Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Dr. phil. h. c., Dr. rer. nat. h. c., Dr.-Ing. h. c. Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, a pioneer of aviation (Pionier der Luftfahrt)
Birth date	8 July 1838
Place of birth	Konstanz, Grand Duchy of Baden, German Confederation
Death date	8 March 1917 (aged 78)
Place of death	Charlottenburg near Berlin, German Empire
Allegiance	Kingdom of Württemberg (1855–1917) German Empire (1871–1917)
Service/branch	Army of Württemberg (Cavalry)
Years of service	1855-1891
Rank	General der Kavallerie (General of the Cavalry)
Commands held	Ulanen-Regiment „König Karl" Nr. 19
Awards	Iron Cross Red Eagle Order Black Eagle Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts

Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (also known as Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, Graf Zeppelin and in English, Count Zeppelin) (8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and aircraft pioneer who is credited as the father of the Airship.

Significance

General der Kavallerie Graf von Zeppelin was recipient of many decorations and honours, among them the Iron Cross of 1870 (also the special oak leaves of 1895), nine grand crosses, three honorary doctorates and honorary citizen of at least eight German cities. Kaiser Wilhelm II personally awarded Count Zeppelin the Order of the Black Eagle (Schwarzer Adlerorden) on 10 November 1908 as a sign of his “admiring recognition” as the “greatest German of the 20th century”.

Graf von Zeppelin (right)

Zeppelin's idea for a Airship came from a visit to America during the American Civil War in 1863, but it wasn't until 1899 when he first started his man-driven Airship project. Over the next several years, many of the prototype aircraft crashed until 1909 when Zeppelin was granted funding from the military sector. By 1914 his ships had made 1500 voyages carry roughly 35 000 passengers without a single fatality.

The German company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, owned by Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, was the world's most successful builder of rigid airships. During World War I the purposes for which these airships were employed were not those that Count Zeppelin intended when he began his efforts to construct them; his aim was to make a dirigible balloon able to travel across land and water to observe the movements of hostile fleets and armies, to carry persons or dispatches from one fleet station or army to another, but not to take an active part in the operations of actual warfare.

Life

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. The Prussians mobilising for the Austro-Sardinian War interrupted this study in 1859 when he was called up to the Ingenieurkorps (Prussian engineering corps) at Ulm. In 1863 Zeppelin took leave to act as an observer for the northern troops of the Union's Army of the Potomac in the American Civil War against the Confederates, and later took part in an expedition with Russians and Indians to the source of the Mississippi river and he made his first ascent with Steiner's captive balloon. In 1865 Zeppelin was appointed adjutant of the King of Württemberg.

Ferdinand Count Zeppelin was born in 1838. From 1853 he first attended the secondary school and the polytechnic in Stuttgart. From childhood on, Ferdinand von Zeppelin kept a diary for almost his entire life. Entering on a military career and visiting the War School in Ludwigsburg, he studied political science in Tübingen in 1858/59 and became an officer at the age of 20. He undertook several study trips that took him a.o. to France and the USA, where the Württemberg War Department had sent him to observe the American Civil War on the Union side. It was then that his taste for aeronautics originated, from his experience in going up at St. Paul in a balloon.

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 St. Paul (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 1863. Many years later he attributed the beginning of his thinking about dirigible lighter-than-air craft to this experience.

Returning to Germany, he took part in the Brothers War (as Rittmeister and adjutant to King Karl von Württemberg) between Prussia (and it's many allies) and the German Confederation (mainly Austria) in 1866 (the Confederation and therefore also Württemberg lost), and again saw active service in the Franco-German War in 1870-71. In this war a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, during which he narrowly avoided capture, made him famous among Germans.

After the war, he continued his military career until 1891, when he retired with the rank of Generalleutnant. From this time he devoted his energies to the practical study of aeronautics. On 5 December 1905, he received the Charakter als württembergischer General der Kavallerie.

Death

Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin died in 1917 before the end of the First World War.

Family

Descent

Ferdinand von Zeppelin was born on 8 July 1838 on the Dominican Island in Constance in what is now the Inselhotel. He was the son of the former royal Hohenzollern court marshal and cotton manufacturer Friedrich Jerôme Wilhelm Karl Graf von Zeppelin (1807-1886) and his wife Amélie Françoise Pauline, née Macaire d'Hogguèr (1816-1852). Her father David Macaire d'Hogguèr (1775–1845) gave the von Zeppelin family Girsberg Castle in Emmishofen (Switzerland), where Ferdinand von Zeppelin grew up with his siblings Eugenia and Eberhard and where he lived until his death. Ferdinand was educated by tutors. In 1846, he received his natural history collection from his uncle Kaspar Macairé, the owner of an indigo dye works on the Dominican Island of Constance.

Marriage

Count von Zeppelin married Isabella Constanze Elisabeth Clemence Freiin von Wolff aus dem Hause Alt-Schwaneburg (b. 4 May 1846 in Alt Schwanenburg, Livonia; d. 2 January 1922 in Stuttgart) on 7 August 1869 in Berlin. She was a cousin of Sophie Freiin von Wolff-Stomersee (1840–1919), who had married Ferdinand's brother Eberhard von Zeppelin a year earlier. The only child from the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella was Helene "Hella" von Zeppelin (1879–1967), later married von Brandenstein.

Side Notes

• More than 100 zeppelins were used for military operations in World War I. A passenger service was established in 1910.
• Two airships were named after Zeppelin, the LZ 127 and LZ 130.
• Germany named a aircraft carrier after Zeppelin, christened "Graf Zeppelin".
• In 1970, his Grand-Daughter attempted to sue the British rock group Led Zeppelin for illegally using the family name.

Military promotions

• 23 September 1858: Ingenieur-Lieutenant (as of December 1871 Second-Lieutenant, as of January 1899 Leutnant)
• 22 September 1862: Ober-Lieutenant (as of December 1871 Premier-Lieutenant, as of January 1899 Oberleutnant)
• 31 March 1866: Rittmeister
• 4 May 1873: Major
• 18 September 1880: Oberstlieutenant (as of January 1899 Oberstleutnant)
• 12 January 1884: Oberst
• 4 August 1888: Generalmajor
• 18 November 1890: Generallieutenant (as of January 1899 Generalleutnant)
  • General à la suite
• 5 December 1905: Charakter als General der Kavallerie

See also

• German airship weapon in World War I (in German)

Literature

• Harry Vissering: "Zeppelin; the story of a great achievement", 1922 (PDF-File)

External links

• Awards, decorations and honours in German (Archive)
• Graf von Zeppelin, Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich, Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg (Archive)

Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia Britannica: Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin
• Encyclopedia.com: Zeppelin, Ferdinand, Graf von