Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin

Ferdinand, Graf von Zeppelin (born July 8, 1838, Konstanz, Baden [Germany]—died March 8, 1917, Charlottenburg, near Berlin) was a German military official who was the first notable builder of rigid dirigible airships, for which his surname is still a popular generic term.

Zeppelin received a military commission in 1858. He made the first of several balloon ascensions at St. Paul, Minnesota, while acting as a military observer (1863) for the Union Army during the American Civil War. He saw military action in 1866 during the Seven Weeks’ War and in 1870–71 during the Franco-German War, serving successively in the armies of Württemberg, Prussia, and imperial Germany. He retired in 1890 and devoted the rest of his life to the creation of the rigid airship for which he is known.

Zeppelin struggled for 10 years to produce his lighter-than-air craft. The initial flight (July 2, 1900) of the LZ-1 from a floating hangar on Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen, Germany, was not entirely successful, but it had the effect of promoting the airship to the degree that public subscriptions and donations thereafter funded the work of the Graf (count). The German government was quick to perceive the advantage of airships over the as yet poorly developed airplanes, and, when Zeppelin achieved 24-hour flight in 1906, he received commissions for an entire fleet. More than 100 zeppelins were used for military operations in World War I. A passenger service known as Delag (Deutsche-Luftschiffahrts AG) was established in 1910, but Zeppelin died before attaining his goal of transcontinental flight.