The Kaiser's newest weapon was not yet operational when war broke out on August 1, 1914. The naval airship department set up last year has only one zeppelin. But the British spies already know:The central airship base of the German Reich is being built in Nordholz, south of Cuxhaven. It will cost more than 18 million marks, with halls, accommodation, workshops and its own gas works.
It was just 14 years ago that Ferdinand Graf Zeppelin launched his first 128 meter long airship, the LZ 1, in Friedrichshafen on Lake Constance. Three years before the Wright brothers take off in their plane in 1903. Experiments with balloons have been around since the 18th century. But Graf Zeppelin has constructed an airship that does not depend on the wind direction and can be steered. For more than 25 years he has used up his fortune. Now an airship enthusiasm is gripping the country. Zeppelins and other makes will soon be operating between major German cities. In 1912 the first airship hangar was built in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, marking the birth of today's airport. And Graf Zeppelin is already thinking about scheduled flights to the USA.
After the war begins, the airship becomes a weapon
In the meantime, the military is also interested in the new flying object. After the beginning of the war, the army and navy are geared up in a hurry. Four airships were stationed in Nordholz by June 1915, and landing pads were also built in other places, such as in Hage and Wittmundhafen in East Friesland, in Ahlhorn near Oldenburg and in Tønder in northern Schleswig. Soon the troop grew to almost 4,000 officers and men, most of them holding the missiles while "hanging in and out". Graf Zeppelin accompanies the ships on delivery to the north. The training there is managed by a confidante, the former journalist Hugo Eckener.
Initially, the airships are only used for reconnaissance flights. They locate British submarines and mark minefields. But the commander of the airship department, frigate captain Peter Strasser, who resides with his staff in Nordholz, like Graf Zeppelin, soon calls for long-distance bombers to be used against enemy industrial areas and transport routes, especially in Great Britain. His men sleep in the hangars, thirsting for action. But Kaiser Wilhelm II hesitates. He is related to the British royal family and attacks on civilians are considered war crimes.
However, after British planes surprisingly attacked Nordholz on Christmas Day 1914, the attitude changed. On January 10, 1915, the Kaiser authorizes bombing raids on military targets in Britain. Only London is spared. Nine days later, three zeppelins take off from northern Germany. Around noon, 300 men pulled the 158-metre-long monsters out of the halls and are ready to take off.
19. January 1915:Attack on Great Britain
22,000 cubic meters of highly combustible hydrogen gas in huge gas cells let them float in the air. The cells are made of goldbeater skin, gauzy beef caecum glued in layers, 700,000 per vessel. The outer shell, which covers the aluminum frame, is sewn from lacquered cotton fabric and is the size of four soccer fields. The zeppelins are powered by petrol engines from the company Maybach.
They are initially equipped with 500 kilograms, later with up to five tons of bombs and have several machine guns. The crew of around 15 also includes a sailmaker who can repair damage to the outer skin during the flight. There is a machine gun platform on top of the airship. Here the riflemen endure in the freezing cold, in thick leather gear, furs and felt shoes. Minus 30 degrees are measured at an altitude of 5,000 meters.
On that evening of January 19, 1915, the airships reached the English coast. In the moonless darkness they are difficult to see against the black sky. There is still no air defense with planes and cannons. They drop their bombs over docks in Norfolk. Four people die and 16 are injured. The British are shocked, realizing that their insular position is no longer safe in modern warfare.
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- Part 1:Airships become weapons
- Part 2:Airship bombers over London