Hindenburg’s Maiden Voyage Passenger List

Hindenburg’s first flight to the United States was filled with journalists, prominent notables, frequent zeppelin travelers, and members of the Nazi elite.

[The following passenger list is based on the manifest submitted the United States Immigration Service upon Hindenburg's arrival at Lakehurst, New Jersey.  The additional information in italics is based on the author's research.]

Was it really the “Maiden Voyage”?

Clara Adams
Age: 51
Nationality: United States
Home: Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania

Clara Adams (biography) was an aviation enthusiast who developed a reputation as a “First Flighter” who traveled as a passenger on many important first flights by airships, flying boats, and other airliners. The American daughter of German parents, she was related to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, and through her connections in Germany she was introduced to Hugo Eckener and invited to fly on a test flight of the LZ-126.  In 1928, Adams purchased a ticket for the Graf Zeppelin’s first flight from North America to Europe in October, 1928; it was the first transatlantic air ticket ever sold to a female passenger.

Ralph Barnes
Age: 36
Nationality: United States
Home: Salem, Oregon

Ralph Waldo Barnes was the Berlin bureau chief for New York Herald Tribune at the time of Hindenburg’s flight, and was a last-minute addition to the flight.

William Gerhard Beckers
Age: 62
Nationality: United States
Home: Beckersville, NY

William Beckers was a German-born chemist who was on the Board of Directors of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation.  Dr. Beckers founded the Beckers Aniline and Chemical Works (a dye company) in Brooklyn, New York in 1912, and his firm was later merged into the National Aniline & Chemical Company, of which Dr. Beckers was also a director.

Joseph Berchtold
Age: 39
Occupation: Journalist
Nationality: German
Home: Munich, Germany

Joseph Berchtold was the second Reichsführer of the SS (from 1926-1927), the post that was later held by Heinrich Himmler from 1929-1945.  Berchtold was a very senior Alte Kämpfer, and most likely wore his Golden Party Badge (right) during the flight.  Berchtold joined the Nazi Party in 1920 (Party number 750), and participated in the Hitler’s “Beerhall Putsch” of 1923.  Hitler eventually made him head of the SS, but he lost the position to political infighting and became a journalist.  In 1928 he founded the magazine “Der SA-Mann,” and when he flew on Hindenburg’s maiden voyage to America he was writer, editor, and Chief of Service for the Nazi Party newspaper Völkischer Beobachter.

Rudolf Blüthner-Haessler
Age: 32
Occupation: Director
Nationality: German
Home: Leipzig, Germany

Dr. Rudolf Blüthner-Haessler was head of the Julius Blüthner Piano Company, which created the lightweight duralumin piano carried on Hindenburg during the 1936 season.

Kurt von Boeckmann
Age: 50
Occupation:
Nationality: German
Home: Berlin, Germany

Kurt von Boeckmann was a German broadcasting official; he was Director of the Bavarian Radio and Director of German shortwave radio transmissions (Intendant des Deutschen Kurzwellensenders).

Martha Elizabeth Brooke
Age: 64
Occupation:
Nationality: British
Home: London, England

Miss Brooke made a roundtrip on Hindenburg, returning with the ship to Germany on May 11. AP reporter Louis Lochner’s diary of the flight mentions that Miss Brooke was working as a journalist for the London Tattler.

Carl Bruer
Age: 66
Occupation: Manufacturer
Nationality: German
Home: Goslar, Germany

Carl Bruer was a manufacturer of fountain pens and owned the Greif-Werke pen factory in Golsar, Germany (which was eventually purchased by Pelikan).  Bruer was also a frequent zeppelin traveler who wrote several books describing his voyages in Graf Zeppelin to South America and Cairo and his roundtrip to the United States on Hindenburg.

Leslie Charteris
Age: 28
Occupation: Author
Nationality: England
Home: Weybridge, England

Leslie Charteris was a Chinese-English author best know as the creator of the character Simon Templar, known as The Saint.

Mrs Pauline Charteris
Age: 24
Occupation:
Nationality: England
Home: Weybridge, England

When Hindenburg’s bar ran out of gin toward the end of the flight, Pauline Charteris improvised a kirschwasser cocktail as a substitute for dry matinis at a late-night party in the smoking room, and introduced her fellow passengers to a song she had learned in Nassau: “Mamma don’t want no gin, because it makes her sin.”

Harold Gustav Dick
Age: 29
Nationality: United States
Home: Akron, Ohio

Harold Dick was sent to Friedrichshafen in May, 1934, as the Goodyear-Zeppelin company representative in Germany.  Dick worked closely with all the leading figures in zeppelin aviation, and was an observer on numerous zeppelin flights.  Harold Dick’s notes and publications are an invaluable source of information about zeppelin aviation.

Gerard Dowdell
Age: 30
Occupation: Medical
Nationality: British
Home: Southampton, England

Dr. Dowdell won a free trip on Hindenburg in a contest held by a London newspaper.

Alfred Ernst
Age: 52
Occupation:
Nationality: German
Home: Hamburg, Germany

Alfred Ernst was an executive with the Tidewater Oil Company, which supplied the Veedol lubricating oil used aboard Hindenburg.

Karl Fickes
Age: 34
Nationality: United States
Home: 509 Crosoy Street, Akron Ohio

Karl Fickes was head of Goodyear’s blimp operations.

Franz Gayk
Age: 30
Occupation: Journalist
Nationality: German
Home: Berlin, Germany

Franz Gayk was a journalist and a photographer in the studio of Heinrich Hoffmann, Hitler’s official photographer and a close friend and art advisor to the Führer; Hoffmann helped Hitler steal artwork from Jewish families and museums in occupied countries, and Hoffmann’s assistant Eva Braun became Hitler’s mistress.  Gayk himself took some of the last photographs of Adolf Hitler toward the very end of the war.  As a journalist, Gayk was on Hindenburg for the roundtrip, and returned to Germany with the ship on May 11.

Film of Passengers Disembarking after the Maiden Voyage

George Gee
Age: 48
Occupation:
Nationality: England
Home: London, England

Lady Grace Drummond-Hay
Age: 40
Occupation: Jouralist
Nationality: England
Home: England

Lady Grace Drummond-Hay (biography) was a reporter for the Hearst organization who was very closely associated with zeppelin travel.  She often traveled with her companion, fellow journalist Karl von Wiegand, as on this flight.

Hans Hinrichs
Age: 46
Nationality: United States
Home: 117 Liberty Street, New York, USA

Hans Hinrichs was a grain dealer, and he published a detailed description of the voyage in the June, 1936 issue of American Brewer magazine.  Hinrichs wrote hundreds postcards to friends during the flight using a rubber stamp printed: “Greetings from mid-ocean and mid-air.”

Norman Edward Holden
Age: 56
Occupation:
Nationality: British
Home: London, England

Major Norman Holden was a British stockbroker and financier, and had received a pilot’s license in 1930.   He boarded Hindenburg with a letter of introduction to Ernst Lehmann from Captain A. G. Lamplugh, head of the British Aviation Insurance Company.

Max Jordan
Age: 41
Occupation: Director
Nationality: German
Home: New York, USA

Dr. Max Jordan was a pioneering radio broadcaster for the National Broadcasting Company.  He directed a live radio broadcast from Hindenburg as it approached the American coast, including a piano recital by passenger Franz Wagner.  The German-born Jordan covered European news for NBC and was especially noted for his coverage of the Munich Crisis of 1938.

Friedrich Krebs
Age: 42
Occupation: Mayor
Nationality: German
Home: Frankfurt, Germany

Friedrich Krebs was the Nazi mayor of Frankfurt.  A fervent anti-Semite, Krebs ousted the previous mayor, Ludwig Landmann, who was Jewish, in March, 1933, and within two weeks Krebs fired all Jewish city employees, even before the “Law for a Restoration of a Professional Civil Service” removed Jews from government service.  Krebs was especially interested in removing any Jewish influence from Frankfurt’s artistic and cultural life, and turning the city into the center of Nazi style; he established the Frankfurter Modeamt to help make Frankfurt a center for women’s fashion in the Third Reich.

Margaret Leeds
Age: 48
Nationality: United States
Home: Palm Beach, Florida

Walter Scott Leeds
Age: 51
Nationality: United States
Home: Palm Beach, Florida

Mr. Leeds was a previous zeppelin passenger, having flown on Graf Zeppelin from South America to Germany the previous year.

Louis P. Lochner
Age: 49
Nationality: United States

Louis Paul Lochner was a journalist and Berlin bureau chief for the Associated Press. He was later awarded the 1939 Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence for his reporting from Nazi Germany. Lochner published a very detailed diary of his roundtrip on Hindenburg to America and back to Germany, describing his experiences as a passenger, his tour of the inside of the ship, and his conversations with Hugo Eckener, Ernst Lehmann, and many of his fellow passengers.

(Arthur ?) Manthey
Age: 19 (?)
Occupation:
Nationality: German
Home: Berlin, Germany

I am not able to conclusively identify this passenger.  The Immigration Service manifest indicates that passenger Manthey was a German citizen born in Emden, in transit to Rio de Janeiro on a business trip, and lists his age as 19.  A German named Dr. Arthur Manthey was a senior official associated with the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the National Socialist “Kraft durch Freude” organization, who traveled to South America on a promotional tour in connection with the Olympic Games (Die faschistische Epoche des IOC, Historical Social Research, Vol. 32, No. 1: download pdf.), but he would have been older than 19.   There is also an Artur Manthey who was a Hauptsturmführer (captain) in the 12 S.S. Panzer Division “Hitler Jugend.” Someone who was 19 in 1936 would have been about the right age to be a Hauptsturmführer in 1943-1945, but it seems unlikely that a 19-year old have been making a business trip to South America.  Perhaps the age was mistakenly recorded, and of course it is possible that passenger Manthey was neither of these individuals.  Readers with further information are encouraged to post comments on this page.

James McVittie
Age: 60
Nationality: United States
Home: Hamilton Club, Chicago, Illinois

James McVittie was a previous zeppelin passenger who flew on Graf Zeppelin to Brazil in September, 1933.

Fritz Mertz
Age: 29
Occupation: Businessman
Nationality: German
Home:

Webb Miller
Age: 45
Nationality: United States
Home: 220 East 42nd Street, New York, USA.

Journalist Webb Miller, who had been the only correspondent to cover Mahatma Ghandi’s “salt march” protest in 1930, was UP’s general news manager for Europe and had just covered the Italian invasion of Ethiopia when he flew home to America on Hindenburg.  Exhausted and depressed by what he had seen, in November, 1936 he published his memoirs, entitled “I Found No Peace.”   His book devoted several pages to his experiences on Hindenburg’s first flight to America.

Erla Parker
Age: 64
Nationality:  United States
Home: 2005 Wooster Road, New York

Mrs Parker had been a frequent passenger on LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin.

Scott Peck
Age: 40
Nationality: United States
Home: Lakehurst, NJ

Lt. Cdr. Scott E. Peck (generally known as “Scotty”) was an American naval officer and aviator.  He had been a machinist on the Navy’s first airship, DN-1, and served aboard USS Los Angeles.  Lt. Cdr. Peck had also been an observer on Hindenburg’s trial flights and the ship’s first roundtrip to South America, and he spent much of the crossing in the control car observing flight operations.

Erika Plange
Age: 29
Occupation:
Nationality: German
Home: Düsseldorf, Germany

Georg Plange
Age: 34
Occupation: Businessman
Nationality: German
Home: Düsseldorf, Germany

Georg Plange had a well-known flour milling and baking company which is still in operation.

Andreas Fischer von Poturzyn
Age: 32
Occupation: Press Chief
Nationality: German
Home: Dessau, Germany

Andreas Fischer von Poturzyn was press chief for the Junkers aircraft company and a well-known aviation journalist. He is often credited with coining the name “Lufthansa” for the German national airline.

Karl Ritter
Age: 52
Occupation: Diplomat
Nationality: German
Home: Berlin, Germany

Karl Ritter was a senior diplomat in the German Foreign Office at the time of Hindenburg’s first flight to America. A member of the Nazi Party, Ritter was later involved in negotiating the 1938 Munich Agreement, and he served as liaison between the Foreign Office and the High Command of the Wehrmacht (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht; OKW) during World War II.  Ritter was convicted at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in the Wilhelmstrasse Trial, or Ministries Trial (officially United States v. Ernst von Weizaecker, et al.).

Paul Schulte
Age: 40
Occupation: Missionary
Nationality: German
Home: Aachen, Germany

Father Schulte was a missionary known as the “flying priest.” A German military pilot during World War I, he was ordained a Catholic priest after the war and used airplanes on his missionary work in Africa, where transportation by ground was a serious challenge. He founded MIVA, an organization to provide transportation vehicles for missionary work, and he was aboard Hindenburg on his way to North America to perform missionary work among Eskimos in Canada.  Prior to the flight Father Schulte had obtained Papal permission to perform the world’s first aerial mass, which he conducted aboard Hindenburg on Sunday, May 6, 1936.

Erny Schwab
Age: 52
Occupation:
Nationality: German
Home: Dusseldorf, Germany

Detloff Graf Schwerin
Age: 41
Occupation: Journalist
Nationality: German
Home: Essen, Germany

Count von Schwerin was a journalist for the Essener Nationalzeitung, a National Socialist newspaper owned by Air Marshal Hermann Goering. Count von Schwerin made a roundtrip on Hindenburg, returning with the ship to Germany on May 11.

Frederick Murray Simon
Age: 54
Occupation: Commander
Nationality: British
Home: Margate, England

Murray Simon, who had been a ship’s officer for the White Star Line, was the navigator on Walter Wellman’s pioneering dirigible “America” when it attempted to cross the Atlantic ocean in October, 1910. America traveled for two days before being brought down by engine failure, and the ship’s crew was rescued by a passing steamer.

Ernest G. Stranz
Age: 49:
Nationality: United States
Home: 400 Rush Street, Chicago, Illinois

Madame Titayna
Age:
Occupation: Journalist
Nationality: French
Home: Paris, France

Titayna was the pen name used by Élisabeth Sauvy-Tisseyre, a journalist for the French newspaper Paris Soir who covered international affairs.  At the time of Hindenburg’s flight, she had recently published a flattering interview with Adolf Hitler on January, 26, 1936, in which Hitler described his desire for peace and Titayna assured her readers that Hitler was speaking “openly and honestly to the people of France.”  Mme. Titayn had clearly been captivated by Hitler:  “No one can escape his enchantment,” she reported.  “I was astonished and surprised by the bright blue of his eyes…  I noticed that he looks quite different than in his photographs, and I much prefer the real-life Hitler; his face radiates intelligence and energy and emits a special glow when he speaks.  At that moment I understood his magical appeal to the people and the power he wields over them.”  Titayna continued to write favorably of the Germans during the Occupation; accused of collaboration after the war, she moved to the United States.

Wilhelm Traupel
Age: 45
Occupation: Landeshauptmann
Nationality: German
Home: Kassel, Germany

Wilhelm Traupel was the Nazi governor (Landeshauptmann) of the district of Nassau and a Sturmführer in the SS at the time of the Hindenburg’s maiden flight.  (He was promoted to SS-Oberführer, or Brigadier General, in 1939.) Traupel was an advocate of the concept of “Lebensunwertes Leben” (lives not worth living) and supported euthanasia of the mentally ill.  As early as 1936, around the time of his flight on Hindenburg, Traupel was arguing for the extermination of patients in mental institutions who were “ballastexistenzen” (those who live “only ballast existences“), and the the Hadamar Clinic, in Hesse-Nassau, was a principal site of the T-4 euthansia program.

Charles Turner
Age: 65
Occupation: Author
Nationality: British
Home: London, England

Arthur Voigt
Age: 60
Occupation: Salesman
Nationality: German
Home: Danzig, Germany

Franz Wagner
Age: 45
Occupation: Pianist
Nationality:
Home: Dresden, Germany

Franz Wagner was a noted concert pianist and gave a recital on Hindenburg’s duralumin piano during the maiden voyage.

Rosie Gräfin Waldeck
Age: 37
Occupation: Writer
Nationality: Hungarian
Home: New York, USA

Countess von Waldeck was a novelist living in New York.  She was born Rosa Goldschmidt to a German-Jewish banking family in Mannheim, Germany.  Her first husband was Ernst Gräfenberg, a noted obstetrician-gynecologist who developed the intrauterine device (IUD) and published scholarly papers on female sexual physiology (and for whom the “G-spot” was later named).  She later married German publisher Franz Ullstein and was implicated in a 1930 Berlin trial and scandal involving allegations of spying for France.   She finally married the Hungarian Count von Waldeck, and eventually moved to the United States.

Karl Waltner
Age: 39
Occupation: Businessman
Nationality: Austrian
Home: Graz, Austria

Waltner was with the Tide Water Oil company, which made the Veedol lubricating oil used by Hindenburg’s engines.

Hellmuth Wetzel
Age: 23
Occupation: Journalist
Nationality: German
Home: Berlin, Germany

Wetzel made a roundtrip on Hindenburg, returning with the ship to Germany on May 11.

Karl Von Wiegand
Age: 61
Nationality: United States
Home: 235 East 45th Street, New York, USA

Karl von Wiegand was a journalist for the Hearst organization and the companion of fellow Hearst reporter Lady Grace Drummond-Hay, with whom he traveled around the world, including Graf Zeppelin’s first flight to North America and Round-the-World flight of 1929. Wiegand was born in Germany in 1874 but emigrated with his family to the United States in 1878, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1888.

Sir Hubert Wilkins
Age: 47
Occupation: Explorer
Nationality: British
Home: London, England

Sir George Hubert Wilkins was a prominent Australian polar explorer and pilot, and had been aboard Graf Zeppelin’s 1929 Round-the-World flight.

Lady Suzanne Wilkins
Age: 35
Occupation:
Nationality: British
Home: London, England

Was it really the “Maiden Voyage”?

Hindenburg’s flight to North American on May 6-9, 1936 was not the ship’s first passenger flight, or even its first international voyage.

Hindenburg made a number of flights after its initial test flight on March 3, 1936 (including a 74-hour propaganda flight around Germany), and Hindenburg’s first international journey was a roundtrip to South America on March 31-April 10, 1936.  But because Hindenburg had been designed specifically for service between Europe and the United States (which was the most prestigious passenger route in the world at the time), Hindenburg’s first flight to Lakehurst, New Jersey in May, 1936, is sometimes referred to as the ship’s “maiden voyage.”  The flight certainly had the traditional hallmarks of a maiden voyage, including a passenger list studded with notable personalities, and the excitement, glamor, and media attention — including a live radio broadcast from midair — that was typical of a great ship’s first journey on its intended route.  And by other measures as well, such as the quantity of mail carried (much of it in the form of souvenir philatelic mail), the first flight to Lakehurst certainly captured much more popular attention; the first flight to South America carried 61 kg of mail, while the “maiden voyage” flight to North America carried 1,059 kg of mail.