A zeppelin is a gas-filled, buoyant airship named after pioneer Ferdinand von Zeppelin (8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917). He founded the first airship company, Luftschiffbau (Airship) Zeppelin, in 1908 after several prototypes had already successfully flown, starting with the LZ1 in 1900. The design of his rigid-sided airships was so successful that the name became an informal term for any rigid-sided dirigible.
A zeppelin differs from a blimp in that the latter is essentially a large gas-filled bag with a non-rigid skin. The bodily structure of the zeppelin is not only rigid, but it also contains cells for individual compartments of gas. The rigid structure allowed it to be much larger than any blimp and to carry heavier payloads.
From 1900 to 1914, the Zeppelin company constructed as many as 21 airships, but many were lost to accidents due to weather or mishaps. The dirigible showed great promise, however, and the world’s first commercial airline, Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), began using zeppelins for commercial air travel. With the advent of World War I in 1914, the German army seized control of the existing ships for military use. The payload and range of the zeppelin made it attractive for bomb-dropping and surveillance, but fixed wing aircraft eventually made it impractical for bomb-dropping, as they proved too easy to shoot down. Instead zeppelins worked the Baltic and North Seas, giving away the positions of Allied ships to German vessels.
When Germany lost the war in 1918, the Treaty of Versailles dictated every Zeppelin in existence be transferred to the Allied forces and called for Germany to cease production of the airships. Ferdinand von Zeppelin died just before the war ended, leaving the reins of the company to Dr. Hugo Eckener. Eckener had no taste for war and was eager to reestablish a relationship with DELAG airlines to resurrect positive public opinion of the airship. Eckener ran into problems getting around the provisions of the treaty, but in 1921 the United States hired the company to build the LZ126 later designated The USS Los Angeles (ZR-3). This started friendly relations between the German Zeppelin company and the United States that would prove fruitful and disastrous, both.
While Luftschiffbau Zeppelin gained headway over the next decade with a highly successful line of dirigibles, their largest flagship, the Hindenburg, exploded while visiting the United States on a transatlantic flight in 1936. The spectacular disaster, covered live in the media, made world headlines and changed the course of commercial airship history. To this day, the Hindenburg remains the largest ship ever to take to the skies, with dimensions roughly comparable to the Titanic.
In the United States, blimps take the place of zeppelins, though the USS Los Angeles served faithfully as a commercial airship for eight years until 1932. In the midst of the Great Depression its service ended, and the zeppelin was later dismantled. Today, the company Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH continues, investing in smaller, hybrid airships used primarily for advertising, pleasure rides, and observational platforms. They can also be contracted for environmental studies.