Airship construction Zeppelin
| Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1908 |
| Seat | Friedrichshafen , Germany |
| management |
|
| sales | EUR 7.6 million (2017) |
| Branch | Airship construction |
| Website | www.luftschiffbau-zeppelin.de |
| Zeppelin GmbH
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 1950 |
| Seat | Friedrichshafen , Germany |
| management | Peter Gerstmann |
| Number of employees | around 8,000 (2019) |
| sales | EUR 2.75 billion (2019) |
| Branch | Management holding |
| Website | www.zeppelin.de |
The air Zeppelin GmbH (proper spelling: ZEPPELIN ) was established in 1908 by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin founded to airships to manufacture. The subsidiary Zeppelin GmbH is the management holding company of the Zeppelin Group , an international group whose focus is on trading and renting construction machinery as well as drive and energy systems and engineering and plant construction.
history
After the zeppelin donation by the German people , the Zeppelin Foundation was set up in 1908 and Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH was founded. Alfred Colsman became the company director . Ludwig Dürr was technical director from July 8, 1913.
Carbonium GmbH was founded in 1909 . It was supposed to supply hydrogen for the zeppelins, but was destroyed in an explosion on July 19, 1910 and replaced by another hydrogen factory in 1914. For the production of airship engines, Luftfahrzeug-Motorenbau GmbH was founded on March 23, 1909 by Graf Zeppelin and Karl Maybach in Bissingen / Enz . In 1912 the company moved to Friedrichshafen and the name was changed to Motorenbau GmbH Friedrichshafen , which was renamed Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH in May 1918 and manufactured the engines for all Zeppelins up to and including LZ 127 . The current successor company is MTU Friedrichshafen . DELAG was founded on November 16, 1909 . It acquired most of the civilian airships from Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH and operated them. The Flugzeugwerke Friedrichshafen GmbH was founded in 1912 by Theodor Kober with personal support from Graf Zeppelin. In 1914 , the DO department at Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH was formed for Zeppelin employee Claude Dornier , who had joined the company in 1910, to build large all-metal flying boats on behalf of Graf Zeppelin . In 1916 this department was incorporated into Zeppelin GmbH Lindau, which later renamed Dornier Metallbauten GmbH and left the Zeppelin Group in 1932. Zahnradfabrik GmbH was founded in 1915 to manufacture gear parts for driving the airscrews of the zeppelins. In 1921 it became Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen AG , today ZF Friedrichshafen AG .
Up to the First World War the company produced 21 zeppelins (LZ 5 to LZ 25). Some of them went to DELAG, others to the German military.
In addition, a number of other companies and companies emerged, such as Zeppelin Wohlfahrt GmbH .
First World War
The air Zeppelin GmbH manufactured the military airships with the continuous yard numbers LZ 24 to LZ 114 at various locations in Germany. In addition, Friedrichshafen developed into a German arms center, not least in the field of aircraft construction. In 1918, around 4,000 employees worked at Zeppelin. In addition to building airships, Graf Zeppelin recognized very far-sightedly that the large aircraft would sooner or later replace the airship. That is why departments for large aircraft construction were set up in Gotha (later in Staaken) under Alexander Baumann and Adolf Rohrbach and in Friedrichshafen under Claude Dornier .
Between the wars
After the end of the First World War, the number of employees at Zeppelin collapsed. The construction of airships was banned, the remaining ships had to be handed over to the Allies. Many airship hangars had to be dismantled. During this period and the following, a wide variety of aluminum household items such as B. vases, plates and service parts made.
In 1919 another airship was built. The smallest Zeppelin LZ 120 Bodensee built during this period rose for the first time in August 1919. After one season, it and its sister ship LZ 121 Nordstern had to be handed in as reparations .
Aero-Union AG was founded in 1921 . The shareholders were AEG and Hapag each 40 percent, as well as Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH with 20 percent.
From 1922 to 1923 it was possible to get an order for a large rigid airship. LZ 126 was built for the US Navy and in the following years became the most successful US rigid airship in the USA under the designation ZR-3 USS Los Angeles. With this construction, the existence of the shipyard was initially secured, and the basis for a revival of the airship concept in Germany was created. After the restrictions on airship construction fell, LZ 127 was manufactured. Baptized in the name of the company founder, the "Graf Zeppelin" became the most successful German airship and pioneer of transatlantic air traffic for DELAG. It was both the last airship that DELAG took over from Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and the last zeppelin with Maybach engines.
In 1928, the Good Year Zeppelin Corporation , in which the German airship construction company Zeppelin had a two-thirds stake, received an order for the construction of two large airships, the USS Akron and USS Macon , worth eight million dollars. Both airships were used by the U.S. Navy as flying aircraft carriers.
The German Zeppelin shipping company was founded in 1935 with the participation of the German Reich. It should operate LZ 129 Hindenburg . With the sister ship of the Hindenburg , the LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin II , Zeppelin built the last manned rigid airship to this day in 1938. With a volume of 200,000 m³ each, these two zeppelins were the largest airships ever built. The construction of LZ 131 with a planned volume of 223,000 m³ was started, but stopped after the start of the war.
Second World War
During the Second World War, Friedrichshafen was one of the great arms centers of the German Reich. Luftschiffbau Zeppelin manufactured, among other things, antennas for direction finding and radar devices (e.g. the " Würzburg giants "), parachutes and parts for aircraft and rocket construction (including the A4 rocket ). With the Friedrichshafen satellite camp, it was assigned to a separate satellite camp of the Dachau concentration camp , which housed forced laborers for the Zeppelin works. The Saulgau subcamp was also operated by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH and was located between August 14, 1943 and April 22, 1945 at Saulgau station next to the production site of Josef Bautz AG .
In 1944 halls in Friedrichshafen were bombed by the Allies.
After the Second World War
After the end of the war, the era of the airships came to an end, German airship construction was condemned to be dissolved and the technical director Ludwig Dürr retired.
Although the company was now prohibited from building airships, companies that had been founded for the Zeppelin Group continued to develop. In 1950 the new subsidiary Metallwerk Friedrichshafen GmbH was founded, which was renamed Zeppelin GmbH in 1994. From this company a global group emerged. A subsidiary, Zeppelin Construction Machinery , sells Caterpillar machines and engines on the German market . Another company in this group, Zeppelin Systems, manufactures machines, apparatus and complete systems for the conveying, storage and handling of industrial bulk goods (mainly for plastics) and is one of the world market leaders in this sector.
Another offshoot from the Zeppelin Group was created through the outsourcing of part of the Zeppelin metal works, which today operates under the name Zeppelin Mobile Systems. She deals with the construction of lightweight containers. These aluminum shelters are mainly used in the military and mobile hospitals.
New airships in the 1990s
In 1990 the patent application for a "semi-rigid airship with pressure-supported hull" for Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH took place. In 1993 Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik (ZLT) was founded, with Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and ZF Friedrichshafen as main shareholders. It develops and builds semi-rigid airships of the Zeppelin NT type . In 1997 the maiden flight of the first Zeppelin NT took place. In 2001 the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei (DZR) was re-established as a 100 percent subsidiary of the ZLT. It operates the Zeppelin NT airships.
Museums
Today, a number of museums deal with the company and the Zeppelin theme , such as B.
- Zeppelin Museum in Friedrichshafen, which is located in the former port station
- a private collection is in the Zeppelin Museum in Meersburg
- The Zeppelin Museum Zeppelinheim is located in the Zeppelinheim district of Neu-Isenburg
See also
Web links
- Early newspaper articles on Zeppelin airship construction in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://www.zeppelin-lz.com/ueber-uns.html
- ↑ a b https://www.zeppelin-lz.com/zeppelin-gmbh.html
- ↑ Design-store-vienna.com - Article - Zeppelin board crockery Duralumin
- ^ Peter Meyer: Airships The history of the German zeppelins. Wehr & Wissen Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Koblenz / Bonn 1980, pages 159 and 166, ISBN 3-8033-0302-8 .
- ↑ Zeppelin-systems.com Retrieved February 15, 2017
- ↑ Zeppelin-systeme.de Retrieved on February 15, 2017
Coordinates: 47 ° 39 ′ 32.4 " N , 9 ° 28 ′ 22.5" E
literature
- Peter Meyer: Airships. The history of the German zeppelins , Wehr & Wissen, Koblenz / Bonn 1980, ISBN 3-8033-0302-8 .
Web links
- Corporate structure of the Zeppelin Group (breakdown into two business areas now obsolete; PDF; 597 kB)
- Graphic on the development of Zeppelin GmbH (PDF; 62 kB)
- Annual report 2010 of Zeppelin GmbH (PDF; 3.8 MB)