LZ 14

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
L 1 and the emperor at the J. P. Lange Söhne mill on the Elbe near Altona , 1913
Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz after a flight with the L 1 , 1913
L 1 in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel , 1913
L 1 near Helgoland , 1913 (photo montage based on a photo without an airship by Franz Schensky )
Crash of the L 1 , illustration by Achille Beltrame . Back cover of the Italian magazine La Domenica del Corriere from September 28, 1913.
Parts of the L 1 still visible shortly before going under
Commemorative sheet in honor of Kapitänleutnant Hanne von Kaiser Wilhelm II in the Aeronauticum in Nordholz

The Zeppelin LZ 14 was a German rigid airship which, under the designation L 1, was the first naval airship of the Imperial Navy . On September 9, 1913, it crashed into the North Sea . 14 of the 20 crew members died in the accident.

history

The first naval airship

The Zeppelin LZ 14 (LZ for Luftschiff-Zeppelin) was manufactured in 1912 by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH in Friedrichshafen for the Imperial Navy. It was ordered by her on April 24, 1912 for 850,000 Reichsmarks . In July 1912, the naval airship detachment under Korvettenkapitän Friedrich Metzing (born May 27, 1875 in Berlin, † September 9, 1913 in the North Sea) was set up in Johannisthal . On October 7th, LZ 14 had its first ascent.

Johannisthal Airport

In the morning, on October 17th from 10:30 a.m., the airship, after a 30-hour long flight from Friedrichshafen to Johannisthal, was in the presence of Ferdinand von Zeppelin by State Secretary Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz in the great hall of the airline (LVG) on the Johannisthal Airport personally inspected. Also present were Vice Admiral Karl Dick (1858–1928), Captain Hoffmann, Captain Müller, Director Alfred Colsman , Chief Engineer Ludwig Dürr , Corvette Captain Friedrich Metzing, Lieutenant Günther Hanne (born June 3, 1881 in Hamburg ; † September 9, 1913 in the North Sea ), Kapitänleutnant Mecklenburg and chief engineer Hans Busch. The three Maybach engines had been dismantled to determine any wear and tear. The test showed that the engine parts did not show the slightest signs of wear. After examining the airship for almost an hour, Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz declared the airship to have been taken into service in the Reich and officially handed over command of LZ 14 to Corvette Captain Friedrich Metzing , which was given the naval designation L 1 (L 1 for airship 1) . The Grand Admiral then congratulated Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. L 1 was stationed at the Johannisthal airfield and served there mainly to train naval officers to become airship commanders and other airship personnel.

On January 4, 1913, the airship had its first ascent as L 1 with Lieutenant Captain Günther Hanne as commandant . On board during the journey, in addition to the staff, was Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. At the end of February, when the L 1 was brought into the airship hangar, a propeller was damaged, for which a new propeller was ordered by telegram from Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH . After a long wait and the replacement of the propeller, Prince Heinrich of Prussia took part in the test drive, which he was satisfied with.

Airship port Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel

At the end of April, L 1 was stationed in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel . On April 21, the airship took off at 8:15 a.m. in Johannisthal and landed at 5:30 p.m. at the airship hangar of Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH (HLG) on the site of today 's Hamburg Airport . In addition to Kapitänleutnant Günther Hanne and chief engineer Hans Busch, who was detached from the L 1 shortly before 9 September to take part in the transfer of the L 2 from Friedrichshafen to Johannisthal, the future commander of the L 2 , Kapitänleutnant Freyer, also took part in the Ride part. In addition to the many trips from Hamburg, the first trip to Helgoland took place on May 28th . At the beginning of June, L 1 returned to Johannisthal, but was soon stationed again in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel.

The last ride

On September 9, 1913 at 1.30 p.m., L 1 started with 20 crew members in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel on its 68th voyage to take part in a naval maneuver. The weather was calm. The commandant of the airship was Lieutenant Captain Günther Hanne. The commander of the Navy Airship Detachment , Corvette Captain Friedrich Metzing, was also on board . The trip led along the Elbe via Blankenese , Glückstadt and the mouth of the Elbe towards Helgoland. After L 1 had flown over Heligoland, the sky darkened. Violent vertical and horizontal gusts of wind occurred suddenly, accompanied by heavy, torrential downpours. L 1 was tossed several hundred meters back and forth in the vertical direction, with some of the crew members falling into the sea. Despite laying the rudder and throwing off all ballast, L 1 fell head-first about 14 nautical miles north of Heligoland onto the choppy sea. As a result of the impact, the structure of the airship broke through several times in the middle. Until about 7 p.m., half an hour after the impact, L 1 was able to swim through the gas cells until it went under.

A quarter of an hour after the impact, Captain Lühring was at the scene of the accident with the Orion fish steamer from Geestemünde . He and his crew spotted seven of the airship crew, four of whom were up to their necks in the water and three of whom were clinging to the structure of the airship. First they saved Lieutenant Grimm, then radio telegraph operator Heldemeier, who was trapped with his feet, which made the rescue more difficult and delayed. In the meantime, the SMS Hanover was on the spot, launched two boats and rescued Lieutenant Wendt, Chief Machinist Lehmann, Chief Machinist's Mate Schönfelder and Radiotelegraphist's Mate Player. Eight minutes later, L 1 could no longer be seen.

The SMS Schleswig-Holstein then fished the lifeless body of Bootsmannmaat Bausmer out of the water, but failed resuscitation attempts. The 13 other dead were commanders of the naval airship detachment Corvette Captain Friedrich Metzing, Lieutenant Captain Günther Hanne, First Lieutenant Hans-Helmuth Freiherr von Maltzahn , marine engineer Wehner, helmsman carpenter, chief machinist's mate Lutz, chief machinist's mate Müller, chief machinist's mate Adam Strotzmaat, machinist Pahlke, senior signal mate furrier and boatswain mate crowd. Their bodies were never found.

The crash of the L 1 preoccupied the national and international media. Many heads of state condoled after the L 1 crash . In honor of Kapitänleutnant Hanne, Kaiser Wilhelm II had a memorial sheet published. A sheet of the edition hangs in the Aeronauticum in Nordholz . The journeys and the misfortune of the L 1 inspired several artists whose illustrations were published in magazines and on postcards or appeared in print, such as Michael Zeno Diemer , Friedrich Missfeldt or Achille Beltrame .

Lieutenant Günther Hanne, who got engaged shortly before the unfortunate flight, was the son of Pastor Johannes Robert Hanne (1842–1923) at the St. Johannis Church in Hamburg-Eppendorf and the grandson of the theologian Johann Wilhelm Hanne . The naval chief engineer Hans Busch, who was detached before the accident, died as a member of the L 2 acceptance commission in the explosion and the subsequent crash of the L 2 on October 17, 1913 in Johannisthal, in which all 28 occupants died.

Technical specifications

  • Length: 158 m
  • Diameter: 14.9 m
  • Carrying gas volume : 22,470 m 3 of hydrogen in 18 gas cells
  • Load capacity: 26,110 kg
  • Empty weight: 16,710 kg
  • Payload: 9,400 kg
  • Number of engines: 3 Maybach engines
  • Engine output: 121,357 kW (165 PS )
  • Total output: 364,072 kW (495 PS)
  • Speed: 76.32 km / h

Memorials

  • In the cemetery of the nameless on the island of Düne next to Heligoland there is a memorial that commemorates the crews of the torpedo boats S 178 and G 171 as well as those of the lower Elbe lifting boat and the airship L 1 . The memorial was unveiled on June 23, 1914, destroyed in World War II and restored in 1968 by the German Navy Federation .

  • memorial

  • Partial view

  • In the nave of the Pauluskirche in Kiel , to the right of the entrance, there is a memorial plaque made of white marble, which commemorates four dead crew members of the L1 . It bears the inscription:

"L.1.
Members of the Baltic Sea naval station
found their deaths on 9 September 1913:
Corvette captain Metzing
captain lieutenant Hanne
Oberleutnant z. S. Baron v. Maltzahn (Hans-Helmuth)
marine engineer Wehner
'You rest from your work, your works
follow you.' Rev. 14.13. "

  • At the naval base Heppenser Groden in Wilhelmshaven is the monument of the 2nd shipyard division , which commemorates the dead of this division. Among the names are four surnames of crew members of the L 1 , namely those of the chief machinist's mates Adam, Bruder, Lutz and Müller. In the lists of victims in the newspaper reports at the time, Bruder is also listed as a machinist's mate instead of a chief machinist's mate.
Bronze relief on the tombstone for Günther Hanne, Ohlsdorf cemetery
  • In the Ohlsdorf cemetery in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf there is a tomb dedicated to Lieutenant Captain Günther Hanne. It is believed that it was built to the plans of the architect and first cemetery director Wilhelm Cordes , who also designed the cemetery itself and most of the buildings on it. The tomb consists of two steles of different heights made of red Main sandstone with bronze relief panels. The plate of the rear, higher stele shows a picture of the island of Helgoland in the North Sea with an airship approaching from the right. The plate also contains biographical information and quotes two verses from the Bible. On the upper and lower marginal arches you can read:

"Joh. 18.2. Shouldn't I drink the cup my father gave me? "

"Off. 2.10. Be faithful until death, so I will give you the crown of life. "

Relocated memorial

Former memorial, Langenhorn
photo
Langenhorn Archive

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

New location of the memorial, overgrown with plants to the right of the rear corner of the Aeronauticum building in Nordholz

In Nordholz, on the site of the Aeronauticum Airship and Naval Aviation Museum, there is another monument that originally stood near the Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel airship port in Hamburg-Langenhorn .

On January 10, 1911, the Hamburger Luftschiffhallen GmbH (HLG) was founded with the active support of Edmund Siemers . In January 1912, the airship port was put into operation on around 45 hectares of what is now Hamburg Airport in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel. In 1913 the area was expanded by around 15 hectares, with the northern area of ​​the now 60 hectare total area reserved for airships and the southern area for airplanes.

Not far from the site for airships at Langenhorner Chaussee 91 in Hamburg-Langenhorn was the Ude's Garten restaurant , also called Ude's Garten Etablissement , with an associated 15,000  m 2 park, which apparently was a meeting place for the naval airship teams for a while. In addition, there was later also the meeting point of the association of former naval airmen . Shortly after the L 1 crash , a memorial was erected there in 1913, made of large and small boulders and worked, flattened stones, about at Langenhorner Chaussee 85 . The tallest stone, a flattened one, bore the inscription between a carved anchor and the date September 9, 1913 :

"In honor of the brave crew of L1"

A lower stone bore the inscription under an incorporated zeppelin:

"The memory of the comrades who remained in the service of naval aviation"

The third inscription cannot be read in the photo. It is located on the flattened stone under the tallest stone and begins with the word "Up".

The inn was originally built around 1850 as a retirement home for the Langenhorn Vogtshufe ( Hufe  IV). From 1940 to around 1973 it operated as the Hotel Zum Deutschen Eck . From 1973 until the demolition in 1986 it was used as a Chinese restaurant. Shortly after the demolition, the Airport Hotel Hamburg was built on the site in a country house style, which now operates under the Courtyard Hamburg Airport Hotel after the takeover in 2005 . The hotel's Concorde restaurant is now where the old inn stood, a little further back than it was then .

At some point the monument was dismantled, transported to the new location in Nordholz and reassembled there. The originally white anchor and the originally white date as well as the two upper, originally white inscriptions are now black, like the lower inscription and the zeppelin, which both kept their original color.

literature

  • Berliner Tageblatt : The takeover of the naval airship "L 1" in the Reichsdienst. October 17, 1912, p. 5 (digitized version)
  • Kanal-Zeitung : sinking of the naval airship "L 1". September 10, 1913 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Tageblatt : "L 1" destroyed near Heligoland and the sinking of the air cruiser "L 1". September 10, 1913, pp. 1, 3 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The naval airship "L 1" destroyed. September 10, 1913, pp. 1–2 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Tageblatt : The sinking of the naval airship. September 10, 1913 (evening edition), pp. 4, 5 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The disaster of the "L 1" and the recovery of further corpses of the "L 1". September 10, 1913 (evening edition), pp. 1–3 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Tageblatt : Official report on the Heligoland catasrophe and story of a rescued from the naval airship. September 11, 1913, pp. 3, 5 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The sinking of the "L 1". September 11, 1913, pp. 1, 2 (digitized version)
  • Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : sinking of the naval airship "L. 1". September 11, 1913, p. 1 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The sinking of the "L 1". September 12, 1913, p. 3 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The disaster of the "L 1" in official lighting. September 12, 1913 (evening edition), p. 3 (digitized version)
  • Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : sinking of the naval airship "L. 1". September 12, 1913, p. 1 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The disaster of the "L 1". September 13, 1913, p. 1 (digitized version)
  • Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : sinking of the "L. 1". September 13, 1913, p. 1 (digitized version)
  • Berliner Volks-Zeitung : The sinking of the "L 1". September 14, 1913, pp. 1–2 (digitized version)
  • Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : sinking of the "L. 1". September 14, 1913, p. 1 (digitized version)
  • Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : sinking of the naval airship "L. 1". September 14, 1913, Second (morning) edition. P. 1, 2 (digitized version)
  • Altonaer Nachrichten : The wreck of the “L. 1 “cannot be found. September 23, 1913, morning edition. P. 3 (digitized version)
  • Douglas H. Robinson: German naval airships 1912-1918. ES Mittler & Sohn , Hamburg 2005, ISBN 3-8132-0786-2 .
  • Peter Schulze: Visiting the graves of former airmen. In: Ohlsdorf - magazine for mourning culture. No. 99, IV, November 2007 ( online edition ).
  • Peter Schulze: Airship disasters. In: Ohlsdorf - magazine for mourning culture. No. 105, II, May 2009 ( online edition ).
  • Hans-Günther Ploes: Navy airships 1913 to 1914. In: Air force revue . No. 2, June 2013, p. 29 ( PDF file ).

See also

Web links

Commons : LZ 14  - collection of images, videos and audio files
  • LZ 14 on luftschiff.de
  • Memorial plaque in the Pauluskirche in Kiel on denkmalprojekt.org
  • Monument in Wilhelmshaven at denkmalprojekt.org
  • Grave of Kapitänleutnant Günther Hanne, Ohlsdorf cemetery

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Original photo by Franz Schensky (cropped a bit above, but the zeppelin should already be visible there too) from: Anne Dewitz: Franz Schensky - Helgoland's great chronicler. In: Hamburger Abendblatt. February 27, 2015.
  2. ↑ Hans-Günther Ploes: Naval Airships 1913 to 1914. In: Air Force Revue . No. 2, June 2013, p. 29 ( PDF file )
  3. ↑ Friedrich Metzing's date of birth at genealogy.net
  4. ↑ Berliner Tageblatt : The takeover of the naval airship "L 1" in the Reichsdienst. October 17, 1912, p. 5 (digitized version)
  5. ↑ Chief engineer Hans Busch (on zeppelin-luftschiff.com ), who was posted, was not present in the accident involving the L 1 , but died in the accident involving the L 2 , as did Kapitänleutnant Freyer.
  6. ↑ Article : The list of fatalities and the story of an eyewitness in the Berliner Tageblatt of September 10, 1913.
  7. ↑ Article : The official account and the report of a rescued person in the Berliner Volk-Zeitung of September 11, 1913.
  8. ↑ Illustration of a print by Diemer
  9. ↑ Illustration of the print by Missfeldt
  10. ↑ Technical data: LZ 14 on luftschiff.de . The data deviate from the information in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 11, 1913 (digitized version) , but are similar to the information from the Berliner Tageblatt of September 10 (digitized version) , but four motors are specified.
  11. ↑ Memorial plaque at denkmalprojekt.org
  12. ↑ Monument at denkmalprojekt.org
  13. ^ Newspapers under literature : The evening editions of the Berliner Tageblatt and the Berliner Volks-Zeitung of September 10, 19013 and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of September 11, 1913.
  14. ↑ Historical places - memorial stones , memento from Feb. 11, 2013 from luftschiffharry.de on archiv.is (location Nordholz, with photo of a partial view of the monument)
  15. ↑ 90 years ago: L1 crashed off Heligoland , Cuxhavener Nachrichten (online), September 9, 2003.
  16. ^ Art in the public Langenhorn area , quite far below, longhorn-archiv.de
  17. ↑ Edmund Siemers and the airships. Pp. 65–70 (with photos) of the Edmund Siemers PDF file on uni-hamburg.de
  18. ↑ Article Dr. Eckener comes to Hamburg. In: Altonaer Nachrichten. August 7, 1925, p. 8.
  19. ↑ The inn at hamburg-bildarchiv.de
  20. ↑ The inn at the Langenhorn Archive