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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:06,360 NARRATOR: Approximately 7 o'clock pm, May 6th, 1937, 2 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:08,720 the massive Nazi zeppelin Hindenburg, 3 00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:11,080 is completing its cross-Atlantic flight 4 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:13,880 from Germany to Lakehurst, New Jersey. 5 00:00:13,880 --> 00:00:16,960 Due to the weather, the airship is 10 hours late, 6 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:19,840 the crew is anxious to get the behemoth moored 7 00:00:19,840 --> 00:00:22,760 and to trade their departing passengers for new ones 8 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:27,000 hoping to make the return trip, a trip that will never happen. 9 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:32,360 This is the German airship's 10th trip to the United States. 10 00:00:32,360 --> 00:00:36,840 It is four years prior to the US entry into World War II, 11 00:00:36,840 --> 00:00:40,360 and while relations with Hitler's Nazi regime are strained, 12 00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:42,400 the two nations are at peace. 13 00:00:44,400 --> 00:00:49,320 At Lakehurst, WLS Chicago reporter Herb Morrison is recording 14 00:00:49,320 --> 00:00:52,640 a radio broadcast of the Hindenburg's arrival. 15 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:56,360 His eyewitness account will soon become one of the most famous 16 00:00:56,360 --> 00:00:58,360 broadcasts in radio history. 17 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:01,800 Conditions were still not ideal. 18 00:01:01,800 --> 00:01:05,320 So, they were in what we might now call a holding pattern, 19 00:01:05,320 --> 00:01:07,400 waiting for the weather to clear. 20 00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:10,040 WOMAN: Because the Hindenburg was so late, many of the reporters 21 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:12,400 and journalists left the Naval Air Station. 22 00:01:12,400 --> 00:01:13,920 But since Herb Morrison stayed, 23 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:16,720 he saw as the airship circled around Lakehurst, 24 00:01:16,720 --> 00:01:19,920 and he was getting the updates as they were happening. 25 00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:21,360 Like you can see here. 26 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,240 MORRISON: Now, we've been told that the airship was going to make 27 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:25,920 an attempted landing in the rain. 28 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:28,160 And if that is the case, we're going to have a mighty fine 29 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:31,800 description of it for you because the men will have a difficulty 30 00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:35,320 in keeping footing in the sand and especially since it's wet. 31 00:01:36,720 --> 00:01:40,800 Now, the structure is light and yet so strong in the Hindenburg. 32 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:45,400 6:12pm, Charles Rosendahl, 33 00:01:45,400 --> 00:01:48,320 US commander of Naval Air Station Lakehurst, 34 00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:52,240 radios Max Pruss, the captain of the Hindenburg. 35 00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:54,800 The wind and the rain have died down. 36 00:01:54,800 --> 00:01:58,840 The message is clear - land as soon as possible. 37 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:03,640 Finally, he got the message, "Come in as fast as you can. 38 00:02:03,640 --> 00:02:08,040 "The weather has cleared enough that landing is appropriate." 39 00:02:08,040 --> 00:02:11,440 Pruss turns the ship towards Lakehurst for its final approach. 40 00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:15,120 MAN: As the ship came in for landing on May 6, 41 00:02:15,120 --> 00:02:17,200 they were circling the field. 42 00:02:17,200 --> 00:02:19,640 They realised that they had a tail heaviness situation 43 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:20,960 and they tried to deal with that, 44 00:02:20,960 --> 00:02:23,920 and they dealt with that both by dropping ballast 45 00:02:23,920 --> 00:02:25,560 from the ballast board 46 00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:28,840 and also by valving hydrogen from the gas board. 47 00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:33,960 The crew could correct the heaviness - 48 00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:37,480 that is tail heavy, tail light or whatnot - 49 00:02:37,480 --> 00:02:41,360 by simply dropping ballast water. 50 00:02:41,360 --> 00:02:45,600 And so they did this on this approach to Lakehurst 51 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:48,880 because the tail was seemingly heavy. 52 00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:51,840 So they had the tail of the ship pointed down, 53 00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:53,880 which was visible from the ground. 54 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:55,720 So there had to be a gas leak. 55 00:02:55,720 --> 00:02:58,680 When that wasn't enough, they sent six men forward 56 00:02:58,680 --> 00:03:01,040 to try to keep the ship in trim. 57 00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:04,040 As the ship was making its approach to the mast, 58 00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:05,800 they also had a change of wind. 59 00:03:05,800 --> 00:03:09,840 And so at the very last minute, instead of continuing on their path, 60 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,160 they realised that the wind had shifted 61 00:03:12,160 --> 00:03:15,880 and so they had to make an S-turn, a reasonably sharp S-turn, 62 00:03:15,880 --> 00:03:19,480 to realign the ship so that it would land at the mast into the wind. 63 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:23,920 Pruss knows valving hydrogen near thunderstorms goes 64 00:03:23,920 --> 00:03:27,920 against long-established safety procedures for hydrogen airships, 65 00:03:27,920 --> 00:03:31,000 but with the turnaround window closing and pressure mounting, 66 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:32,800 he makes a bold decision. 67 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:36,000 World-renowned Hindenburg expert Dan Grossman 68 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:39,960 walks through the hydrogen-valving process using an exact replica 69 00:03:39,960 --> 00:03:41,800 of Hindenburg's control car 70 00:03:41,800 --> 00:03:46,280 created for the 1975 film Hindenburg, starring George C. Scott. 71 00:03:47,800 --> 00:03:51,200 If you wanted to make the ship heavier, you went over here. 72 00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:53,000 This is the gas board. 73 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:58,400 This controlled the hydrogen gas that filled these 16 gas cells. 74 00:03:58,400 --> 00:04:01,280 And there were individual toggles for each cell 75 00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:04,880 so an officer could release hydrogen from a particular cell, 76 00:04:04,880 --> 00:04:08,240 or you could do something that they did in that last approach on May 6, 77 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:10,400 and you could "valve at the wheel". 78 00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:11,880 And this is the wheel. 79 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:15,840 And when you turn this wheel, gas cells from the front to the back 80 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:19,720 release gas evenly and the entire ship becomes heavier... 81 00:04:20,800 --> 00:04:23,200 ..and descends in level trim. 82 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:27,760 We can only speculate what happened here in those last moments, 83 00:04:27,760 --> 00:04:29,960 but given the high level of experience 84 00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:32,640 of all of the officers, all the men who are on this bridge, 85 00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:35,320 who had served for zeppelins for years, 86 00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,720 they had to have suspected that something wasn't right. 87 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:42,200 Was there a discussion, what should we do, 88 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:45,120 or did they just continue on on their path? 89 00:04:46,280 --> 00:04:51,200 Dr Eckener instructed crew members, "Follow this rule. 90 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:54,720 "Do not blow off any hydrogen in a thunderstorm." 91 00:04:54,720 --> 00:05:00,720 This ran counter to every precept that Eckener had tried to drill 92 00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:04,120 into his commanders from the beginning. 93 00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:06,320 MORRISON: Now they're coming in to make a landing of the zeppelin. 94 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:10,400 I'm going to step out here and cover it from the outside. 95 00:05:10,400 --> 00:05:12,680 So as I move out we'll just stand by for a second. 96 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:18,440 Well, here it comes, ladies and gentlemen, 97 00:05:18,440 --> 00:05:20,240 we're out now outside of the hangar. 98 00:05:20,240 --> 00:05:23,320 And what a great site it is, a thrilling one. 99 00:05:23,320 --> 00:05:25,520 It's a marvellous site. It's coming down out of the sky, 100 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:28,600 pointed directly towards us and toward the mooring mast. 101 00:05:28,600 --> 00:05:32,240 Spectators and journalists gather near the landing area. 102 00:05:32,240 --> 00:05:34,480 MAN: We were waiting to see my dad, 103 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:38,640 and excited because it was a big, big deal. 104 00:05:38,640 --> 00:05:41,240 The mighty diesel motors just roared, 105 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:42,480 the propellers biting into the air 106 00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:44,760 and throwing it back into a gale-like whirlpool. 107 00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,000 No wonder this great floating palace can travel through the air 108 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,080 at such a speed, with these powerful motors behind it. 109 00:05:50,080 --> 00:05:52,960 For the moment we've waited for so long. 110 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:56,240 The ship is riding majestically toward us like some great feather, 111 00:05:56,240 --> 00:05:58,720 riding as though it was mighty proud of the place 112 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:01,440 it's playing in the world's aviation. 113 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:04,480 The ship is no doubt bustling with activity, as we can see. 114 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:07,160 Orders are shouted to the crew, the passengers probably lining 115 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:09,120 the windows looking down at the field ahead of them, 116 00:06:09,120 --> 00:06:10,960 getting their glimpse of the mooring mast. 117 00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:12,720 And these giant flagships standing here, 118 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:14,760 the American Airline flagships, waiting to direct them 119 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:17,640 to all points in the United States when they get the ship moored. 120 00:06:17,640 --> 00:06:20,480 There are a number of important persons on board, 121 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:23,920 and no doubt the new commander, Captain Max Pruss, is thrilled, too, 122 00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:25,440 for this is his great moment, 123 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:27,440 the first time he's commanded the Hindenburg. 124 00:06:27,440 --> 00:06:31,320 On previous flights, he acted as Chief Officer under Captain Lehmann. 125 00:06:31,320 --> 00:06:32,720 It's starting to rain again. 126 00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:36,000 The rain had slacked up a little bit. 127 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:41,760 At 7:21pm, the Hindenburg floats at 90 metres above the ground. 128 00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:44,520 The mooring lines are dropped from the bow. 129 00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:47,280 For the next few minutes, all is quiet. 130 00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:51,920 All of a sudden there was an explosion. 131 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:55,720 Helmut Lau, a helmsman stationed in the lower fin, 132 00:06:55,720 --> 00:07:00,080 hears a muffled detonation as a strong jolt runs through the ship. 133 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:03,160 Crew and passengers are anxious to land. 134 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:05,480 Joseph Spah and his dog Ulla 135 00:07:05,480 --> 00:07:07,480 caught a last-minute ride on the Hindenburg 136 00:07:07,480 --> 00:07:10,440 to make his dates performing as a professional acrobat 137 00:07:10,440 --> 00:07:12,440 at Radio City Music Hall. 138 00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:14,400 Spah was filming on the observation deck 139 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:16,280 for a good portion of the journey. 140 00:07:16,280 --> 00:07:18,640 As they arrived at Lakehurst airfield, 141 00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:22,040 he stuck his 16mm camera out the window. 142 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:25,680 Spah would be filming at the exact moment the ignition occurred. 143 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:29,560 He was leaning out the gondola window filming 144 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:31,880 when the Hindenburg exploded. 145 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:34,800 Now, in this rarely seen footage, 146 00:07:34,800 --> 00:07:37,720 witness what passengers saw from inside the Hindenburg 147 00:07:37,720 --> 00:07:40,960 the moment the massive airship erupted in flames. 148 00:07:40,960 --> 00:07:43,760 The footage is degraded, but ground crew can be seen 149 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,840 assembling on the airfield below moments before the disaster. 150 00:07:47,840 --> 00:07:51,560 And here, for just a few frames, the moment the fire erupted 151 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:53,600 is captured on film. 152 00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,120 Burning hydrogen illuminates Hangar One at Lakehurst. 153 00:07:57,120 --> 00:07:59,400 Unfortunately, the camera wasn't ready to capture 154 00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:02,240 the wide change of exposure about to take place. 155 00:08:02,240 --> 00:08:06,360 The back motors of the ship are just holding it 156 00:08:06,360 --> 00:08:07,920 just enough to keep it from... 157 00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:09,000 It burst into flames! 158 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:10,800 It burst into flame and it's falling! 159 00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:12,600 (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) 160 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:15,280 Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie! Get this, Charlie! 161 00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:17,160 There's fire and it's crashing! 162 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,360 It's crashing terrible! Oh, my. Get out of the way, please. 163 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:21,880 It's burning, bursting into flames 164 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:23,480 and it's falling on the mooring mast, 165 00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:25,560 and all the folks agree that this is terrible. 166 00:08:25,560 --> 00:08:27,880 This is one of the worst catastrophes in the world. 167 00:08:27,880 --> 00:08:30,520 You can hear what sounds like the explosion - you hear a pop - 168 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:32,920 and then he says, "It burst into flames." 169 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:36,760 Just enough to keep it from... It burst into flames! 170 00:08:36,760 --> 00:08:39,360 OK, I heard it about right here. 171 00:08:41,400 --> 00:08:43,200 It bursts into flames! 172 00:08:43,200 --> 00:08:46,680 Pruss and his men had just enough time to 173 00:08:46,680 --> 00:08:52,080 see the reflection of the fire on the large zeppelin hangar 174 00:08:52,080 --> 00:08:55,960 down on the ground before the ship began to tilt 175 00:08:55,960 --> 00:08:59,480 and they all hung on for dear life. 176 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:02,240 Fire erupted near the tail of the airship, 177 00:09:02,240 --> 00:09:06,680 and from that moment the airship had less than a minute left to live. 178 00:09:06,680 --> 00:09:09,360 Fire raced through the hydrogen cells, 179 00:09:09,360 --> 00:09:12,760 it raced along the axial corridor, 180 00:09:12,760 --> 00:09:16,160 which was an open area throughout the very centre of the ship. 181 00:09:16,160 --> 00:09:19,400 And we can see that fire emerging from the nose of the ship 182 00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:21,360 like a blowtorch. 183 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:24,440 The ship began to lose its structural integrity. 184 00:09:24,440 --> 00:09:28,480 The tail began to collapse and crunch in two. 185 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:34,520 The ship very dramatically tipped up vertically. 186 00:09:34,520 --> 00:09:37,480 And this all happened in a matter of 20 or 30 seconds. 187 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:40,920 Whether you lived or died was really a question 188 00:09:40,920 --> 00:09:44,320 of where you happen to be when this fire began. 189 00:09:44,320 --> 00:09:48,000 If you were by a window, you had a pretty good chance. 190 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:51,000 If you were deep inside the ship, you had virtually no chance at all. 191 00:09:52,920 --> 00:09:55,000 As the ship begins to descend, 192 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:58,640 Ernst Lehmann and Max Pruss leap from the control car 193 00:09:58,640 --> 00:10:00,120 just as, all around them, 194 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,120 Hindenburg's white-hot frame crashes to the ground. 195 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:06,680 "What's the best time to jump? Are we too high? 196 00:10:06,680 --> 00:10:08,960 "Are we going to get higher? 197 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,840 "If we get lower, will I not have enough time left?" 198 00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:15,600 Lehmann manages to pry himself free, 199 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:18,880 but not before sustaining severe burns. 200 00:10:18,880 --> 00:10:23,360 Pruss also emerges from the wreckage burned but alive. 201 00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:24,760 WOMAN: He was burned. 202 00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:27,440 He ran away from the ship, then turned around 203 00:10:27,440 --> 00:10:31,960 to run back and rescue one of his crewmen. 204 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:35,240 And then he kept running back to rescue other people. 205 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:37,160 In the result of it being that 206 00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:39,080 eventually, I think they had to stop him. 207 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:40,400 He was so badly burnt 208 00:10:40,400 --> 00:10:43,080 that they actually thought he might die that night. 209 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:46,400 On the ground, spectators watch in shock. 210 00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:49,920 Navy servicemen run towards the wreckage looking for survivors. 211 00:10:49,920 --> 00:10:54,720 For those still inside the ship, survival is a matter of chance. 212 00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:59,280 GROSSMAN: The youngest crewman, the cabin boy named Werner Franz, 213 00:10:59,280 --> 00:11:02,600 thought he would be trapped with flames around him where he was, 214 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:06,320 and then almost miraculously, a water tank above his head burst 215 00:11:06,320 --> 00:11:07,440 and drenched him in water 216 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:09,640 and cleared a path for him to escape. 217 00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:11,920 So there are so many different stories of people 218 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:14,240 escaping different ways. 219 00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:15,920 And of course there are tragic stories 220 00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:17,800 about people who didn't escape. 221 00:11:17,800 --> 00:11:21,200 There was a family, the Doehner family, 222 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:23,720 the father was in his cabin on B deck, 223 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:27,080 and the daughter, who was by a window with her mother 224 00:11:27,080 --> 00:11:30,000 and her sibling, who survived. 225 00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:34,160 And the eldest daughter decided to go back in 226 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:37,120 to see if she could find her father but was so horribly burned 227 00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:39,640 that she died shortly after in the hospital. 228 00:11:40,760 --> 00:11:44,960 Passengers who did not survive include five Americans, 229 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:48,680 five Germans, two Mexicans and one Swede. 230 00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:52,880 Ages range from 14 to 77 years old. 231 00:11:52,880 --> 00:11:56,120 Among the survivors is acrobat Joseph Spah, 232 00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:59,880 along with several rolls of film from his personal camera. 233 00:11:59,880 --> 00:12:03,440 My dad, he just threw the camera down on the ground, 234 00:12:03,440 --> 00:12:05,560 and the flames were coming up. 235 00:12:05,560 --> 00:12:09,600 It started to burn that gondola and he hung out the window. 236 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:10,880 And during his act, 237 00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:14,560 he did a thing that was on the top of this lamppost, 238 00:12:14,560 --> 00:12:17,520 he hung by one arm 239 00:12:17,520 --> 00:12:19,880 And that saved his life, believe it or not, 240 00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:24,320 because he had a tricep looked like a broken piece of rope. 241 00:12:24,320 --> 00:12:28,840 It was so strong from doing that one trick. 242 00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:32,200 Viewing footage of the crash, it's difficult to understand 243 00:12:32,200 --> 00:12:35,640 how anyone could have survived the fire and the heat. 244 00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:38,280 (MORRISON SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) 245 00:12:38,280 --> 00:12:41,440 Oh, four or five hundred feet into the sky, it is. 246 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:43,560 It's a terrific crash, ladies and gentlemen. 247 00:12:43,560 --> 00:12:45,320 The smoke and the flames now. 248 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:47,720 And the frame is crashing to the ground, 249 00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:49,880 not quite to the mooring mast. 250 00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:51,200 Oh, the humanity. 251 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:53,720 And all the passengers just screaming around here. 252 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:55,600 In a matter of mere seconds, 253 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:57,760 the damage is done. 254 00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:00,840 SCHIRMER: It was 34 seconds. 255 00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:05,240 Burning from the tail to the bow, 256 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:09,280 totally gone in 34 seconds. 257 00:13:09,280 --> 00:13:11,320 With 97 people on board. 258 00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:13,600 GROSSMAN: People must have stood with their mouths hanging open, 259 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:17,040 just hard to believe what they were seeing. 260 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:20,480 Everybody remembers the minute and a half 261 00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:22,880 when Morrison yells, "Oh, the humanity." 262 00:13:22,880 --> 00:13:25,840 But this recording was actually close to 40 minutes long. 263 00:13:25,840 --> 00:13:28,840 He was there before, during and after the crash, 264 00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:31,800 and his eyewitness account of that day has gone down in history 265 00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:34,760 as one of the most famous broadcasts in radio journalism. 266 00:13:34,760 --> 00:13:37,840 And here is another man coming in. He's burned considerably. 267 00:13:37,840 --> 00:13:39,440 Mr Otto Clemens. 268 00:13:39,440 --> 00:13:42,920 Mr Otto Clemens is safe, although he's burned quite badly. 269 00:13:42,920 --> 00:13:45,200 Now... MAN: Clemens isn't burned at all. 270 00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:47,320 Clemens isn't burned at all? Thank you, thank you. 271 00:13:47,320 --> 00:13:49,720 He's sitting right here as composed... 272 00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:52,280 And is that his mother with him? No, no. That's his friend. 273 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:54,120 A friend of his? You tell the folks. 274 00:13:54,120 --> 00:13:58,440 He was on his way to his cabin when the flash came, 275 00:13:58,440 --> 00:13:59,840 and he jumped out. 276 00:13:59,840 --> 00:14:02,080 He jumped out of the cabin? Jumped out. 277 00:14:02,080 --> 00:14:05,120 Survivors are rushed to the air station's infirmary 278 00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:06,640 and local hospitals. 279 00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:09,640 The last passenger dies on May 15th. 280 00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:12,480 The dead add up to 36 in total - 281 00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:17,560 13 passengers, 22 crewmen, and one man on the ground. 282 00:14:17,560 --> 00:14:19,840 Captain of the Hindenburg, Max Pruss, 283 00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:22,840 and his Nazi-appointed supervisor, Ernst Lehmann, 284 00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:27,240 lay badly burned at Kimball Hospital in Lakewood, New Jersey. 285 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:29,200 With slim chances of survival, 286 00:14:29,200 --> 00:14:32,360 Pruss receives his last rites from a priest. 287 00:14:32,360 --> 00:14:36,280 Lehmann's condition, however, deteriorates quickly. 288 00:14:36,280 --> 00:14:39,360 So, we're about an hour after the disaster here. 289 00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:42,840 The tail went up in the air, and as I told you on previous 290 00:14:42,840 --> 00:14:44,720 occasions, it held up there 291 00:14:44,720 --> 00:14:46,440 long enough for them to jump from the cabin. 292 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:49,560 And all I could understand him to say was that he'd jumped 293 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:51,520 and evidently was thrown too at the same time 294 00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:53,760 because the ship was, uh, vibrating. 295 00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:56,720 There were three distinct explosions, if I remember correctly. 296 00:14:56,720 --> 00:14:58,760 I'll have to check back in the earlier part of this broadcast 297 00:14:58,760 --> 00:15:00,880 and if that was not right. 298 00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:03,440 I don't remember hearing three explosions, 299 00:15:03,440 --> 00:15:05,680 so let's go back and see if we can hear them. 300 00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:07,200 It bursts into flames! 301 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:09,360 It burst into flame and it's falling! 302 00:15:09,360 --> 00:15:12,320 OK, so, I'm definitely hearing an explosion right here. 303 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:14,960 And then I hear several other popping sounds, 304 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:17,680 but it's hard to tell if those are just artefacts in the recording 305 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:20,560 or actual explosions. 306 00:15:20,560 --> 00:15:22,880 Morrison recorded this with a sound engineer, 307 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:25,640 Charlie Nehlsen, on a Presto direct disk. 308 00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:28,280 Now, some reports say that when the explosion occurred, 309 00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:30,880 the cutting head of the recorder was moved out of place 310 00:15:30,880 --> 00:15:33,080 and Nehlsen had to quickly correct it. 311 00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:36,400 That could be the cause of the sound of the explosion, 312 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:38,255 but it's difficult to say. 313 00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:45,520 GROSSMAN: So, we're at the Charles Rosendahl Collection 314 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:48,480 at the University of Texas in Dallas. 315 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:52,680 Rosendahl left his entire collection of papers to the archive here 316 00:15:52,680 --> 00:15:56,080 I think in 1977, certainly late '70s. 317 00:15:56,080 --> 00:15:58,720 And it's just a wonderful collection of his complete papers, 318 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:01,280 and he was really the key figure 319 00:16:01,280 --> 00:16:03,640 in the American lighter-than-air community. 320 00:16:03,640 --> 00:16:05,920 So this is an absolute treasure-trove 321 00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,600 for anything having to do with airships in the United States Navy. 322 00:16:08,600 --> 00:16:09,920 So, these are great photos. 323 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:15,280 This photo shows Hindenburg at Lakehurst successfully moored 324 00:16:15,280 --> 00:16:19,080 to a low mooring mast in one of the mooring circles. 325 00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:22,080 And this is how that last flight was supposed to end, 326 00:16:22,080 --> 00:16:25,000 with the ship safely moored to a mast at the circle 327 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:26,960 in front of hangar one. 328 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,240 Of course, it didn't actually end that way that day. 329 00:16:31,120 --> 00:16:33,800 Some theories claim that the disaster was caused 330 00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:37,080 by incendiary paint used on the ship's outer covering. 331 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:42,080 And this is a great series of photographs. 332 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:45,680 This one in particular, is interesting because you can see 333 00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:49,800 the flame that has pretty much completely consumed the tail, 334 00:16:49,800 --> 00:16:52,120 but almost simultaneously, there's also flame coming out 335 00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:54,640 of the middle of the ship. 336 00:16:54,640 --> 00:17:00,320 Which means that this hydrogen fire burned and spread so rapidly, 337 00:17:00,320 --> 00:17:06,120 and you can really tell that this nonsensical idea that people have 338 00:17:06,120 --> 00:17:09,600 about the fabric being very, very flammable 339 00:17:09,600 --> 00:17:11,000 doesn't make any sense. 340 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:12,960 This photograph sort of tells that story 341 00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:15,600 because in between these two areas of flame, 342 00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:17,320 the fabric isn't burning at all. 343 00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:20,360 So, clearly, what has moved this flame so quickly 344 00:17:20,360 --> 00:17:22,680 is the burning of the hydrogen that's inside the ship. 345 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:25,960 This is Folder 13, 346 00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:30,080 in Box 18, here at the UT Dallas 347 00:17:30,080 --> 00:17:31,520 Charles Rosendahl Archives. 348 00:17:31,520 --> 00:17:33,560 And these are supposed to be photographs of 349 00:17:33,560 --> 00:17:34,840 the Hindenburg disaster. 350 00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:37,560 And, yeah, look at these. 351 00:17:37,560 --> 00:17:43,040 These are photos showing exactly what the people at Lakehurst saw... 352 00:17:44,080 --> 00:17:45,840 ..on May 6th, 1937. 353 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:48,400 And you can see just how dramatic... 354 00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:52,760 ..the destruction of this airship was. 355 00:17:52,760 --> 00:17:56,360 And you see, actually, spectators, just people. 356 00:17:56,360 --> 00:17:58,520 I can see that they're on the other side of the fence, actually. 357 00:17:58,520 --> 00:18:00,880 So these are just members of the public. 358 00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:03,480 And everyone that we see here looked at this 359 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:06,280 and knew that there were human beings in there. 360 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:10,800 It's just hard to imagine what thoughts went through their heads. 361 00:18:10,800 --> 00:18:14,200 On May 6th, 1937, Hugo Eckener, 362 00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:16,520 the face of commercial airship travel, 363 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:20,480 is in Austria promoting airships as the future of aviation. 364 00:18:20,480 --> 00:18:23,280 That night, he receives an urgent phone call. 365 00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:27,320 When news of the Hindenburg crash reaches Hugo Eckener 366 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:28,520 in the middle of the night, 367 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:30,480 he gets this phone call from a journalist who says, 368 00:18:30,480 --> 00:18:33,960 you know, "The Hindenburg has exploded, it is destroyed." 369 00:18:33,960 --> 00:18:37,360 And Eckener is absolutely forlorn. 370 00:18:37,360 --> 00:18:41,040 And it seems that in half asleep, when the journalist says, 371 00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:42,400 "Do you think it's sabotage?" 372 00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,800 Eckener says, "Oh, it should be." 373 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:46,880 And therein starts one of the rumours. 374 00:18:48,640 --> 00:18:50,680 Within hours of the crash, 375 00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:54,040 the German Air Ministry commissions its own team of experts 376 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:59,280 to represent German interests at the Lakehurst crash investigation. 377 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:02,400 Hugo Eckener is made part of this commission. 378 00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:05,960 But before sailing to New York, he is summonsed to Berlin 379 00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:08,760 to meet with the Reich Minister for Air Hermann Goering. 380 00:19:10,120 --> 00:19:13,560 Dr Eckener was under orders from the Air Ministry in Berlin 381 00:19:13,560 --> 00:19:17,600 not to pursue sabotage as a possibility. 382 00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:20,920 It would have been incredibly embarrassing politically, 383 00:19:20,920 --> 00:19:24,120 both for the Germans and for the United States, 384 00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:29,520 to have had a German airship destroyed by sabotage 385 00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:32,480 on an American military base. 386 00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:34,800 GROSSMAN: Someone from the Air Ministry, 387 00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:38,440 who was there likely to offer technical advice 388 00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:41,600 but also likely as a representative of Hermann Goering 389 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,040 and the Nazi regime's Air Ministry 390 00:19:44,040 --> 00:19:48,040 to keep an eye on what people said and how it made Germany look. 391 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:54,360 Renowned airship historian Dan Grossman revisits Hugo Eckener's 392 00:19:54,360 --> 00:19:56,160 first stop in the US. 393 00:19:57,280 --> 00:19:59,800 This is the house where Charles Rosendahl lived 394 00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:01,880 when he was the base commander at Lakehurst 395 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,360 in 1937, when Hindenburg crashed. 396 00:20:04,360 --> 00:20:10,280 And Hugo Eckener walked in that door and talked to his old friend, 397 00:20:10,280 --> 00:20:13,560 old colleague, old flying mate, Charles Rosendahl. 398 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:17,160 These two men, who each knew more about flying airships 399 00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,640 and about Hindenburg in particular than anyone else in the world, 400 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:24,200 must have talked to each other and said, "What could have happened?" 401 00:20:24,200 --> 00:20:26,720 And at some point during that conversation, 402 00:20:26,720 --> 00:20:28,840 Eckener would have had to say, 403 00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:31,000 "I need to tell you what Berlin wants us to say." 404 00:20:32,240 --> 00:20:36,560 The investigation board includes men loyal to the National Socialists 405 00:20:36,560 --> 00:20:40,800 who are assigned to make sure Eckener follows the party line. 406 00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:44,880 The presence of the German ambassador and a military attache 407 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:48,280 is meant to be intimidating for Hindenburg's crew 408 00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:52,120 and keep them from saying anything deemed out of line. 409 00:20:54,240 --> 00:20:56,120 Two days after the crash, 410 00:20:56,120 --> 00:21:00,080 the twisted and scorched metal wreckage has finally cooled. 411 00:21:00,080 --> 00:21:03,440 Footage of the fiery destruction of the once mighty Hindenburg 412 00:21:03,440 --> 00:21:05,120 circulates the globe. 413 00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:07,640 As the Commerce Department and the German commission 414 00:21:07,640 --> 00:21:10,560 officially investigate the disaster at Lakehurst, 415 00:21:10,560 --> 00:21:14,600 a new government agency known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation 416 00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:16,800 begins chasing down its own leads. 417 00:21:18,040 --> 00:21:21,880 Young FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is eager to prove himself 418 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:24,000 in the public spotlight. 419 00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:26,400 It's very much a potential PR stunt for him. 420 00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:31,000 And they wound up coming up with a fairly lengthy investigation file. 421 00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:34,880 Was the Nazi's premiere airship the target of a deliberate attack? 422 00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:41,760 In Germany, Hitler and his warmongering Nazi regime 423 00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:44,720 prepare for further expansion of German territory. 424 00:21:46,080 --> 00:21:50,440 A growing Nazi war machine intimidates Eastern Europe. 425 00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:54,440 In one year, they will invade and annex Austria. 426 00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:56,920 The following year, they will take Poland. 427 00:21:58,280 --> 00:22:01,680 The investigation of the FBI alludes to, 428 00:22:01,680 --> 00:22:03,560 of course, the notions of conspiracy. 429 00:22:03,560 --> 00:22:06,320 Notably, for example, workers may be colluding 430 00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,200 to protest against Nazi Germany. 431 00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:12,680 Some of the early FBI reports made mention of possibly someone 432 00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:15,520 having shot at the Hindenburg. 433 00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:18,080 Meanwhile, Captain Ernst Lehmann, 434 00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:20,400 head of the airline that flew Hindenburg, 435 00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,520 dies of severe burn injuries. 436 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:26,720 Before he died, he expressed his belief 437 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:28,920 that it had to have been sabotage. 438 00:22:28,920 --> 00:22:33,760 He used a German word which translates as "hell machine", 439 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:36,360 often called "infernal machine". 440 00:22:36,360 --> 00:22:38,840 Max Pruss, the captain of the Hindenburg, 441 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:42,360 is in the hospital, badly burned but stable. 442 00:22:42,360 --> 00:22:45,840 My great-grandfather was able to escape the burning Hindenburg. 443 00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,720 He jumped out just as it was coming down, 444 00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:50,320 but he came away with terrible burns 445 00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:53,240 that marked him for the rest of his life. 446 00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:57,800 Although he was too badly injured to testify during the investigation, 447 00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:02,040 Max Pruss also believed that the crash had been no accident. 448 00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:05,240 In a 1960 interview with the Columbia University's 449 00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:10,680 Centre for Oral History, he once again raises the spectre of sabotage. 450 00:23:10,680 --> 00:23:15,360 MAN: So, you don't think it was lightning that did it? 451 00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:17,560 PRUSS: No. What do you think it was, sabotage? 452 00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:19,440 (PRUSS LAUGHS) 453 00:23:20,960 --> 00:23:23,800 I mean, it's interesting to know what you think. 454 00:23:23,800 --> 00:23:25,040 Ja. 455 00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:27,640 I think it was sabotage. 456 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:32,320 To his dying day, my great-grandfather believed 457 00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:34,680 that the Hindenburg was sabotaged 458 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,680 and that it was a bomb that essentially destroyed the ship. 459 00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,200 I spend a lot of time considering why Max was so adamant 460 00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:48,080 about the sabotage theory, and I think if you consider 461 00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:52,360 that he spent more or less 20-plus years of his life 462 00:23:52,360 --> 00:23:57,160 dedicated to this industry and to this dream of the airship, 463 00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:03,200 that seeing it crash and burn like that and coming to an end - 464 00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:06,480 and essentially the Hindenburg disaster 465 00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:08,960 was the end of the airship industry - 466 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,400 I think that's something very difficult to wrap your head around. 467 00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:17,960 I think he truly believed that it might have not been his wrongdoing, 468 00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:23,280 or at least he was not willing to look at it from that perspective, 469 00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:24,480 because that would have put 470 00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,800 the entire blame of this disaster on him. 471 00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:31,880 Amid a media frenzy and public outcry for answers, 472 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,200 the US Navy and the FBI begin probing. 473 00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:38,520 GROSSMAN: Shortly after the crash, agents from the FBI 474 00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:42,240 began to show up at Lakehurst and conduct investigations. 475 00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:45,720 This was early in the days of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, 476 00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,200 and he was really trying to expand 477 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:53,720 and grow this relatively young criminal investigation agency. 478 00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:58,520 FBI agents scour Lakehurst and track suspicious characters. 479 00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,640 Their main focus - sabotage. 480 00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:04,680 Days after the Hindenburg's fiery crash, 481 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,880 Hoover's FBI investigates a series of articles 482 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,720 published by communist newspaper The Daily Worker. 483 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:16,680 These articles had warned of an imminent attack on a German airship. 484 00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:18,200 RUSSELL: The FBI was well aware 485 00:25:18,200 --> 00:25:20,400 of the fact that there were publications 486 00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:24,480 such as The Daily Worker that were generating anti-Nazi sentiment 487 00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,200 among German Americans here in the States. 488 00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:29,800 They wanted to investigate whether some of these people 489 00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,520 maybe tried to sabotage the Hindenburg. 490 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,280 Both Rosendahl and Pruss go to their deathbeds never letting go 491 00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:39,360 of the belief that the Hindenburg was sabotaged. 492 00:25:39,360 --> 00:25:44,720 Their main suspect - the man with the dog, acrobat Joseph Spah. 493 00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:47,840 GROSSMAN: One of the things that the FBI looked into 494 00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:53,040 was the suggestion that Joseph Spah, who was on board the ship, 495 00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:58,120 that he might have had access to the crew areas of the ship 496 00:25:58,120 --> 00:26:00,640 and that he might somehow have planted a bomb. 497 00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,640 There was never any evidence to suggest that that was the case, 498 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,520 but there are plenty of pages in the FBI file 499 00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:11,600 in which they talk about this as something that they looked into. 500 00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:15,080 One of the reasons people were suspicious of Joseph Spah 501 00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,160 was because he was an acrobat, and it would have been easy for him 502 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,240 to climb and move around 503 00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,640 the internal structure of Hindenburg. 504 00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:24,800 RICHARD SPAH: My dad was a suspect for years 505 00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:27,320 because, first of all, he was a survivor. 506 00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:31,120 Second of all, he was up in amongst the bags 507 00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:33,080 where the explosion happened. 508 00:26:33,080 --> 00:26:38,760 The kennel was up there and he got to walk the dog every day. 509 00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:42,000 The FBI actually investigated Joseph Spah, 510 00:26:42,000 --> 00:26:46,880 interviewed his neighbours and did a full write-up on him, 511 00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,920 came to the conclusion he was a family man. 512 00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:52,960 My dad never let it bother him. 513 00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,880 He was sensible enough to realise that he'd be a suspect 514 00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:01,840 because of all the circumstantial evidence against him. 515 00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:05,120 The FBI saw absolutely no reason to suspect 516 00:27:05,120 --> 00:27:08,320 that Joseph Spah had sabotaged the Hindenburg. 517 00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,320 Before the FBI can explore any further, 518 00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,240 the investigation is interrupted 519 00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,840 and taken over by the US Department of Commerce. 520 00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:17,880 GROSSMAN: The FBI was not the official investigating body. 521 00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:22,840 The FBI did not do an official Hindenburg investigation report. 522 00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:24,640 The official investigation was conducted by 523 00:27:24,640 --> 00:27:28,360 the US Department of Commerce and the German Investigation Commission. 524 00:27:28,360 --> 00:27:32,800 RUSSELL: Dr Eckener was not opposed to discussing at least privately 525 00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,560 the possibility that the Hindenburg had been sabotaged, 526 00:27:35,560 --> 00:27:40,880 but he was essentially under orders from the Air Ministry in Berlin 527 00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:45,960 not to pursue sabotage as a possibility. 528 00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:53,480 If you are able to prove the thesis of a bombing, of a terrorist attack, 529 00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:58,160 then this suggests that the Nazi regime is not so solid as it seems. 530 00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,600 And that's why you still have a controversy that exists today 531 00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:03,800 between people who say there may have been a bomb, 532 00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:06,280 there may have been a conspiracy, and people who say, 533 00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,000 "Nonsense, it was a technical failure." 534 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:12,320 In this interview, Captain Pruss suggests 535 00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:16,880 that Lakehurst commander Charles Rosendahl may hold the answer. 536 00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,960 PRUSS: I think Admiral Rosendahl, 537 00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,880 he's writing now on a book. 538 00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:26,280 MAN: He's what? MAN 2: He's writing a book. 539 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:32,040 Yes. And he said to me that he would bring new evidence. 540 00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:33,640 Oh, he will bring... Yeah. 541 00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:35,360 ..proof, new evidence. 542 00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:39,560 Rosendahl completed but did not publish his book 543 00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,520 before he died of natural causes in 1977. 544 00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:47,560 His manuscript, which he donated to the University of Texas Archives, 545 00:28:47,560 --> 00:28:50,400 provides no evidence of sabotage. 546 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:55,400 But sabotage was very much on Rosendahl's mind in 1937. 547 00:28:55,400 --> 00:28:59,280 Captain Wittemann went up to Commander Rosendahl and said, 548 00:28:59,280 --> 00:29:02,000 "I need to speak with you at your earliest convenience." 549 00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:05,960 And Wittemann told him that Lehmann had had a bomb threat letter 550 00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:07,760 in his pocket. 551 00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,320 "We really need to look and see if somebody 552 00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:11,880 "sabotaged the Hindenburg." 553 00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,400 The letter was never mentioned 554 00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,200 during the Board of Inquiry investigation. 555 00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,720 Captain Pruss was not even made aware of this letter's existence 556 00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:25,120 until 1938, so it was not something that was discussed at the time. 557 00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:28,680 And to be perfectly honest, the Board of Inquiry 558 00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,520 and the German Investigation Commission, 559 00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:37,280 neither of them really wanted to pursue sabotage as a possibility. 560 00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:39,800 That would have opened up a whole can of worms, 561 00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:43,280 they would have had to launch a major investigation. 562 00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:44,680 They didn't know what they would find 563 00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,200 if they went down that rabbit hole. 564 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,160 Both Rosendahl and Wittemann knew of the bomb threat, 565 00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,840 both testified during the investigation, 566 00:29:53,840 --> 00:29:57,440 and Rosendahl was an adviser to the investigating board, 567 00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:01,000 but, in over 1,000 pages of sworn testimony, 568 00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:03,560 neither mentioned the bomb threat. 569 00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:06,320 And when asked at the end of their testimony if either had 570 00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,480 anything else to add, both said no. 571 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,560 It is unknown if the bomb threat letter still exists 572 00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,120 or if it has been lost to history. 573 00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,440 What we do know is the contents of the letter were not mentioned 574 00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:21,920 or discussed during the investigation, 575 00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,680 nor seen anywhere in the official reports. 576 00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:28,640 It would seem this clue was deliberately concealed 577 00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:31,240 by both the US and German witnesses. 578 00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,080 If the idea of sabotage was deliberately omitted 579 00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,840 from the testimony given during the investigation, 580 00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,960 it raises the question of what else was left out by witnesses. 581 00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:46,760 Negligence or any hint of a mistake made by the German crew 582 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:51,840 would have been far more embarrassing to the Nazi regime than sabotage. 583 00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,040 With the Nazi airship 12 hours behind schedule 584 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,760 and pressure mounting on the captains and crew, 585 00:30:57,760 --> 00:30:59,800 the landing was made in haste. 586 00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,120 Were safety protocols overlooked? 587 00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,480 German airshipmen had developed strict rules over the years 588 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,960 for the safe and efficient operation of hydrogen-filled zeppelins. 589 00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:13,120 They knew never to valve hydrogen 590 00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,520 or land in an area undergoing thunderstorms, 591 00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,720 and they knew the dangerous effects of electrical charges 592 00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:21,800 at different altitudes. 593 00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:26,080 But under pressure to land, those concerns were set aside. 594 00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:29,600 One of the ideas that people talk about with regard to the Hindenburg 595 00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:32,520 is that during that final last turn, 596 00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:34,480 when the ship had to reorient its direction 597 00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,560 so it would land into the wind, 598 00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:40,920 that perhaps a bracing cable snapped and slashed a gas cell. 599 00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,040 One of the biggest problems with that concept is that the timing 600 00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,560 doesn't match because a lot of the efforts that were taken 601 00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:50,000 to address the tail heaviness situation 602 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:53,000 occurred long before that final turn. 603 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:55,760 So if hydrogen was leaking from the tail, 604 00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:59,720 it wasn't as a result of a turn that happened later. 605 00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,920 With an airship coming high, 606 00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,960 the higher it is, the more electricity, 607 00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,240 static electricity, it has collected. 608 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,440 So there was a thunderstorm that Hindenburg went through. 609 00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,400 That was lots of negative and lots of positive, 610 00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,200 or vice versa, on the airship. 611 00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,040 And so the captains - 612 00:32:19,040 --> 00:32:22,960 Pruss should have known that, Lehmann should have known that, 613 00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,200 and, of course, Rosendahl should have known that, 614 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,280 and none of them talked about it. 615 00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:29,880 The Hindenburg crash certainly involved two elements. 616 00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:34,800 There was a source of ignition and then there was leaking hydrogen. 617 00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:37,800 We don't know, and we'll probably never know for sure, 618 00:32:37,800 --> 00:32:39,880 why the hydrogen was leaking. 619 00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:43,680 We'll never know for absolute certainty 620 00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,200 what the source of ignition was. 621 00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,000 It seems that hydrogen WAS leaking, 622 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,600 but did any member of the crew notice a problem during the landing? 623 00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:57,280 In his book My Zeppelins, Hugo Eckener recalls 624 00:32:57,280 --> 00:33:00,920 how Rudolf Sauter, quote, "stated most positively 625 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,080 "that immediately before the catastrophe 626 00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:06,880 "he had noticed that one of the stern cells had risen very high 627 00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,560 "and had apparently lost a lot of gas," end quote. 628 00:33:10,560 --> 00:33:14,040 Yet at the inquiry, when asked if anything unusual happened 629 00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,200 before hearing the detonation and seeing the fire, 630 00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,360 Sauter answered, "No." 631 00:33:19,360 --> 00:33:22,960 As chief engineer, Rudolf Sauter was one of the airship's 632 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:27,680 most senior officers, and as a general in the Sturmabteilung, 633 00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,040 also known as the Brownshirts or Storm Troopers, 634 00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,400 Sauter had an especially strong incentive 635 00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,160 not to embarrass Germany or himself. 636 00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:39,840 Sauter and other crew members 637 00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,880 were sat across the investigator's table from representatives 638 00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,360 of Hermann Goering's Air Ministry. 639 00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:49,360 Knowing they would be returning home to Nazi Germany in just a few days, 640 00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:53,200 the German crew testified, one after another in lock step, 641 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:56,600 that everything about the landing was perfectly normal. 642 00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:00,200 But it was anything BUT normal. The ship burned. 643 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:03,840 Was this a massive cover-up orchestrated from Berlin? 644 00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:09,440 The problem is that now the zeppelin is a compromised symbol 645 00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,400 because it has burned to the ground with its swastikas. 646 00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:16,560 And so it's basically a difficult symbol to handle now, 647 00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,360 it's no longer going to be front and centre 648 00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:21,015 in the context of German propaganda. 649 00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,640 More than eight decades ago, broadcaster Herb Morrison provided 650 00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:30,120 remarkable insight as a witness that still bears up to this day. 651 00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:33,600 We have not yet been able to find out what caused the explosion, 652 00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:35,560 but it's very evident that there was a spark 653 00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,240 set the nitrogen on fire. 654 00:34:38,240 --> 00:34:40,720 There wasn't any electricity, there was no electrical storm. 655 00:34:40,720 --> 00:34:43,160 It was raining previously to that, 656 00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,040 but no electricity could have set it on fire 657 00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,200 unless it was static electricity 658 00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:51,920 because we had had a thunderstorm, a very light thunderstorm. 659 00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:55,400 But there was a lot of electricity in the air, so maybe a spark jumped 660 00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:57,640 from one of the beams in the tail surfaces across. 661 00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,080 That would be a logical interpretation of it, 662 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:03,640 inasmuch as they were coming in close proximity to the ground. 663 00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:05,600 The static electricity may have increased 664 00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:07,720 and caused an explosion like that. 665 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,480 Wow. It's amazing that just an hour after the explosion, 666 00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,920 he already has such a clear understanding of what happened. 667 00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:19,000 And it's incredible that his theory is what the investigation committee 668 00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,480 ultimately decided is what happened. 669 00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:25,320 It seems like witnesses do have theories of sabotage, 670 00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:27,040 but they never mentioned it. 671 00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:31,040 From the very start, it was always just a spark. 672 00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:34,600 Surprisingly, however, the Hindenburg tragedy, 673 00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,240 in and of itself, did not deliver the death knell 674 00:35:37,240 --> 00:35:39,120 for the airship industry. 675 00:35:39,120 --> 00:35:43,680 DE SYON: Eckener's attitude once the Hindenburg is destroyed 676 00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:45,600 is to keep on fighting. 677 00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,600 It's almost like a fortress mentality. 678 00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,040 The sense that you are right, you have the right answer, 679 00:35:51,040 --> 00:35:55,360 and you can keep on showing them with the sister ship of Hindenburg, 680 00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,360 which becomes a Graf Zeppelin II, LZ 130. 681 00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:02,400 What really ends it all for Eckener is the start of World War II. 682 00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:05,760 LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin 683 00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:09,360 and LZ 130, also named Graf Zeppelin, 684 00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,680 are moved to a hangar in Frankfurt. 685 00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:14,640 GROSSMAN: Hermann Goering, as an aviation expert, 686 00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:16,840 understood the limitations of airships. 687 00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,720 He understood that they were militarily useless. 688 00:36:20,720 --> 00:36:25,240 He was afraid that the airship program would take resources 689 00:36:25,240 --> 00:36:27,480 that he needed to concentrate 690 00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:32,200 on heavier-than-air developments for the German Luftwaffe. 691 00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,560 He didn't like the idea that airships were competing 692 00:36:36,560 --> 00:36:38,280 with a dying technology 693 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:42,200 when he was trying to build a modern German Air Force. 694 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,960 Hermann Goering personally made sure that the airships 695 00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:49,600 would never fly again by ordering the destruction 696 00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:53,400 of the airship hangars so that none could ever be built again. 697 00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:56,920 On the third anniversary of the Hindenburg disaster, 698 00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,440 the era of the airship officially comes to an end. 699 00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:04,000 DE SYON: On May 6, 1940, the order comes from the Air Ministry 700 00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,920 that both airships are to be dynamited. 701 00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,480 They'd been emptied, of course, of their hydrogen prior to that. 702 00:37:12,480 --> 00:37:16,720 And that the scrap metal is to be put into the war industry. 703 00:37:16,720 --> 00:37:22,440 Officially, the German Air Force needs this area for its army base, 704 00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,400 and no matter what zeppelin officials do, 705 00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,520 they are forced to accept this destruction. 706 00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:30,280 As far as Goering was concerned, 707 00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:32,920 when they pleaded with him, 708 00:37:32,920 --> 00:37:37,480 he reportedly heard the noise of an airplane engine in the background 709 00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:41,720 and turned towards it and said, "This is what I prefer to hear." 710 00:37:41,720 --> 00:37:45,240 For generations to come, only the iconic images 711 00:37:45,240 --> 00:37:47,000 of Hindenburg's destruction, 712 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,600 along with the words "Oh, the humanity" 713 00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:53,840 are all that remain of the passenger airship enterprise. 714 00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:58,320 DE SYON: Hindenburg belongs to these great machines of the 20th century 715 00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:00,040 that did not work out. 716 00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,720 It's not the first one and it wasn't the last. 717 00:38:02,720 --> 00:38:07,080 We actually were exposed to sort of the fragility of technology. 718 00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,200 We like technology, it gives us a sense of power, 719 00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,800 but we realise that it is only as strong as we design it to be. 720 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,720 Titanic met its doom because it came up against 721 00:38:17,720 --> 00:38:22,040 a rather gigantic and fairly immovable object. 722 00:38:22,040 --> 00:38:26,120 Hindenburg was probably destroyed because of a tiny spark. 723 00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,920 This great, giant, physically large symbol 724 00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,520 of German and Nazi supremacy 725 00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,720 was most likely taken down by a spark 726 00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:38,960 that's no bigger than when you walk across a carpet 727 00:38:38,960 --> 00:38:41,880 and you touch a doorknob. 728 00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:47,240 And that's all it took to bring this 2.5-football-field-long aircraft... 729 00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:51,160 ..to burning ashes in less than a minute. 730 00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,000 The Hindenburg cover-up has little to do with 731 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:56,840 what caused the Nazi airship's fiery demise. 732 00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:00,400 Instead, it's a tale of what happened 733 00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,440 the days and weeks following the crash. 734 00:39:03,440 --> 00:39:06,000 The lacking cross-examination of what appears to be 735 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:08,800 highly coordinated testimonies, 736 00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:14,000 and a letter threatening sabotage that goes unmentioned at the inquiry. 737 00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,000 Why? Who benefited? 738 00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:17,240 DE SYON: So, we are stuck in many ways 739 00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:19,560 with this image of the Hindenburg 740 00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,720 being a German machine, a great machine, 741 00:39:22,720 --> 00:39:24,360 but also a deeply flawed one. 742 00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:28,600 One could say that in some ways, the Hindenburg culturally becomes 743 00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:30,520 a metaphor for the Nazi regime. 744 00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:37,880 Conceived as a weapon of war, the airship evolved 745 00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,400 into the ultimate means of travelling the world 746 00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,680 in luxurious comfort and style. 747 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:47,720 Hindenburg - the grandest and most romanticised of them all - 748 00:39:47,720 --> 00:39:51,120 served as a magnificent symbol of all that was possible 749 00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,080 in an exciting new era of engineering marvels. 750 00:39:56,240 --> 00:39:59,520 The Naval Air Station at Lakehurst was Hindenburg's home 751 00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:01,960 when it travelled to the United States. 752 00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,880 The colossal hangar was where it was berthed. 753 00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,640 And this field is its final resting place. 754 00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,920 Here, a memorial ceremony is held each year 755 00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:14,560 to mark the tragedy. 756 00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:19,640 This was the final event 757 00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:24,440 for as safe as possible passenger travel. 758 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:30,640 It finished the travel of people, 759 00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:34,000 mail, packages, whatnot, 760 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:35,880 over the whole world. 761 00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,800 May 6th, 1937, 762 00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:42,280 was for all practical purposes 763 00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:47,240 the final day of passenger travel in lighter-than-air. 764 00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:51,880 In the end, the story of the Hindenburg is a reminder 765 00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:53,680 of human fallibility, 766 00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:56,760 of the fragile line between the grandest of dreams 767 00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:58,760 and the most humbling of nightmares. 768 00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,720 Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2023 66585

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