Holiday Delivery From the Graf Zeppelin

In 1934, a zeppelin originating in Germany and bound for Brazil carried a cargo of Christmas cheer

By Owen Edwards
Smithsonian magazine, December 2009, Subscribe

The cards and letters aboard the Graf Zeppelin bore a distinctive mark on their envelopes: a small image stamped in ink. (National Postal Museum, SI)

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The final blow came with the Hindenburg disaster; the airship burst into flames as it landed in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937; 35 of 97 passengers died. The cause of the conflagration was not difficult to remedy—a switch from flammable hydrogen to inert helium—but because zeppelins were not deemed essential to the war effort, "most of the intricate frameworks were melted down to make airplanes," Ganz says.

Today, a German firm, ZLT, has revived the zeppelin with a version that is smaller, lofted by helium and dubbed the NT (for New Technology). An American company, Airship Ventures, based out of Moffett Field, California, now flies one of the next-generation craft on sightseeing excursions.

Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that Airship Ventures was based in Napa, California. This version has been updated.

On December 8, 1934, the dirigible Graf Zeppelin—named for one inventor of hydrogen airships, Graf (Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin—departed its Friedrichshafen, Germany, home base on its 418th flight, bound for Recife, Brazil. At the height of the Christmas season, the 776-foot-long dirigible carried 19 passengers, holiday mail and a load of freshly cut Christmas trees.

The cards and letters it transported bore a distinctive mark on their envelopes: a small image (known to collectors as a cachet) stamped in ink, depicting the zeppelin and a fir tree festooned with candles in Nordic fashion. One of those envelopes, now darkened with age, also bears traces of a second mark, applied during a train trip across Germany. In the 1950s, John P.V. Heinmuller, a Longines Watch Company executive and an aviation enthusiast, donated 2,000 envelopes once transported by zeppelin to the Smithsonian; today, the collection resides in the National Postal Museum (NPM).

Recipients of the Graf Zeppelin's seasonal delivery would be some of South America's many German immigrants, drawn to the resource-rich continent by the promise of wealth. "There was a huge German population in South America in the '30s," says Cheryl Ganz, a curator at the NPM. "Surrounded by palm trees, they obviously had a longing for traditional fir trees. Since the Graf Zeppelin could make the trip nonstop in less than four days, much faster than any ship, the trees would still be fresh when they arrived." The craft landed in Recife on December 12 and went on to Rio de Janeiro, where it arrived on December 13, bringing the last of its Christmas tree shipment to holiday revelers.

In those days, only giant airships could carry enough fuel to make nonstop trans-Atlantic flights. As early as 1921, Hugo Eckener, a former journalist who succeeded Zeppelin as head of the dirigible company, had investigated possible routes from Spain to South America by making a voyage on a cargo ship. During the crossing, Eckener observed the kinds of weather patterns and storms an airship might encounter. He calculated potential dirigible routes based on prevailing sea lanes. After the voyage, Eckener described himself as "very well satisfied" that the "area [was] suitable for flying."

The Graf Zeppelin made its first trans-Atlantic demonstration flight in October 1928 and was making regularly scheduled deliveries by the summer of 1934. Mail carried by zeppelin bore the distinctive cachets and postmarks. "The airships were the pathfinders for later fixed-wing flights," says Ganz. "Because the passenger and crew cabin wasn't pressurized, [dirigibles] had to fly low—low enough to see the faces of people on ships they passed over—so the crew had to figure out wind currents and weather patterns."

The age of dirigibles was relatively brief. It began in 1874, when Count von Zeppelin, a former cavalry general, began working on plans for lighter-than-air, propeller-driven balloons. Dirigibles began flying before World War I. During that conflict, they were used as scout aircraft and for bombing raids.

After the war, the count's company fell on hard times and was rescued by Eckener. In 1919, a British military crew made the first nonstop, trans-Atlantic flight, in a British-built dirigible, getting an eight-year jump on Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis. But the real liftoff for dirigibles came with the launch of the Graf Zeppelin and its larger successor, the Hindenburg (the length of three football fields). It is no overstatement to say that much of the world fell in love with the ponderous but stately crafts, which Eckener likened to "gleaming silver fish in an ocean of sky."

The dream machines were finally done in by a convergence of harsh realities. As Nazi repression and military ambition alarmed much of the world, Americans took note that the swastika was now painted on the tail fins of the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg. Also, Hitler saw the airships—outpaced by airplanes in speed, ability to fly long distances and payload capacity—as too slow for combat and discontinued government support.

Owen Edwards is a freelance writer and author of the book Elegant Solutions.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this article stated that Airship Ventures was based in Napa, California. This version has been updated.

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Additional Sources

My Zeppelins, by Hugo Eckener, Putnam, 1958

Graf Zeppelin: The Adventures of an Aerial Globetrotter, Gordon Vaeth, Frederick Muller Ltd./Billing & Sons Ltd., (London), 1959

Comments (4)

My grandfather, Wylie G. Logue, was the Commercial Manager of Radio Marine Corporation of America from 1928 - 1937. There is a photograph of him guiding the Graf Zeppelin over the Atlantic that appeared in the November 1928 issue of Wireless Age Magazine.
I would appreciated any information you or any of your readers may have about this magazine. I would like to see the photograph.
Thank you.
Fay Evans

Posted by Fay Evans on March 22,2010 | 01:28 PM

In 1934 I was an 11 year old boy who lived in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at 110 Bessemer Avenue. From our back porch, to the right, I could see the Edgar Thompson Works of U.S. Steel Corporation,the Monongahela River and the Kennywood Amusement Park. To the left I could se the George Westinghouse Bridge. Straight ahead was an area known as Port Perry.
It was from that point that I witnessed the flight of the Graff Zeplin bound for Brazil that I read about in your December 2009 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine. I knew from the radio reports and newspapers that the Graff Zeplin would be arriving in our area. Many people came to witness this great event. This passion for air flight and airplanes led me to enlist in the United States Army Air Corp where I served as a tail gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress during World War II. Unfortunately, our plane was shot down on our 6th mission, I was injured, captured and became a Prisoner of War. My POW Biography can be seen at http://www.axpow.org/kravetzfrank.htm.
Frank A. Kravetz
East Pittsburgh, PA

Posted by Frank A. Kravetz on February 10,2010 | 10:37 AM

The cachet is shown in the 2000 Frost Zeppelin Mail Catalogue for the December8,1934 Graf South America flight.I believe that it is genuine.Cachets were applied to mail delivered to Friedrickshaven for the Graf flight.The photo does not show the entire card.If you look at the bottom left of the card it is evident that there are additinal markings not shown.There may also be markings on the reverse side.

Posted by WERNER ZARNIKOW on December 16,2009 | 09:55 PM

Although the envelope pictured in your article about the Graf Zeppelin may indeed have come from someone German, and may have traveled by train across Germany at some point, there is no evidence on the envelope to support either supposition.

The letter originated in the Swedish community of Blötberget on Dec. 4, 1934, franked with Swedish stamps and carrying the handwritten request (in French) to send via "German airmail." The blue "Luftpost/Par Avion" sticker was till in use in Sweden into the 1950's. The letter is addressed to a specific person at the Swedish embassy in La Paz, further arguing against the writer being German. The Graf Zeppelin cachet may have been applied after the letter had been processed in Blötberget and then reached Germany, but could also have been applied already in Blötberget.

It is true that there was a German-dominated iron mining company in Blötberget at the time the letter was mailed, which may suggest a German letter writer. However, on balance this seems unlikely.

Posted by Karin Borei on November 24,2009 | 01:00 PM

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Holiday Delivery From the Graf Zeppelin