Graf Zeppelin made 590 flights totalling almost 1.7 million kilometres (over 1 million miles). It was operated by a crew of 36, and could carry 24 passengers. It was the longest and largest airship in the world when it was built. It made the first circumnavigation of the world by airship, and the first nonstop crossing of the Pacific Ocean by air; its range was enhanced by its use of Blau gas as a fuel. It was built using funds raised by public subscription and from the German government, and its operating costs were offset by the sale of special postage stamps to collectors, the support of the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, and cargo and passenger receipts.

After several long flights between 1928 and 1932, including one to the Arctic, Graf Zeppelin provided a commercial passenger and mail service between Germany and Brazil for five years. When the Nazi Party came to power, they used it as a propaganda tool. It was withdrawn from service after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, and scrapped for military aircraft production in 1940.

Background[edit]

The first successful flight of a rigid airship, Ferdinand von Zeppelin's LZ1, was in Germany in 1900.^[2] Between 1910 and 1914, Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft (DELAG) transported thousands of passengers by airship.^[3][4] During World War I, Germany used airships to bomb London and other strategic targets.^[5] In 1917, the German LZ 104 (L 59) was the first airship to make an intercontinental flight, from Jambol in Bulgaria to Khartoum and back, a nonstop journey of 6,800 kilometres (4,200 mi; 3,700 nmi).^{[6][7][nb 1]}

During and just after the war, Britain and the United States built airships, and France and Italy experimented with confiscated German ones. In July 1919 the British R34 flew from East Fortune in Scotland to New York and back.^{[8][nb 2]} Luftschiffbau Zeppelin delivered LZ 126 to the US Navy as a war reparation in October 1924. The company chairman Dr. Hugo Eckener commanded the delivery flight, and the ship was commissioned as the USS Los Angeles (ZR-3).^[10][11]

The Treaty of Versailles had placed limits on German aviation; in 1925, when the Allies relaxed the restrictions, Eckener saw the chance to start an intercontinental air passenger service,^[12] and began lobbying the government for funds and permission to build a new civil airship.^[13] Public subscription raised 2.5 million RM (the equivalent of US$600,000 at the time,^[14] or $9 million in 2018 dollars^[15]), and the government granted over 1 million RM ($4 million).^[16][17]

The Maybach VL II was a type of internal combustion engine built by the German company Maybach in the late 1920s and 1930s. It was an uprated development of the successful Maybach VL I, and like the VL I, was a 60° V-12 engine.^[1]

Five of them powered the German airship Graf Zeppelin, housed in separate nacelles. The engines developed 410 kW (550 hp) and were of 33.251 L (2,029.1 cu in) capacity. They could burn either Blau gas or petrol.^[1][2] The American USS Akron used eight of them, mounted internally,^[3] as did its sister ship Macon.^[4] The engines were reversible, meaning different cams could be engaged allowing the engine crankshaft to run in either direction, enabling reverse thrust.^[5]

Lürssen built the fast yacht Oheka II in 1927; powered by three VL IIs, it was the fastest vessel of its type and became the basis of Germany's E-boats of World War II.^[6]

William J. Ziegler Jr. (July 21, 1891 – March 3, 1958) was an American business executive, philanthropist, polo player, yachtsman, and a Thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder.^[1]

Born William Conrad Brandt in Muscatine, Iowa to the half-brother of William Ziegler who adopted the boy at age 5 and renamed him William Ziegler Jr.^[2]

He graduated from Columbia University and then Harvard University. Inheriting over half of his father's $30 million estate when his father died, he was then president of Royal Baking Powder Company until it merged into Standard Brands in 1929. He was also chairman on many boards: American Maize-Products, Huttig Manufacturing (sash and door company of Muscatine, Iowa^[3]), Southworth Management, Realty Administration Corp.^[4] He was also president of the Great Island Holding Company and Park Avenue Operating Company (which was an acquisition vehicle for the 55th Street mansion property).^[2]

After his mother, Matilda, died, he took over her Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind publishing, American Foundation for the Blind, and other charities.^[2]

He was listed as living at his home on Great Island, Noroton, Connecticut in 1917, when he was treated for appendicitis.^[5]

He married his first wife, Gladys in 1912, then lived in the William Ziegler House, a New York City mansion at 2 East 63rd Street they had designed by Frederick Sterner in 1919. It still exists.^[2]

He and his second wife, Helen Martin Murphy (married 1927), lived in the William and Helen Ziegler House on 55th Street, which he had designed by William Lawrence Bottomley and was built in 1926–1927. It still exists.^[2]