gas from suppliers. Zeppelin was so confident of his concept that in June 1891 he wrote to the King of Württemberg's secretary, announcing he was to start building, and shortly after requested a review from the Prussian Army's Chief of General Staff. The next day Zeppelin almost gave up as he realized he had underestimated air resistance, but resumed work on hearing that Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld made light but powerful engines, information soon shown to be overoptimistic. Whereupon Zeppelin urged his supporter Max von Duttenhofer to press Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft for more efficient engines so as not to fall behind the French. Duttenhofer wrote to Gross threatening to withdraw support, and Zeppelin shortly afterwards sacked Gross, citing Gross's lack of support and writing that he was "an obstacle in my path".

Despite those setbacks, Zeppelin's organization had refined his idea: a rigid aluminium framework covered in a fabric envelope; separate multiple internal gas cells, each free to expand and contract thus obviating the need for ballonets; a modular frame allowing addition of sections and gas cells; and the controls, engines and gondola rigidly attached. After publishing the idea in March 1892 he hired the engineer Theodor Kober who started work testing and further refining the design. Zeppelin submitted Kober's 1893 detailed designs to the Prussian Airship Service, whose committee reviewed it in 1894. In June 1895 this committee recommended minimum funds be granted, but withdrew this offer and rejected the design in July.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_von_Zeppelin), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.