Max Pruss was the captain of the Hindenburg when it crashed at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937.
Pruss (or Pruß in German) was born on September 29th, 1891 in Sgonn in the district of Sensburg, East Prussia (which is now the city of Zgon, Poland) to Friedrich Pruss, a factory worker, and Luise Pruss, née Kaminski. In 1898 the Pruss family moved to Bielefeld.
In 1907 Pruss joined the “Schiffsjungen-Division” of the German Navy based at Kiel. He trained on the ship “Preussen” in the Navigation and Signals Service and received his helmsman’s certificate (Steuermannspatent) in 1914.
Pruss joined the German naval airship service during WWI and made his first flight as an enlisted trainee/observer aboard the Navy Zeppelin L3 in 1914. He flew as a petty officer on the non-rigid Parseval ship PL-6 (formerly an advertising airship for Stollwerck, a chocolate company based in Köln), on which he served in the Baltic for approximately three months. He then trained as a member of the crew of Leutnant (later Überleutnant and Kapitänleutnant) Horst von Buttlar-Brandenfels and served as an elevatorman on the World War I Zeppelin L6. Pruss remained part of that same crew aboard L11, L30, L25, and L54. He served on the Germany Navy zeppelins L6 (LZ-31), L11 (LZ-41), L25 (LZ-58), L30 (LZ-62), and L54 (LZ-99), mostly as an elevatorman, the most challenging and demanding position.
Kapitän Max Pruß
Pruss was elevatorman on LZ-126 under the command of Hugo Eckener during the ship’s transatlantic delivery flight from Germany to America to become the U.S. Navy airship USS Los Angeles. Pruss then worked with Eckener and fellow zeppelin officers Hans von Schiller, Hans Flemming, and Anton Wittemann giving lectures around Germany to raise money for the Zeppelin-Eckener-Spende and the construction of LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin.
Pruss served aboard Graf Zeppelin during many important flights, including the ship’s historic 1929 Round-the-World flight, and was given command of Graf Zeppelin in 1934. He served as a watch officer aboard Hindenburg during many flights of the 1936 season — along with fellow watch officers Albert Sammt, Heinrich Bauer, and Knut Eckener — under the command of both Hugo Eckener and Ernst Lehmann.
Captain Pruss aboard Hindenburg
Pruss himself eventually received command of Hindenburg, and he was the ship’s captain on the transatlantic flight from Lakehurst to Frankfurt on September 30 – October 3, 1936, and during Hindenburg’s last three South American crossings of the 1936 season.
Max Pruss was in command of Hindenburg when it was destroyed by fire at Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6, 1937. He survived the crash, but suffered very serious burns on much of his body, including his face, and remained in a New York hospital for many months. Despite numerous operations to repair the burn damage he had suffered, Pruss remained badly scarred for the rest of his life.
To the end of his life, Pruss believed the Hindenburg disaster was the result of sabotage. In a 1960 interview, he dismissed the possibility that an electrical discharge could have caused the accident, arguing that zeppelins had passed through thunderstorms and even lightning many times without incident:
Pruss: You see, we have on every flight to South America we have lightning and thunderstorms. In about 4 degrees north of the equator they have thunderstorms all the time, and we were going with a ship traveling right through the thunderstorms and never was there trouble. During the First War, we had lightning hit the ship. At the bow you have a little hole through was going lightning in [i.e., lightning burned a small hole at the bow], and then [the lightning went] through the framework and then the radio station and the antenna was blown up, and no more [i.e., nothing else happened]. This thing happened at Lakehurst two times–we had big thunderstorms before the start. Passengers which were coming with airplanes [i.e., flying from Newark to Lakehurst on American Airlines], must come with buses, because flying was forbidden. And we were waiting outside the ship, because we are thinking not that the next lightning would go in the ship. And when the passengers were there, we took them inside, and we [flew] through the thunderstorm toward the sea.
……………..
Q: Do you think it was sabotage?
Pruss: Yes, I think it was sabotage. If the sabotage was from the inside or [from] others, it’s very difficult to say.
(Listen to complete interview with Max Pruss: ram audio file, approx 40 seconds)
By the time of the Hindenburg disaster Pruss was a member of the Nazi Party, and he was one of only two zeppelin captains, out of seven active commanders, who belonged to the Party; the other was Anton Wittemann. (Captain Walter Ziegler was also a member of the NSDAP but never actually commanded a zeppelin.) During World War II Pruss served the Luftwaffe as commander of the Rhein-Main airport in Frankfurt.
Pruss kept in touch with his fellow airshipmen over the years. In a 1947 letter to Clara Adams (see letter), Charles Rosendahl wrote:
“I just had a letter from Captain Max Pruss and the surviving crew members of the Hindenburg. They had just gotten together on May 6, the tenth anniversary of the Hindenburg, and held a memorial ceremony in Frankfurt… Although the plastic surgery for his very severe burns was successful, he is far from the fine looking man he was before the accident. Nevertheless he seems as cheerful as anyone can be under the circumstances.”
During the 1950s, Pruss energetically but unsuccessfully tried to raise interest in the construction of new zeppelin airships to be inflated with helium. In support of his crusade he often used an argument offered by Charles Rosendahl in the 1930’s, when the airplane was already posing a competitive challenge to the airship: “If you want to get there quickly, take an airplane; if you want to get there comfortably, take an airship.”
In describing Hindenburg in his 1960 interview, Pruss commented:
I can only say that [Hindenburg] was a real ship for passengers, and a new ship, too, and it’s very regrettable that we have no airships. On an airship you have a wonderful trip, not with an airplane about 1,200 meters high and so you can’t see anything. In an airship, we have a height from 100 to 200 meters over the ocean. You have very nice islands, you have big ships. It’s for passengers a very, very comfortable [flight] and a very nice flight. No seasickness.
Pruss’s plan to revive passenger zeppelins centered on a modified version of LZ-131, which had been designed as a successor to LZ-129 Hindenburg and LZ-130 Graf Zeppelin II; it was proposed to equip the redesigned LZ-131 with four 1800 hp engines to carry 100 passengers or 42 tons of freight at speeds up to 100 MPH. Later plans envisioned another design for a 200 passenger, 920-foot long airship inflated with 10.5 million cubic feet of helium. But building such ships required not only a huge investment of funds for the zeppelins themselves — up to 24 million marks per ship — but also similar amounts for the reconstruction of hangar and operating facilities dynamited in 1940 by order of Hermann Goering and futher destroyed during the course of the war, and Pruss was never able to attract sufficient interest to turns these plans into reality.
Max Pruss died in Germany in 1960, of pneumonia contracted after a stomach operation.
My grandmother is Anna Pruss. I am related to Max Pruss somehow through my father. You can really see the resemblance of Max and my father.
I am trying to find out if I have a family connection to Max Pruss. My grandfather’s mother is Emily Pruss, and her father was John Pruss. Emily had a sister named Marie who went to NY to visit max Pruss in the hospital after the Hindenburg crash. I’m trying to find out if John Pruss is the brother of Max Pruss. Thus he would be my great grandmothers Uncle.
Greetings from Brazil!
Guilherme Pruss.
would love to hear from any of max pruss relatives. he was a great airship captain . somebody please respond and thanks.
My ex husband is related. His dad Edgar G. Pruss He’s still living.
It wasn’t just a lack of funding that thwarted the plans Max had for reviving the airship as a viable passenger carrier. The advent of the jet engine really put a crimp in those plans. But at least that work hasn’t been all in vain, as evidenced by the Zeppelin NT and all these prototype vessels like the Airlander 10 and Aeroscraft Dragon Dream.
As this one line from “Empire of the Clouds” goes:
Oh, the dreamers may die
But the dreams live on
While the sabotage theory sounds easy to believe, I’m not so sure, given that nothing credible has been found so far to support the theory. The starting location of the fire – the upper stern section – would’ve been difficult to access for a passenger. If there was a saboteur, it was most likely a crew member. But again, where’s the proof? So far, none. The whole theory sounds to me like some conspiracy born out of guilt over the human error-induced mechanical failure in bad weather.
Also, the description of the burns Pruss sustained reminded me of those that Niki Lauda suffered in his fiery crash during the 1976 German Grand Prix (spoiler alert for those who haven’t seen the Ron Howard movie Rush), which marked the Nurburgring Nordschleife’s death knell as an Formula 1 venue. The fuel of the fire may have been different, but the result was not so different.
Oh, the dreamers may die
But the dreams live on
The dreams are carried by the winds to another generation of dreamers. Enkindled by these dreams they go forward with new hopes and great courage. They tend to the sprouting seeds planted by the dreamers who had died not seeing the fruit of their struggles.
The lack of funding was an issue, Jet engines/ technology came out at the end of WW 2 1945. Putting a jet engine on a zeppelin is like putting a 300 Hp outboard motor on a barge. The zeppelins were taken out of service for the need of Aluminum, they were melted down. The U.S.A. has the largest resource of helium. After the disaster I would think that Helium, most people would like that (gas) in the Zeppelin. The U.S. would not make Helium available to Germany therefore Hydrogen gas was used. Zeppelins were /are too slow, the advent of propeller driven planes ie DO X just phased out the zeppelins.
I would like to add that I have seen Max Pruss when I was a young boy. I was born in 1952 and was frightened every time I saw his burnt face. He lived in Zeppelinstrasse 57, Neu-Isenburg, two houses away from ours. Neu-Isenburg is a town not far from FRA airport. There is also a suburb called Zeppelinheim with the Zeppelin Museum.
Hello, I am looking for relatives on my father’s side. My father’s dads name was John Pruss he married to an Ann Kozanecki. From what I gather John Pruss started out in the state of Michigan. I have a photo and it seems that Max Pruss could be related? Any help would be appreciated.
G Pruss
My Ex husband is related. Dad is Edgar G. Pruss. Still living
Debbie S., your ex is related to my family?. Whats is your ex’s name?
My Ex is Karl Pruss his father is Edgar Pruss. I believe it was my ex’s great(?) grandfather or his great(?) grandfather’s brother that was Max Pruss
Sister’s or brother’s. Does Aggie ring a bell?
Just to let everybody reading this, every Pruss is related in some way.. Many of us are in the United States. Look me up, I have always been fascinated in our family history..I have my own theories of events that would have happened if the Hindenburg was a success but would like know if others would believe also..
Were the Zeppelin’s a success? At that time in history sort of 1915-1916. The whole blimp idea through out history was an observation plat form. With the advent of the propeller plane and machine gun. Put a few holes in any thing it going to go down. The Hindenburg had several 12 cylinder engines on it to propel it through the air, what people don’t know there was a man behind every engine to regulate that engine, orders were given from the pilot via intercom. The Zeppelin was a “dream” an “air ship”. Because it was slow just think of all the food needed, fuel, baggage, water, wast it needed to carry thus driving up the cost per flight. Modern airplanes to this day these issues are still a concern. I visited the Zeppelin Museum in Meersburg am Bodensee. Very informative, you can walk through a cross section of a Zeppelin fully outfitted with chairs and so on. On site they have a structural piece of Zeppelin in Aluminum vs. a structural piece of carbon fiber same length and so on the carbon fiber piece was amazing light. The museum should be on your bucket list for sure. Pruss being one’s last name goes a long way in the museum.
Max Pruss was my great grandfather and my dad told me about him and I was in the movies and I was him and he was the captain of the airship and it blow up in Lake Hurts and it was new Jersey and it was sobtage and people say it was hit by lightning my dad Edgar G. Pruss and my name is Karl A. Pruss
I am trying to find relatives of mine. I am the great-granddaughter of John Charles Pruss. I know that Max Pruss was a relative of his. I’d love to get into touch with any family members.
Hello, My grand father was John Pruss an electrician who married a Kozanecki. There beginning was in the State of Michigan.
My grand father’s middle name was Frances. I know he was a member of a LARGE family. His place of birth is unknown he mentioned Austria, the members of the family who are still around are not sure.
I have read your comments with a great deal of interest. My great grandfather came to Peru from an small village now part of great Hamburg. His name was Heinrick Pruss (Pruess) I live in Miami. I assume that we are related as in 2002 there were only 508 Pruss in Germany; I ask the municipality for records but never received a reply from the lady mayor
My grandfather was Wilhelm, and there are few relatives buried in Callao, Peru, in the family mausoleums going back to 1870/1880’s