DIRIGIBLE ZEPPELIN

A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century.

It was based on designs he had outlined in 1874 and detailed in 1893. His plans were reviewed by committee in 1894 and patented in the United States on 14 March 1899. Given the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships.

Before World War I

Before World War I, a total of 21 Zeppelin airships (LZ 5 to LZ 25) were manufactured. In 1909, LZ 6 became the first Zeppelin used for commercial passenger transport. The world's first airline, the newly founded DELAG, bought seven Zeppelins by 1914.

Seven of the twenty-seven were destroyed in accidents, mostly while being moved into their halls. There were no casualties. All together, the several airships traveled approximately 200,000 kilometers (120,000 miles) and transported about 40,000 passengers.

The German Army and Navy purchased 14 Zeppelins.

By 1914, state-of-the-art Zeppelins had lengths of 150 to 160 meters (490 to 520 ft) and volumes of 22,000–25,000 m3, enabling them to carry loads of around 9,000 kilograms (20,000 lb).

They were typically powered by three Maybach engines of around 400 to 550 horsepower (300 to 410 kW) each, reaching speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph).

During World War I

Zeppelins were used as bombers during World War I.

At the beginning of the conflict the German command had high hopes for the craft, as they appeared to have compelling advantages over contemporary aircraft – they were almost as fast, carried many more guns, and had a greater bomb-load and enormously greater range and endurance. However, their great weakness was their vulnerability to incendiary ammunition.

The German airships were operated by both the Army and Navy. The main use of the craft was in reconnaissance over the North Sea and the Baltic, where the endurance of the craft led German warships to a number of Allied vessels divisions.

The Naval and Army Air Services also directed a number of strategic raids against Britain, leading the way in bombing techniques and also forcing the British to bolster their anti-aircraft defenses.

The possibility of airship raids was approved by the Kaiser on 19 January 1915, although he excluded London as a target and further demanded that no attacks be made on historic or government buildings or museums.

The nighttime raids were intended to target only military sites on the east coast and around the Thames estuary.

Technological progress

Strategic issues aside, Zeppelin technology improved considerably as a result of the increasing demands of warfare.

The pre-war M-class designs were quickly enlarged, first to the 530 feet (160 m) long duralumin P-class, which increased gas capacity from 880,000 cubic feet (25,000 m3) to 1,130,000 cubic feet (32,000 m3), introduced a fully enclosed gondola, and extra engines. These modifications added 2,000 feet (610 m) to the maximum ceiling, over 10 mph to the top speed, and greatly increased crew comfort and hence endurance.

In 1916, the Zeppelin Company had spawned several dependencies around Germany and delivered airships of around 200 meters (660 ft) in length (some even more) and with volumes of 56,000–69,000 m3.

These M-class dirigibles could carry loads of 3–4 tons of bombs and reach speeds of up to 100 to 130 kilometers per hour (62 to 81 mph) using six Maybach engines of 260 hp (190 kW) each.

To avoid enemy defenses such as British aircraft, guns and searchlights, Zeppelins became capable of much higher altitudes (up to 7,600 meters (24,900 ft)) and they also proved capable of long-range flights.

For example, LZ.104 L.59, based in Yambol, Bulgaria, was sent to reinforce troops in German East Africa (today Tanzania) in November 1917. The ship did not arrive in time and had to return following reports of a German defeat by British troops, but it had traveled 6,757 kilometers (4,199 miles) in 95 hours and thus had broken a long-distance flight record.

End of the war

The German defeat in the war also marked the end of German military dirigibles, as the victorious Allies demanded a complete disarmament of German air forces and delivery of the remaining airships as reparations. Specifically, the Treaty of Versailles contained several articles dealing explicitly with dirigibles.

After World War I

Count von Zeppelin had died in 1917, before the end of the war. Dr. Hugo Eckener, a man who had long envisioned dirigibles as vessels of peace rather than of war, took command of the Zeppelin business.

With the Treaty of Versailles having knocked out their competitor Schütte-Lanz, the Zeppelin company and DELAG hoped to resume civilian flights quickly. In fact, despite considerable difficulties, they completed two small Zeppelins: LZ 120 Bodensee, which first flew in August 1919 and in the following two years actually transported some 4,000 passengers; and LZ 121 Nordstern, which was envisaged being used on a regular route to Stockholm.

However, in 1921, the Allied Powers demanded these two Zeppelins be delivered as war reparations.

Further Zeppelin projects could not be realized, partly because of Allied interdiction. This temporarily halted German Zeppelin aviation.

Eckener and his co-workers refused to give up and kept looking for investors and a way to circumvent Allied restrictions. Their opportunity came in 1924. The United States had started to experiment with rigid airships, constructing one of their own and ordering another from the UK.

Under these circumstances, Eckener managed to acquire an order for the next American dirigible. Of course, Germany had to pay the costs for this airship itself, as they were calculated against the war reparation accounts, but for the Zeppelin Company, this was secondary. So engineer Dr. Dürr designed LZ 126 and using all the expertise accumulated over the years, the company finally achieved its best Zeppelin so far, which took off for a first test flight on 27 August 1924.

No insurance company was willing to issue a policy for the delivery to Lakehurst, which, of course, involved a transatlantic flight. Eckener, however, was so confident of the new ship that he was ready to risk the entire business capital, and on 12 October 07:30 local time, the Zeppelin took off for the US under his command. His faith was not disappointed, and the ship completed her 8,050 kilometers (5,000 mi) voyage without any difficulties in 81 hours and two minutes. American crowds enthusiastically celebrated the arrival, and President Calvin Coolidge invited Dr. Eckener and his crew to the White House, calling the new Zeppelin an "angel of peace".

Under its new designation the ZR-3 USS Los Angeles (the former LZ 126), became the most successful American airship. She operated reliably for eight years until she was retired in 1932 for economic reasons. She was dismantled in August 1940.

With the delivery of LZ 126, the Zeppelin Company had reasserted its lead in rigid airship construction, but it was not yet quite back in business. Acquiring the necessary funds for the next project proved a problem in the difficult economic situation of post-World-War-I Germany, and it took Eckener two years of lobbying and publicity work to secure the realization of LZ 127.

Another two years passed before 18 September 1928, when the new dirigible, christened Graf Zeppelin in honor of the Count, flew for the first time. With a total length of 236.6 meters (776 ft) and a volume of 105,000 m3, it was the largest dirigible yet.

Eckener intended to supplement the successful craft by another, similar Zeppelin, projected as LZ 128. However the disastrous accident of the British passenger airship R101 on 5 October 1930 led the Zeppelin Company to reconsider the safety of hydrogen-filled vessels, and the design was abandoned in favor of a new project.

LZ 129 would advance Zeppelin technology considerably, and was intended to be filled with inert helium.

Hindenburg, end of an era

Following 1933, the establishment of the Third Reich in Germany began to overshadow the Zeppelin business.

The Nazis were not interested in Eckener's ideals of peacefully connecting people; they also knew very well dirigibles would be useless in combat and thus chose to focus on heavier-than-air technology.

On the other hand, they were eager to exploit the popularity of the airships for propaganda.

As Eckener refused to cooperate, Hermann Göring, the German Air minister, formed a new airline in 1935, the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei (DZR), which took over operation of airship flights. Zeppelins would now display the Nazi swastika on their fins and occasionally tour Germany to play March music and propaganda speeches for the people from the air.

On 4 March 1936, LZ 129 Hindenburg (named after former President of Germany Paul von Hindenburg by Eckener) made her first flight.

The Hindenburg was the largest airship ever built. However, in the new political situation, Eckener had not obtained the helium to inflate it due to a military embargo; only the United States possessed the rare gas in usable quantities. So, in what ultimately proved a fatal decision, the Hindenburg was filled with flammable hydrogen.

Apart from the propaganda missions, LZ 129 began to serve the transatlantic lines together with Graf Zeppelin.

On 6 May 1937, while landing in Lakehurst after a transatlantic flight, in front of thousands of spectators, the tail of the ship caught fire, and within seconds, the Hindenburg burst into flames, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and one member of the ground crew.

The actual cause of the fire has not been definitively determined; it is likely that a combination of leaking hydrogen from a torn gas bag, the vibrations caused by a swift rotation for a quicker landing to have started static electricity in the duralumin alloy skeleton and a flammable outer coating similar to rocket fuel accounted for the fact that the fire spread from its starting point in the tail to engulf the entire airship so rapidly (34 seconds).

Whatever caused the disaster, the end of the dirigible era was due to politics and the upcoming war, not the wreck itself, though it surely led to some public misgivings Graf Zeppelin completed more flights, and was retired one month after the Hindenburg wreck and turned into a museum.

After the German invasion of Poland started the Second World War on 1 September, the Luftwaffe ordered LZ 127 and LZ 130 moved to a large Zeppelin hangar in Frankfurt, where the skeleton of LZ 131 was also located.

In March 1940 Goering ordered the destruction of the remaining airships and the Duralumin fed into the Nazi war industry. In May a fire broke out in the Zeppelin facility, which destroyed most of the remaining parts. The rest of the parts and materials were soon scrapped, with almost no trace of the German "giants of the air" remaining by the end of the year.

Bibliography: Article based on Wikipedia

COLOGNE CATHEDRAL

The Cologne Cathedral is a Roman Catholic Church in Cologne, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne and is under the administration of the archdiocese of Cologne.

It was renowned as a monument of Christianity, of German Catholicism in particular. The Church is dedicated to Saint Peter and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Cathedral is a World Heritage Site, one of the best-known architectural monuments in Germany, and Cologne's most famous landmark, described by UNESCO as an "exceptional work of human creative genius". It is visited by 20 thousand people every day.

The Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, until 1880 to complete. It is 144.5 meters long, 86.5 meters wide and its towers are approximately 157 meters tall.

The cathedral is one of the world's largest churches and the largest Gothic Church in Northern Europe. For four years, 1880-84, it was the tallest structure in the world, until the completion of the Washington Monument. It has the second-tallest church spires, only surpassed by the single spire of Ulm Minster, completed 10 years later in 1890. Because of its enormous twin spires, it also presents the largest facade of any church in the world.

Treasures

One of the Treasures of the cathedral is the High Altar which was installed in 1322. It is constructed of black marble, with a solid slab 15 feet long forming the top. The front and sides are overlaid with white marble niches into which are set figures, with the Coronation of the Virgin at the centre.

The most celebrated work of art in the cathedral is the Shrine of the Three Kings, a large gilded sarcophagus dating from the 13th century, and the largest reliquary in the Western world. It is traditionally believed to hold the remains of the Three Wise Men, whose bones and 2,000 years old clothes were discovered at the opening of the shrine in 1864.

Near the sacristy is the best known surviving sculpture proto-romanic of Europe, a life-size crucifix carved in oak, with painting and gilding. Commissioned by Archbishop Gero, in the years 960-965, the oldest existing handsome size crucifix north of the Alps and the first known in this type of sculpture in the north with origins in the medieval period.

In the Sacrament Chapel is the Mailänder Madonna "Milan Madonna", dating from around 1290, a wooden sculpture depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus.

The altar of the patron saints of Cologne with an altar piece by the International Gothic painter, Stephan Lochner is in the Marienkapelle "St. Mary's Chapel". Other works of art are to be found in the Cathedral Treasury. The altar also houses the relics of Saint Irmgardis.

World Heritage List

In 1996, the cathedral was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List of culturally important sites.

In 2004 it was placed on the "World Heritage in Danger" list due to plans to construct a high-rise building nearby, which would have visually impacted the site, as the only Western site in danger.

The Cathedral was removed from the List of In Danger Sites in 2006, following the authorities decision to limit the heights of buildings constructed near and around the cathedral.

Bibliography: Article based on Wikipedia

RHINELAND

Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe.

More recently the Rhineland (Rheinland in German) has come to be general name for areas of Germany along the middle and lower Rhine in Germany near the Dutch border. To the west the area stretches to the borders with Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands; on the eastern side it only encompasses the towns and cities along the river.

Except for the Saar this area more or less corresponds with the modern use of the term.

Between the two world wars the term "Rhineland" covered the whole occupied and de-militarized zone to the west of the Rhine including the bridge-heads on the eastern banks.

After the collapse of the French Empire in the early 19th century, the German and Dutch speaking regions at the middle and lower course of the Rhine were annexed to the kingdom of Prussia.

The Prussian administration reorganized the territory as the Rhine Province, a term continuing in the names of the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia.

After the First World War of the early 20th century, the western part of Rhineland was occupied by Entente forces, and then demilitarized under the Treaty of Versailles.

Following the Armistice of 1918, Allied forces occupied the Rhineland as far East as the river with some small bridgeheads on the east bank at places like Cologne.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, the occupation was continued and the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission was set up to supervise affairs.

The treaty specified three occupation Zones, which were due to be evacuated by Allied troops five, ten and finally fifteen years after the formal ratification of the treaty, which took place in 1920, thus the occupation was intended to last until 1935.

In fact, the last Allied troops left Germany five years prior to that date in 1930 in a good-will reaction to the Weimar Republic's policy of reconciliation in the era of Gustav Stresemann and the Locarno Pact.

The Treaty of Versailles also specified the demilitarization of the entire area to provide a buffer between Germany on one side and France, Belgium and Luxembourg (and to a lesser extent, the Netherlands) on the other side, which meant that no German forces were allowed there after the Allied forces had withdrawn. Furthermore, (and quite unbearably from the German perspective) the treaty entitled the Allies to reoccupy the Rhineland at their will, if the Allies unilaterally found the German side responsible for any violation of the treaty.

In violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the spirit of the Locarno Pact, Nazi Germany remilitarized the Rhineland on Saturday, March 7, 1936. The occupation was done with very little military force, the troops entering on bicycles, and no effort was made to stop them.

France could not act due to political instability at the time, and, since the remilitarization occurred at a weekend, the British Government could not find out or discuss actions to be taken until the following Monday. As a result of this, the governments were inclined to see the remilitarization as a "fait accompli".

Hitler took a risk when he sent his troops to the Rhineland. He told them to "turn back and not to resist" if they were stopped by the French Army. The French, however, did not try to stop them because they were currently holding elections and the president did not want to start a war with Germany.

The British government did not oppose the act in principle, feeling with Lord Lothian that "the Germans are after all only going into their own back garden" but rejected the Nazi manner of accomplishing the act.

Winston Churchill, however, advocated military action through cooperation by the British and French.

The remilitarization of the Rhineland was favored by some of the local population, because of a resurgence of German nationalism and harbored bitterness over the Allied occupation of the Rhineland until 1930 (Saarland until 1935).

A side-effect of the French occupations was the offspring of French soldiers and German woman. These children, who were seen as the continuing French pollution of German culture, were shunned by the broader German society and were known as Rhineland Bastards. Children fathered by French colonial troops of African ancestry were especially despised and became targets of Nazi sterilisation programmes in the 1930s.

Today, German is the third official language, along with French and Dutch.

Bibliography: Article based on Wikipedia

PRESIDENT FRIEDRICH EBERT

(04 February 1871 – 28 February 1925)

Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

He became involved in politics as a trade unionist and Social Democrat, and soon became a leader of the "moderate" wing of the Social Democratic Party, becoming Secretary-General in 1905, and party chairman in 1913.

In 1912 he was elected as a Member of the Reichstag (parliament of Germany) for the constituency of Elberfeld-Barmen (now part of Wuppertal).

In August 1914, Ebert led the party to vote almost unanimously in favor of war loans, accepting that that war was a necessary patriotic, defensive measure, especially against the autocratic regime of the Czar in Russia.

The party's stance, under the leadership of Ebert and other "moderates" like Philipp Scheidemann, in favor of the war with the aim of a compromise peace, eventually led to a split, with those radically opposed to the war leaving the SPD in early 1917 to form the USPD.

For similar reasons several left-wing members of parliament had already distanced themselves from the party in 1916. Later they called themselves "Spartacists".

When Ebert was elected as the leader of the SPD after the death of August Bebel, the party members of the SPD were deeply divided because of the party's support for the World War I.

Ebert supported the Burgfrieden and tried to isolate the war opposers in the party. After the war and the end of the monarchy he served as the first President of Germany from 1919 until his death in office.

Before being elected as President, he briefly served as Chancellor during the last months of the German Empire.

After he was announced as the new President, the government intervened together with the army and right wing Freikorps against the leftist uprisings, which resulted in the death of several left politicians and ended the partnership of the SPD in government with the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD).

After that, he changed his politics to a "policy of compensating", between the left and the right, between the workers and the enterprises. For that he followed a policy of brittle coalitions.

This resulted in some problems, for example: the SPD agreed during the crisis of 1923 to an extension of the work time without extra payment for the workers, but the conservative parties hadn't agreed to also introduce taxes for the rich as compensation.

Vicious attacks by Ebert's right-wing adversaries, including slander and ridicule, were often condoned or even supported by the judiciary when the president turned to the courts.

The constant necessity to defend himself against those attacks also undermined his health.

Ebert died on 28 February 1925, aged 54.

His death, which resulted in the monarchist Paul von Hindenburg as his President follower, is seen as an important break in the Weimar Republic, which ended not much later.

Friedrich Ebert Foundation

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation is a German political foundation associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and it's Germany's oldest organization.

Ebert's politics of compensating during the Weimar Republic is seen as an important archetype in the SPD. Today, the SPD-associated Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Germany's largest and oldest party-affiliated foundation, which, among other things, democracy, political education, and promote students of outstanding intellectual abilities and personality.

Established in 1925 as the political legacy of Friedrich Ebert, Germany's first democratically elected President, it is the largest and oldest of the German party-associated foundations.

Nowadays, the current President of the FES is Anke Fuchs and it is headquartered in Bonn and Berlin, and has offices and projects in over 100 countries.

Bibliography: Article based on Wikipedia

PRESIDENT PAUL VON HINDENBURG

(2 October 1847 – 2 August 1934)

Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, was born at Posen in Prussia and he was incorporated in the Prussian army in 1866, where he stayed about 40 years, serving in the War of the Seven Weeks and in the Franc-Prussian War.

During an honourable but undistinguished military career, he served in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 and in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, retiring in 1911.

At the beginning of the World War I, in August of 1914, he was recalled to command the 8th German Army in the Russian border, as the nominal superior of Erich Ludendorff, a talented military strategist. Credit for Ludendorff's invasion of Russia was misdirected to Hindenburg, who was appointed field-marshal and commander of all German land forces, with Ludendorff at his side.

He oversaw the mobilisation of the whole German state for war, and became immensely popular throughout the country. Kaiser Wilhelm II was sidelined.

After the war, he retired for the second time.

In 1920, in his memories "Mein Leben" (My Life), he explains that the German defeat, in the Great War had origin in an internal revolution, which it ended the German Empire and established the Republic in 1919.

In 1925 he was elected Weimar Germany's second president, after Friedrich Ebert.

In 1930, as economic depression took hold and the government fell. In July he authorised Chancellor Heinrich Brüning to dissolve the Reichstag (Parliament).

In 1932 he run for the presidential re-election as the only candidate capable to defeat the Nazi party of Adolf Hitler, what it came to happen. At that election's he dismissed as Chancellor, Heinrich Brüning, the only capable politician Weimar Germany had from 1930 to January 1933.

In the later years of his presidency, Hindenburg was heavily influenced by those who surrounded him. Hindenburg showed more and more signs of senility and was open to their suggestions. Though he disliked Hitler, he was persuaded to appoint him chancellor in January 1933.

In February of this year the Reichstag building was burned down. Hitler told to the president that it was the work of the communists in Germany and that he, as president, should introduce emergency powers. Hindenburg readily agreed. Hitler also knew how to play on the president's fear of communism. The introduction of emergency powers, legal under the Constitution, which suspended many civil liberties, was the beginning of Hitler's move into a dictatorship.

Later the Reichstag would come to give to Hitler dictatorial powers. From thaopk date on, Hindenburg started to be a simple decorative figure in the Germanic government.

Hindenburg died at aged 86, in his Prussian estate, in August 2, 1934, and was buried at Tannenburg. Hitler used the opportunity to give him a state funeral. With his death, Hitler declared the office of President vacant and, as "Führer und Reichskanzler" (Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor), made himself Head of State.

Bibliography: Article based on Wikipedia and www.historylearningsite.co.uk