Hans von Schiller was famous for over twenty years as an

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

Zeppelin crew member and captain. Born in 1891 in

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sch ...

, the young Hans von Schiller joined the navy at the beginning of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. He volunteered for

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...

service and was active on numerous Zeppelin raids against the British from a base at Tonder (now in Denmark) - today the site of a Zeppelin museum. After the war, von Schiller continued his career to become a world pioneer in international air travel. He was on board Zeppelins for flights to the

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

and even a journey to circumnavigate the world. He captained innumerable flights to the US and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

(from Germany) until the

Hindenburg disaster The ''Hindenburg'' disaster was an airship accident that occurred on May 6, 1937, in Manchester Township, New Jersey, United States. The German passenger airship LZ 129 ''Hindenburg'' caught fire and was destroyed during its attemp ...

in 1937 brought an end to this form of travel. It was only because of a delay in Rio that he was unable to reach Friedrichshafen to join the last flight of the ''Hindenburg''. Von Schiller commanded the early flights of the LZ 130 ''Graf Zeppelin II'' before leaving the Zeppelin Company to serve as commander of the air base at

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

in 1939 (Flight magazine 1939). Major Von Schiller and his family survived the onslaught of the thousand bomber raids on Cologne, and he was later transferred from the Commander at Butzweilerhof air base to be in charge of the Norwegian

air-sea rescue Air-sea rescue (ASR or A/SR, also known as sea-air rescue), and aeronautical and maritime search and rescue (AMSAR) by the ICAO and International Maritime Organization, IMO, is the coordinated search and rescue (SAR) of the survivors of emergenc ...

group (Seenotdienstführer 5), promoted to the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

rank of Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel). At war’s end, he returned to Cologne to help clear the

Rhine ), Surselva, Graubünden, Switzerland , source1_coordinates= , source1_elevation = , source2 = Rein Posteriur/Hinterrhein , source2_location = Paradies Glacier, Graubünden, Switzerland , source2_coordinates= , so ...

, and by 1948 he was made head of the Rhine ports for Cologne. Von Schiller went on to author several books on Zeppelin flight. He eventually went into retirement and lived near

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

until his death in 1976, survived by two of his three children. His ashes are scattered in the Airship pioneers section of the Cemetery in Freidrichshafen.

References

Hans von Schiller profile at Zeppelin Museum, Tonder
* Kapitän Hans von Schiller's Zeppelinbuch, herausgegeben von Kurt Peter Karfeld. Author: Hans von Schiller; Kurt Peter Karfeld Publisher: Leipzig,

Bibliographisches Institut The German publishing company was founded 1826 in Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and wa ...

Ag. 938

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Schiller, Hans von German airship aviators