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.

(For more information about the flight, see below:  Was it really the “Maiden Voyage”?)

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.

 

Clara Adams and Amelia Earhart

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.

golden-party-badgeJoseph Berchtold
Age: 39
Occupation: Journalist
Nationality: German
Home: Munich, Germany

Joseph Berchtold was the second Reichsfuhrer of the SS (from 1926-1927), the post that was later held by Heinrich Himmler from 1929-1945.  Berchtold was a very senior Alte Kampfer, 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.

Berchtold sitting behind Hitler during an election campaign flight (on Hitler's birthday, April 20, 1932)

Joseph Berchtold with Hitler in the early days

Rudolf Bluthner-Haessler

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

Dr. Rudolf Bluthner-Haessler was head of the Julius Bluthner 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).

immig-aliens-p2

Immigration Service passenger manifest. (click to enlarge)

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-bruerCarl 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 traveler who wrote several books describing his zeppelin voyages including Erste Fahrt des Luftschiffes Hindenburg nach Nordamerika (about Hindenburg’s first voyage to America), Mit dem Luftschiff Graf Zeppelin nach Sud Amerika, Mit dem Luftschiff Graf Zeppelin nach Kairo, and Mit dem Luftschiff Graf Zeppelin nach Island.”  One of his books was published in English as “With the Zeppelin to South America: Diary of the Round Trip 1931.”

saint-logoLeslie 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: “œMamma don’t want no gin, because it makes her sin.”

Harold Dick's license as a balloon pilot

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.

veedol1Alfred 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 Fuhrer; 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.

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 Holden's ticket for the Hindenburg

Norman Holden’s ticket

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 broadcasting from Hindenburg

Max Jordan broadcasting from Hindenburg

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

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.

Louis Lochner (smiling, far left) in Hindenburg's lounge during its first flight to North America

Arthur Manthey
Age: 29 (?)
Occupation:
Nationality: German
Home: Berlin, Germany

Dr. Arthur Manthey (Dipl.-Ing.), born in Emden, was an official associated with the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the National Socialist “Kraft durch Freude” organization; he was in transit to Rio de Janeiro on a promotional tour in connection with the Olympic Games (see, Die faschistische Epoche des IOC, Historical Social Research, Vol. 32, No. 1: download pdf.).  [The author is deeply grateful to LTA Society member Art Paulson who provided detailed information about Manthey based on immigration service manifests.]

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

Webb Miller

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 [according to Immigration manifest]

Mrs Parker’s obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 9/11/57 (courtesy of reader Tom Slattery): Mrs. Erla Schlather Parker, a member of one of Cleveland’s early families, died yesterday in her apartment in Wade Park Manor. She was the widow of Dr. Charles B., who died in 1917. He was one of the city’s leading physicians in the earlier years of the century and one of the founder’s of St. Luke’s Hospital. Mrs. Parker, 87, was the former Erla Schlather, daughter of the late Leonard Schlather a member of one of Cleveland’s foremost German families.  For many years, Mrs. Parker had been a world traveler.  She was a passenger on the first transatlantic flight of the Graf Zeppelin.  She had made flights also on the ill-fated Hindenburg.  Mrs. Parker was a member of the Union Club. She had aided many of Cleveland’s civic, cultural and educational groups.  She is survived by a niece, Mrs. Helen Hobson of New York, and a foster-daughter, Mrs. Stanley L. Orr Sr., widow of the former judge. For many years Mrs. Orr had resided with Mrs. Parker.

Lt. Cdr. Scott Peck in Hindenburg's control car after arriving at Lakehurst on May 9, 1936. (Ernst Lehmann at right).

Lt. Cdr. Scott Peck (with Ernst Lehmann, right) in Hindenburg’s control car arriving at Lakehurst on May 9, 1936.

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: Dusseldorf, Germany

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

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

Andreas Fischer von Poturzyn (far left) with Junkers 52 airliner

Andreas Fischer von Poturzyn (far left) with Junkers 52 airliner

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.

Father Paul Schulte leading the world's first aerial mass. ("First Flighter" Clara Adams at right.)

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.

Walter Wellman's airship "America," seen from the ship which rescued its crew.

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

titayna

Titayna

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

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 Sturmfuhrer in the SS at the time of the Hindenburg’s maiden flight.  (He was promoted to SS-Oberfuhrer, 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

Lady Suzanne Wilkins singing aboard Hindenburg, accompanied by Franz Wagner on the ship's duralumin piano

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.

Rosa Gräfin von Waldeck (“Rosie”)
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.

veedol2jpbKarl 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 and Lady Grace Drummond Hay aboard Dornier DO-X flying boat

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 and Lady Suzanne Wilkins

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

(click to enlarge)

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.

(click to enlarge)

Immigration Service passenger manifest. (click to enlarge)

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luis nascimentoPhilip van DuerenAlice BrownRobert HognerDan Grossman Recent comment authors
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luis nascimento
luis nascimento

Good day. Wonderful pages. Rio de Janeiro has the only and one HINDENBURG shed made by the zeppelin company ans well preserved, I have been there recently is awesome! up today its size is powerful, seems the MIGHT DLZ129 was about to land …. I strongly recommend the visit. google… Read more »

Alice Brown
Alice Brown

My nans uncle major Norman Holden went on the Hidenburg

Don
Don

My 92 yr.old claims to have seen the Hindenburg fly over holliston Massachusetts in possibly the late 1930s. Not to sure of time frame but did any flight pass over Massachusetts? Many thanks

Sean
Sean

Does anyone have access to the passenger list for the scheduled return trip to Germany from Lakehurst? I’m curious who would have been on the Hindendburg had hit not exploded. Thank you.

Louisa Lavelle
Louisa Lavelle

My grandparents sent to me in Merchantvlle NJ a postcard with a picture of their town – Fuerstenfeldbruck. The card is dated 1.V (for 5- May) 1936 and the stamp pictures the Hindenburg (cost 50pf) and was apparently sent on that first US flight 6-9 May 1936. In May 1937,… Read more »

Robert Hogner
Robert Hogner

We have a envelope sent from my grandfather to his son(my father) then in NYC. The return: Mid L.Z. 129Nordamerika. Is is postmarked on the front Frankfurt(Main) (date over the stamps, unreadable, but looks like 5.5), and on the back “New York N.Y. 32 Dated May 9 9AM 1936” Stamps… Read more »

Christopher Stark
Christopher Stark

I came across this site as a result of conducting research on an old photograph of an airship I inherited from my grandfather, who was of German descent, and an avid amateur photographer. I’ve had the photo for many years, but never looked at it closely until today. Under a… Read more »

Will Wainewright
Will Wainewright

Dan, many thanks for uploading the return passenger list. Rothay Reynolds, an ancestor who worked as a journalist in 1930s Berlin, is on the the list. However, he is not named on the outbound trip. Did a lot of passengers only go one-way (and rely for instance on shipping for… Read more »

Raymond Reynolds
Raymond Reynolds

I also lived in Southampton and saw the Hindenburg fly over.Very impressive sight I was told that I spoke of nothing else for days afterwards

neil
neil

Just finished reading the Hindenburg and it mentions a partial passenger list. In the list mentions a Miss Margaret Mathers who is a dirwct descendent of Cotto Mathers who precided over the Salem Witch Trials….is there any information on her other than whats in the book?…By tge way very glad… Read more »

Thomas Z.
Thomas Z.

The passengers Fritz Mertz & Erny Schwab, are son and mother. Fritz Mertz was my Grandfather, because my mother was his daughter, but from an affair with my grandmother (Marie Luise Gieren) ( he was married with some other woman), and Erny Schwab was his mother, so my Grand-Grand mother.… Read more »

Thomas Z.
Thomas Z.

There also could some links to his children to Singapur and Munich, son and daughter….? , and Fritz Mertz had a carrier / removal company in Düsseldorf between 1925 and 1950 or so… ?