Dr. Hugo Eckener

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Known as "Der Alte" ("the Old Man") in airshipmen's lore, Dr. Hugo Eckener was a Psychologist, author, poet, painter, pundit, businessman, airship pilot, and daring anti-Nazi

Dr. Hugo Eckener (1874-1954) was born in the Germano-Danish town of Flensburg in northernmost Germany. As a young man he studied Experimental Psychology with the creator of that field, Dr. Wilhelm Wundt, and graduated from the University of Leipzig with a Ph.D.

Eckener never pursued a career in that field, but his grasp of psychology and the human condition was central to his handling of the airship industry.

He first became aware of airships when, as a new journalist for the Frankfurter Zeitung, he was assigned to cover the flight of Graf von Zeppelin's first airship LZ-1 in 1900. Eckener, always a romantic, considered the big dirigibles "dream machines." He immediately understood the strange predilection people had for the slow-moving, stately airships that drifted like clouds across the sky. He decided to give up journalism and work with the old Graf, who soon considered him his primary protege. It helped that Eckener understood the mechanics of airship flight almost instinctively. When DELAG was founded in 1909, he became its CEO.

Eckener made his mistakes. In 1910 he crashed the new Deutschland II (LZ-7) in raw weather because he was too impatient to fly. No one was hurt, but the incident inspired Eckener to develop a detailed manual of safety regulations regarding zeppelin flight management that became DELAG's flight bible. In a quarter century DELAG was never to lose a passenger to a flight accident.

Dr. Eckener (left) with Graf von Zeppelin (center) and a war zeppelin pilot named Pieter Strasser (right), sometime between 1914 and 1917. The planned LZ-131 was meant to be named for Strasser

Despite the tendency of DELAG's early airships to suffer mishaps, some major and most minor, Eckener was an extraordinarily persuasive man who convinced investors to help build new ships even though they seemed uneconomical.

Eckener was a true product of the German Enlightenment. A cosmopolitan and urbane man, he spoke several European languages fluently and his English was impeccable. He loved the old German Masters, collected artwork, had memorized Goethe, and could recite Shakespeare (in English) from memory. He also liked to paint and write his own poetry.

After World War I, Eckener kept DELAG alive by sheer force of will, even when the Allies stripped Germany of her airships. Eventually he managed, by hook and by crook, to build the Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127). He had a particularly close relationship with Charles Rosendahl U.S.N. who was a fierce advocate of American airship technology. Rosendahl became skipper of the Graf Zeppelin's older and smaller German-built sister, the U.S.S. Los Angeles (LZ-126 / ZR-3). Together, the two Los Angeles-class airships became the most successful zeppelins in the world.

A commemorative medal struck of the Weltpflug. Note the fins of the Graf Zeppelin

Although he is unremembered today, with the international success of the Graf Zeppelin Dr. Eckener became the most famous and most popular German in the world, excepting Albert Einstein. His opinion was solicited on many subjects, he was a sought-after speaker, and he published extensively both domestically and abroad.

The Great Depression hit Germany like a hammer blow, and led to the rise of Naziism. Hugo Eckener was a fervent anti-Nazi. Even before Hitler came to power, Eckener, who had read Hitler's rambling Mein Kampf, described the future German Fuhrer as "a dangerous demagogue" and "a madman." In 1932, the Social Democrats launched a broad-based "Draft Eckener" campaign for the German Chancellorship; Eckener nearly accepted. Had he done so, it was likely he would have won office, and Hitler would not have come to power. Such are the turns of fate.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, they dissolved DELAG, created DZR, and imprinted swastikas everywhere, even on Graf Zeppelin collectibles

After Hitler's accession to power, Dr. Eckener continued to publicly lambaste the Fuhrer. He derided Hitler's Brownshirts as "thugs" and "armed barbarians." He attacked German racial laws as "ultimately leading to the destruction of Germany." He hated the bloated pomp of Nazi marches, stating that such energy could be used more creatively and productively. And he despised the Hitler Salute, remarking to a reporter from the Nazi paper Volkischer Beobachter that he never ever Heiled Hitler: "When I greet my wife in the morning I habitually ask, 'How are you, my dear?' and "Did you sleep well?' Hitler has no place at my breakfast table."

Such daring remarks cheered many Germans of like mind, but they put Dr. Eckener at risk. Hitler tried to have him killed in 1933, but Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany, protected Eckener. On June 30, 1934, "The Night of The Long Knives," when Hitler purged his enemies, Eckener was fortunate to be abroad with his family. Too much of a German celebrity to send to a Concentration Camp, Eckener was instead declared persona non grata in Nazi Germany. The resulting outcry from Germans all around the world forced the Nazi Party to restore Eckener's German citizenship.

A DZR cap device, after 1935

Eckener would not be silenced. He very vociferously objected to the placement of swastikas on his airships, saying that they were "jarring" and "internationally unpopular." He offered an alternate design of red, black and white stripes on his ships' tail fins. The Nazis used Eckener's tricolor on the horizontal stabilizers but put the swastikas on the vertical ones --- even on the gemultlich Graf Zeppelin, which pained him to no end.

Eckener was simply too public a figure to eliminate without risking the regime, but he could be marginalized, and marginalized he was. DELAG was dissolved in 1935, replaced by a government entity Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei (DZR). Eckener was made "Head of International Public Relations" for DZR, an empty post.

Eckener's protege, Ernst Lehmann, who had embraced Hitler and the Nazi Party, became head of DZR. The two men hardly spoke afterward, especially when Lehmann decided, against all of DELAG's long-established sailing rules, to take the brand new Hindenburg out in foul weather on an otherwise-meaningless propaganda flight: "You would risk your crew and your ship on such nonsense?" Eckener thundered at his one-time friend. "You are no pilot. You are barely a man."

In 1933, the venerable Graf Zeppelin was marked with the swastika much to Eckener's disgust. He had lobbied, loudly and publicly, that the tricolor was "more than enough" to remind people of the new Nazi regime.

This exchange marked the effective end of Eckener's career. Eckener, however, remained in Germany. Like many another decent German he could not bring himself to abandon his Fatherland to the mob.

Eckener had to know that the days of the zeppelins were running short in Germany. Air Marshal Hermann Goering hated the "useless gasbags." Eckener snidely said it was because they reminded Goering too much of his very obese self in the mirror.

Hitler had no real interest in zeppelins either. He even refused to have one named for him. Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels, however, loved zeppelins, seeing in them a friendly face to Fascism in their near-universal popularity.

Eckener sat out the war in Germany under close Gestapo surveillance, but he and his family remained unmolested.

The Graf Zeppelin in Nazi livery, 1933 or after

After the war, the French accused Eckener of collaborating with the Nazi regime, largely because Goebbels made much of the fact that the regime had funded the building of two new airships. The statement was calculated to embarrass Eckener, and it did. How much the regime spent on the LZ-129 and the LZ-130, and how much input Eckener had in the process, were both very questionable.

Eckener, who was certainly no Nazi, was cleared of the French charges in 1947. After the war, he held public office in his home town of Flensburg, and died at age 80 in 1954, a successful, well-loved, but perhaps somewhat disappointed man. Time and circumstance had removed his airships from the skies.

The LZ-129, later christened Hindenburg, was the largest airship ever built. And the swastikas on its tail were unavoidable