Air and Earth: The 'Graf Zeppelin' and the Great Depression

XLVIII

The Graf Zeppelin being walked from its hangar, 1929

After the end of the Weltpflug, the "zeppelin craze" was at its peak. DELAG began to make plans with the Goodyear-Zeppelin Company in America to build new and bigger airships and to expand its routes from the short-run north-European runs that made use of its smaller airships and the irregularly-scheduled international flights of the big Graf Zeppelin.

But DELAG, whose element was Air, seemed to have been born under an Earth sign. Every time DELAG began to set new goals it seemed something --- and usually something earth-shattering --- interfered to undo its plans.

Between 1910 and 1914, despite several non-fatal but costly "growing pains" aircraft accidents, DELAG had made a name for itself as the world's first airline and flying cruise ship line. This successful period came to a sudden end with World War I. DELAG handed its fleet over to the Imperial German Air Corps, and most of its ships were destroyed in combat.

 

The Graf Zeppelin at the British airship port, Cardington. This photograph gives an excellent view of the tail assembly

The Great War ended in November 1918, and before the year was out, DELAG had reconverted its few remaining ships back into civilian vessels. It began to build new airships. It created, seemingly out of nothing, a successful inter-city air transport system inside Germany and began reaching beyond Germany's borders just when, in 1921, the Allied Control Council (effective rulers of postwar Germany) stripped DELAG of its airships and parceled them out to the victorious Allies as prizes of war. DELAG, an airline without aircraft, stayed alive (barely) by building the LZ-126, the U.S.S. Los Angeles, over several years.

By the time the U.S.S. Los Angeles flew in 1926, Dr. Eckener, the genius behind DELAG, calculated that the Allied attitude toward Germany had mellowed somewhat. He was right. DELAG was permitted to build several new airships, including the world famous Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127) in 1927-1928. After the Graf Zeppelin's famed Worldflight in August 1929, it seemed DELAG was about to expand beyond even Dr. Eckener's wildest aspirations when Goodyear agreed to build airships in cooperation with DELAG. The infusion of American capital would permit the company to dominate the as-yet barely claimed skies.

And then, just two short months after the Worldflight came the Great Depression. Wall Street completely collapsed. At first, the Depression did not hit Germany hard. The country had already been in a hard recession since 1927, so at first it all seemed a matter of degree. But things soon turned evil. The exchange rate between the Mark and the Pound Sterling hit a trillion to one. It cost a billion marks to mail a letter. Bitter Germans commented that their nation was the only place where one went to the market with a shopping cart full of money to bring home a handbag full of food.

Of course, the nascent agreement between DELAG and Goodyear was "frozen."

A luggage tag from the Graf Zeppelin. The Hamburg-Amerika Steamship Line handled DELAG’s passenger bookings

DELAG soon faced a dilemma: Whether to continue its north European routes or mothball the Graf Zeppelin. Although it would make DELAG a one aircraft airline it was decided to drop the European routes.

Although it seemed counterintuitive, it made sense. The European routes (between German cities and to points like Stockholm and Riga) were not economical. Although they had first been touted as superior to train travel, improvements in the railways eliminated much of this advantage. Railroads could carry masses of people. Airships carried perhaps a score. And airships needed large aircrews (they often outnumbered passengers) and even larger ground crews, along with big hangars, technical and repair crews, and hydrogen handling facilities. As a result, short-distance air voyages were not inexpensive, and as the Depression chewed its way into the entrails of Germany, they became largely impracticable.

Very little of the Graf Zeppelin remains. The docking mechanism from the nose of the ship is on display at the Zeppelin Museum in Frederichshafen, Germany

But what to do with the Graf Zeppelin? It was built for international travel, but it was even more expensive and needed even more air, ground, and technical crew and infrastructure than smaller airships to fly safely.

The Graf Zeppelin's flights to the United States grabbed headlines, but DELAG could not sustain itself on headlines. The North Atlantic Ferry competed directly with DELAG (including DELAG's own affiliate, the Hamburg-Amerika Line). And the North Atlantic Ferry was in profound trouble. With the coming of the Great Depression many of the smaller shipping lines had gone broke. Even among the larger lines there were great losses of revenue. White Star merged with Cunard and sent the R.M.S. Olympic, Titanic's sister, to the breaker's yard in 1934. Two thirds of Atlantic liners were rusting at the quays that year.

Due to drastic changes in U.S. immigration policy in 1924, the emigrant traffic from Europe had all but vanished and Third Class had begun to transform itself into "Economy" Class. For those of modest means who had to cross The Pond, Economy Class was the usual choice. The big ships could carry hundreds of Economy passengers even when Second Class was half-full and First Class was a virtual ghost town. The lines often reduced the price of tickets in First and Second or offered cheap upgrades just to keep those areas of the ship active. A passage usually took 4-5 days.

In the meantime, the Graf Zeppelin was flying a score of passengers to America in 2-3 days in expensive First Class Only splendor. DELAG's Directors realized that it would not be enough to keep flying.

A Graf Zeppelin toy from circa 1930