Werner Franz

Crew Member

Age: 14

Hometown: Frankfurt, Germany

Occupation: Cabin boy

Location at time of fire: B-deck, Officers' mess

Survived



Werner Franz, born on May 22nd, 1922 in Frankfurt-Bonames, Germany, was a 14 year-old cabin boy on the Hindenburg's final voyage. His father was a switchboard operator in a Frankfurt hotel for many years, but he became ill in early 1936 and could no longer work. Werner's mother therefore had to take care of the household and also hold down a job. His 16-year-old brother, Günter, had been an apprentice waiter at the Frankfurter Hof since 1934, having gotten the job through his trade school. However, he didn't make nearly enough to support the family. Werner had left elementary school around Easter of 1936 to find work to help the family make ends meet.

Werner Franz spent months after leaving school looking for an apprenticeship. He was good with his hands, and eventually hoped to become an electrician or an engineer. Twice a week for three hours he'd go to trade school, but he was anxious to find work. He asked his brother to see if he could get him a position at the Frankfurter Hof, but Herr Wangemann, the hotel's director, though he thought very highly of the Franz boys, was unable to find him a position, as all apprenticeships were currently filled. The best he could do was to let them know if any apprenticeships opened up.

By autumn of that year, Werner was very discouraged. He wanted nothing more than to find a way to make some money to help his family. But there just wasn't any work for him. At 14 years old, he already knew what it was to be unemployed. Then, one day in mid-October, Werner's brother came bursting into the house, and excitedly told his parents that he'd spoken with Herr Wangemann and that the hotel director had recommended Werner for a job. Werner, sitting in his room dejected and brooding, had only to hear the word "job" before his ears pricked up and he heard his brother continue " as cabin boy on the Hindenburg."

His brother went on to say that Werner was to meet the next day with the Hindenburg's Chief Steward, Heinrich Kubis, at his apartment in Frankfurt. Werner was thrilled. Not only would he now finally be able to help his mother out by earning money, but he'd get to fly on one of the big Zeppelins that he and his friends had watched so many times flying out of the nearby Rhein-Main Airport. He'd be making a monthly salary of 60 marks (about $150, which was a considerable sum for a 14 year-old German to bring home in the late 1930s.)

Werner Franz and his father met with Heinrich Kubis the next day, and with the Hindenburg's commander, Captain Max Pruss, the day after that. He got the cabin boy job, and would serve on a probationary basis through the end of the 1936 flight season. His first flight was to have been a short test flight over Germany on October 18th, 1936, which was only a few days after his interviews. The flight was cancelled, however, and Werner Franz's first Hindenburg flight therefore ended up being a twelve-day round-trip voyage to South America beginning on October 21st.

As cabin boy, Franz served the ship's officers and crew. His duties would begin at 6:00 in the morning, when he would go to the kitchen to wash and put away any dishes that had been used by the night watch. Then he would set the table in the mess room for the first watch's breakfast, which began at 6:30. Since the mess areas were not large enough to accommodate the entire crew, meals were served in two sittings, and Franz had to clear and reset the mess tables in the very short time between each sitting. Lunch was served at 11:30and 12:30, there were half-hour afternoon coffee breaks at 3:30 and 4:00, and then dinner was served at 6:30 and 8:00. In between meals, Franz would make the beds in the officers' cabins, and then return to the mess area. At about 2:30 in the afternoon, he would have a short break, during which he would usually go to his bunk and rest for half an hour before returning to the mess area to prepare it for afternoon coffee. After dinner, Franz would telephone the control car to see if the evening watch needed coffee, and if so he would bring it to them in a coffee pot on a tray. His day's duties would be over by about 9:30 at night.

Franz spent his first flight to South America learning his duties and familiarizing himself with his new crewmates. During the Hindenburg's three-day stay in Rio de Janeiro, Franz met and befriended two nine year-old German children named Emilio and Gisela, whose parents ran an inn near the airfield. On Franz's second day in Rio, they all went horseback riding together. The day after that, the children and several of the Hindenburg's crew members spent the day at the seaside swimming and hunting for mussels.

On the return flight from Rio, Franz was already becoming used to his new duties, and had begun to get to know his crewmates. This time, as the ship neared the equator, Franz was working in the kitchen when one of the cooks sent him to the control car with a bucket and mop to "wash off the equator line." When he got there, the watch officer on duty told him with mock seriousness, "We're not quite there yet. Go on back and I'll let you know when you need to come back down here."

As Franz later wrote in his journal:

"Unsuspecting, I walked back along the gangway. Just before I got to the kitchen, I suddenly got a cold shower of water over my head. Suppressing a smile, I looked up and saw a cook with a large can in his hand standing on a girder above me. Other crew members appeared and stood there laughing until tears came to their eyes, because I looked so drenched. I then hurried aft to my bunk so that I could change my clothes."

Thus did Werner Franz receive the airshipman's version of the traditional sailor's equatorial baptism, as well as the acceptance of his crewmates. He was later given a special certificate in honor of his having "crossed the line."

Franz made two more South America flights in 1936 (November 5th through the 16th, and November 25th through December 7th) before the Hindenburg was laid up for its winter overhaul. On his second flight, Franz learned that the Hindenburg would be on its way to South America while her sister ship, the Graf Zeppelin, would be flying along the same route on its return flight. It had been estimated that the two ships would approach one another at around midnight on the third night of the trip.

Franz's bunkmate, steward Wilhelm Balla, woke him shortly before midnight, and Franz hurried aft to the emergency control stand in the Hindenburg's lower fin, where there were three round portholes on each side of the fin through which he could watch for the Graf Zeppelin.

"At first, you could see a couple of lights in the distance that you might mistake for stars. Then you saw the powerful beam from the directional searchlight on the bottom [of the Graf Zeppelin.] Now you could recognize individual parts of the ship: the control car, the engine gondolas, and the lower tail fin. Hundreds of tiny lights shone in the darkness as the giant ship passed us and the passengers waved to us."

In Rio, the Hindenburg had its usual three-day layover, and Franz once again spent time with his two young friends Emilio and Gisela. This time, they rescued a small dog who was being mistreated by one of the locals. Emilio and Gisela's family adopted the dog, and hereafter, when Franz would return to Rio on the Hindenburg, the dog would always remember him immediately and greet him like an old friend.

On his third flight to South America, and the last of the 1936 season, Franz was invited down to the control car to watch as the Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin met in mid-ocean once again, this time during the day.

"As the Graf Zeppelin got fairly close to us, it made a slight turn and flew by us at a distance of about 300 meters with its motors at half throttle. Hereupon, the two airships flew a couple of circles around one another. After mutual wishes of "Have a good flight!" were exchanged, each ship continued along its course."

Franz knew that his two young friends Gisela and Emilio were on the Graf Zeppelin as it passed by, flying back to Germany for a visit. He therefore spent all of his free time in Rio this trip with his crew mates. One evening, Franz and several of his crewmates gathered outside of the window at Captain Pruss' quarters playing musical instruments (one of the stewards was using a saucepan as a drum, and Franz was wearing a sheet that one of the stewards had wrapped around him as a toga) as their way of inviting him out with them. Pruss joined them, and Franz would later recall it as having been a particularly fun evening.

At the end of this trip, back in Germany, Werner Franz was informed that he had passed his probationary period and was permanently hired by the Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei as an official member of the Hindenburg's crew.

On its return to Germany after this flight, the Hindenburg was laid up in its hangar in Frankfurt for the winter, where it would receive a complete overhaul. The ship had logged over 3,000 flight hours in its first year of operation, and its designers wanted to see how it had held up, and to perform any repairs or improvements that were deemed necessary. Werner Franz, with his natural mechanical skills, was asked to take part in the overhaul. He performed minor assistant jobs as needed, and in the process he learned the layout of the Hindenburg in much greater detail than before.

In March of 1937, the Hindenburg made a couple of test flights, including one in which the famous German flying ace, General Ernst Udet, attempted to hook his airplane onto a special trapeze that had been installed on the lower hull of the Hindenburg. The US Navy had perfected this on their last two Zeppelins, with a special hook installed atop the airplane that the pilot would use to lock onto a trapeze extended below the airship, and the DZR planned to incorporate a similar hook-on airplane to their passenger airships to allow for in-flight pickup of mail and passengers. Udet's hook-on experiments would be the first step toward this.

Werner Franz was, of course, excited to see General Udet in person, and made note of the experience in his journal:

"All of the crew, those who weren't on watch at the time, watched through the lower windows as the airplane flew about half a meter below the ship's hull at the same airspeed as the airship, and with a very short distance between the hook and the trapeze. Then, Udet gradually increased his speed and approached the trapeze. This was the pivotal moment. We were all on edge: Would it work or not? There – a jolt, and the airplane hung there with its engine shut down, swinging to and fro, supported by its arrester hook. Everyone gave a sigh of relief, and Udet waved to us, laughing. Then he pulled a lever, and the airplane went into a glide. General Udet repeated this several times."

(In fact, General Udet had some difficulty in making his first hook-on attempt, bouncing the arrester hook off of the trapeze several times before successfully hooking onto it. This was most likely due to turbulence near the trapeze, and to the fact that the Focke-Wulfe Stieglitz that Udet was flying was simply too light an airplane for the job.)

On March 16th, 1937, the Hindenburg made its first round-trip South American flight of the year. The ship then spent several more weeks in its shed in Frankfurt, during which construction was completed on nine new passenger cabins that had been added to the ship. There followed a pair of test flights over the Rheinland on April 27th, and then preparations were made for the Hindenburg's first North American flight of the year.

It would be Werner Franz's first trip to the United States. Lakehurst, NJ, where the Hindenburg would land, was a short distance from New York City, and Franz was hoping for the chance to go into New York for the afternoon while the ship was being refueled for its return flight.

The Hindenburg left Frankfurt for Lakehurst on the evening of May 3rd, 1937. The flight to the United States was shorter than the flight to Rio de Janeiro by at least a day, and by the morning of May 6th the Hindenburg was flying down the northeastern coast of North America. Franz's shipboard duties had become routine by now, and he had settled comfortably into his new job. He had gotten to know his shipmates, who now considered him one of their own, and he had enjoyed finally meeting Captain Ernst Lehmann, the well-known airship captain who had worked with Count von Zeppelin in the early days before the war, and who had commanded both the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg before taking the post of Director of Flight Operations for the DZR and turning over command of the Hindenburg to Captain Pruss shortly before Franz was hired the previous year. Lehmann was aboard as an observer on this flight, and had given Werner Franz a friendly nod that morning as Franz served him his coffee.

The Hindenburg reached New York City in mid-afternoon, and it made a wide circle around the city so that its passengers could get a good look at the world's largest city from the air. Franz was in the officers' mess as the ship reached New York, and watched the city below through the mess room's windows:

"Since we had already passed over the steamship docks, we saw nothing but an ocean of buildings far and wide. Elevated trains, streetcars, and busses crisscrossed the wide streets, between which wound countless smaller automobiles. The sidewalks were swarming with people, like an anthill. Now and then you could see a subway train coming up from underground."

Delayed by headwinds over the North Atlantic, the Hindenburg was running half a day behind schedule. They had been scheduled to land at dawn on May 6th, but instead would be landing closer to sundown. The ship had already flown over the landing field at Lakehurst at about 4:00 in the afternoon, but with thunderstorms approaching the air station, Captain Pruss had decided to cruise along the New Jersey coast until the weather had cleared. Franz still hoped that he would have the chance to go into New York with some of his crewmates before the return trip, but it was looking less likely. Still, he did his dishwashing as quickly as he could so that perhaps there would be time. As he put the dishes away in their cabinet, he looked out of the officers' mess windows and saw on the ground below a pair of boys who were pedaling furiously, trying to keep up with the airship.

Then, at about ten minutes past 7:00, he heard the signal for landing stations as it sounded throughout the ship. About ten minutes later, he heard one of the crew members (radio operator Franz Eichelmann) relay an order from the control car via the telephone in the kitchen foyer that six men were to go forward to the ship's bow in order to help bring the ship into trim. Young Franz had been hoping to join them, because the windows in the Hindenburg's bow provided such an excellent view, but he still had dishes to put away. Disappointed, he stayed behind in the officers' mess.

Werner Franz's location at the time of the fire.

Werner Franz had a coffee cup in his hand and was just reaching into the cupboard to put it away when he heard a dull thudding sound and felt the entire ship shake. He froze as the dishes he had put away were all jolted out of their cabinet and crashed to the floor. The ship began to tilt steeply aft, and Franz ran to the door to the keel walkway and looked out into the hallway. He glanced aft and saw, to his horror, a mammoth ball of flame rushing toward him. He instinctively began to back-pedal away from the fire and toward the bow. Franz looked around to see if any of his crewmates were there, but he could see no one. As the ship tilted even more steeply, he began to slide aft toward the flames, and grabbed at the ropes that lined both sides of the keel walkway. Dazed, he hung on as the fire roared through the hydrogen cells above him and the ship's hull jarred and shook as it slowly crashed to earth.

Suddenly, and with eerie similarity to his "crossing the line" initiation from his first flight to South America, Franz was doused with water pouring down on him along the inclined keel. A water ballast tank set alongside the walkway about 40 feet forward of Franz's position had slipped off its mountings and ruptured, sending its contents aft. The water soaked Franz's clothes, not only effectively shielding him from the heat, but also snapping the stunned boy back to his senses. He began to look for a way out of the ship.

As he held onto the ropes and felt the fire behind him growing hotter, Franz began looking for a way out of the burning Zeppelin. Just forward of him, on the starboard side of the keel walkway, there was a large hatch through which he and the kitchen crew provisioned the ship with food. He tried to make his way along the walkway toward the hatch, but the keel was still at too steep an angle, and he had to wait until the bow began to sink down so that he could climb those few last feet forward.

When the ship finally began to drop down in the front, Franz pulled himself forward and sat on the catwalk next to the hatch. In the red glow of the fire, Franz kicked at the hatch with both feet and knocked it open. Through the hatchway he saw the ground coming quickly toward him. When the ground was only a couple of meters away, Franz jumped. Suddenly, the ship began to rise up above him again as it rebounded off the landing wheel beneath the control car. Franz was therefore given a few seconds in which to run out from under the ship. His first instinct as he jumped had been to run with the wind, but as he landed he saw the flames being blown ahead of him, and immediately turned around and ran into the wind instead. As the Hindenburg's hull hung momentarily in the air above him, Franz ran as fast as he could toward the port side and just barely got out from underneath the wreck before it crashed to the ground behind him.

Amazingly, Werner Franz was almost completely uninjured – "Wet, but alive," as he would later say.

Diagram of Werner Franz's miraculous escape from the Hindenburg. 1.) Standing in the officers' mess on B-deck, Franz feels a sharp jolt run through the ship as the tail bursts into flame. 2.) Franz runs out into the hallway and, looking aft, sees the fire burning. 3.) Franz backpedals away from the fire and out into the open keel walkway. He holds on as the ship inclines sharply. Water from ballast storage tank (red star/f₁) flows aft and soaks Franz. 4.) As the ship begins to level out, Franz moves forward to hatch and jumps.

The provisioning hatch through which Werner Franz escaped, seen here serving its normal function. (photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

Water can be seen pouring out of the hatch that Werner Franz has just kicked open (arrow).

Water still runs from the hatch (arrow) as the ship's hull nears the ground.

Werner Franz (arrow) can just barely be seen dropping to the ground through the hatch. The ship's hull will rebound into the air momentarily, giving Franz just enough time to run to safety.

After he ran out from under the Hindenburg's hull, Franz kept running. Gradually, he slowed down and came to a stop when he was perhaps 40 meters from the wreck, and stood there in shock. Everything seemed unreal, and the men running toward the wreck to rescue survivors swam before Franz's eyes like ghosts. Chief Steward Kubis found him moments later. Kubis saw the confusion on the boy's face and said, "What are you standing here for? Go back to the ship and help!"

This snapped Franz out of his panic, and he turned around and returned to the wreck. As he got closer, he noticed the intense heat from the fire, and it finally occurred to him that he was soaking wet and freezing. But he continued on, looking for somebody to help. As he approached the wreckage, a sailor grabbed hold of him and tried to order him off the airfield. Franz could not immediately remember the correct words in English, so he pointed toward the burning airship and exclaimed, "Ich bin der cabin-boy vom Hindenburg! Ich bin doch der cabin-boy vom Hindenburg!"

Gradually the sailor realized what he was saying, clapped Franz on the shoulder and said to the other sailors nearby, "Hey, this is the airship's cabin boy!" The sailors crowded around him, amazed that the boy was not only alive, but barely scratched. Noticing that he was soaking wet, one of the men gave Franz his coat. But he was anxiously looking past the sailors toward the wreck to see if he could see any of his crewmates. Before long, two of the stewards came up and led him away by the arm. "Come on, son," they said, "There's nothing more we can do here."

Franz turned back and gave the sailor his coat back, and then followed the stewards to a waiting auto that took them toward the air station's hangars. Other survivors among the crew were beginning to gather there. An older gentleman who worked at the air base took Franz back to his quarters so that his wife could give the boy some dry clothes, and then Franz joined several of his surviving crewmates at the air station's infirmary to check in on the crew survivors who were among the more seriously injured. Eventually, he made his way over to the barracks, where uninjured crew survivors were being housed, and slept until late the next morning.

Initially, Werner Franz's name was mistakenly placed on the official list of those believed to be missing in the wreckage. Therefore many of the earliest newspaper reports had him listed as either missing or dead. He found out about this the next day when he saw the newspapers, and realized that once this news got back to Germany his parents would be devastated. He therefore had a telegram sent to them immediately, telling them that he was alive and uninjured.

The water ballast tank that soaked Werner Franz's clothes can be seen in this aerial photo of the wreckage. The tank's aft end has been knocked approximately 45 degrees in toward the keel walkway, where it dumped its load of water aft toward the spot where Werner Franz was located.

He was given permission by the commander of the Lakehurst base, Commander Charles Rosendahl, to go out to the Hindenburg's wreckage later that day in order to find a watch given to him by his grandfather that he'd had amongst his possessions aboard the ship. Accompanied by Lieutenant George F. Watson, the base public relations officer, Franz first looked for the officers' mess, thinking that he would perhaps find one of the dishes he had been putting away at the time of the fire. However, there was nothing left of the officers' mess – the crash and the fire had destroyed everything. He then went to the stern of the ship and picked through the rubble in roughly the area where his bunk had been (Lt. Watson later recalled that Franz walked almost directly to the correct spot the moment they entered the wreckage) and, amazingly, he found his watch. He took it, along with a scrap of the ship's framework as a souvenir.

That evening, and for the rest of his time in the United States, Franz stayed with Anton Heinen and his family. Heinen was a former Zeppelin commander who had emigrated to the United States and now worked for the US Navy, and he and his family lived in a house on the Lakehurst air base. They took Franz into New York to Wanamaker's department store to buy him new clothes, and did their best to make him feel at home.

Werner Franz and a number of his shipmates pose for news cameras in front of the Officers' Mess at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, on or about May 9th, 1937. 1.) Max Henneberg (steward); 2.) Fritz Deeg (steward); 3.) Jonny Dörflein (engine mechanic) 4.) Max Zabel (navigator); 5.) Severin Klein (steward); 6.) Eduard Boetius (navigator); 7.) Egon Schweikard (radio operator); 8.) Xaver Maier (head chef); 9.) Werner Franz (cabin boy); 10.) Rudolf Sauter (chief engineer); 11.) Wilhelm Balla (steward); 12.) Eugen Nunnenmacher (steward); 13.) Albert Stöffler (pastry chef); 14.) Wilhelm Steeb (engine mechanic trainee); 15.) Heinrich Kubis (chief steward); 16.) Captain Heinrich Bauer (watch officer); 17.) Kurt Bauer (elevatorman); 18.) Eugen Schäuble (flight engineer); 19.) Helmut Lau (helmsman); 20.) Alfred Grözinger (chef); 21.) German Zettel (chief mechanic).

The following Tuesday, May 11th, Franz visited New York again, this time with a number of his shipmates. The coffins of the German passengers and crew killed in the disaster were being shipped home aboard the steamship Hamburg later in the week, and there was a dockside memorial service being held that evening.

Franz testified before the Commerce Department's Board of Inquiry on May 13th, 1937 – exactly a week after the disaster. When Lt. Col. Joachim Breithaupt, the German Air Ministry's representative on the German commission sent to the United States to take part in the investigation, was introduced to young Werner Franz, he would later recall that the young man's first question to him was, "Herr Oberstleutnant, when the next Zeppelin is ready, may I fly again with her?"

Werner Franz sits with Captain Walter Ziegler on the day of Franz's official testimony to the US Commerce Department's Board of Inquiry.
(photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

Franz returned to Germany two days later with other surviving members of the crew (mostly stewards and kitchen staff) aboard the steamship Europa. Before boarding the ocean liner at the docks in New York, Franz and several of his shipmates had time to see a movie at Radio City Music Hall. The Europa arrived in Bremerhaven on May 22nd, Franz's 15th birthday – which he had completely forgotten about until somebody at the dock reminded him of it.

Werner Franz (front and center) and his shipmates are met at the dock in Bermershaven by the Graf Zeppelin's commander, Captain Hans von Schiller (at right, in uniform). Albert Stöffler is at left, Heinrich Kubis (in hat and moustache) is just behind Franz, and Alfred Grözinger is just to the left of Kubis. (photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

Werner Franz survived WWII, which he spent as a Luftwaffe radio operator, and went on to have a long career repairing precision instruments for the German Federal Post Office. He also turned his lifetime love of competitive skating into a side career as a professional roller- and ice-skating coach. Franz trained many title-winning students throughout the years, including Olympic silver medalist Marika Kilius and her pair-skating partner Franz Ningel.

Werner Franz gave numerous interviews over the years to journalists and documentary crews about his experiences as the Hindenburg's cabin boy. He also made a few visits to the United States, the last of which was in 2004 when he was an honored guest at the opening of the new information center and museum at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station (by then renamed the Lakehurst Naval Engineering Station.)

Werner Franz (second from right) during his 2004 visit to Lakehurst, NJ, examining a copy of the May 9th, 1937 crew survivor group photo (shown above) with (from left) Siegfried Geist, Patrick Russell, and Andreas Franz.

Werner Franz passed away on August 13, 2014 at the age of 92. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving member of the Hindenburg’s crew. 

Note: Much of the information about Werner Franz's life and his earlier flights (as well as many of the events of the night of the Hindenburg disaster itself) comes from the book "Kabinenjunge Werner Franz" by W.E. von Medem (Franz Schneider Verlag, Berlin, 1938.) Please be aware that, between possible errors in my own translation of portions of the book from the original German, coupled with the fact that I have not had available to me a second source from which to triangulate much of the information I gleaned from the book, there may be some inaccuracies in this article. Should any such inaccuracies come to light, of course, I will gladly correct them.

In addition, I was also very fortunate to have the opportunity to speak briefly with Herr Franz and his son Andreas during their 2004 visit to Lakehurst. I gave Herr Franz a copy of a group photo of him and other crew survivors (which I have also included in this article) and he was kind enough to share with me some memories of his old shipmates and of his experiences aboard the Hindenburg. It was a unique experience for me, and I will always be grateful to Herr Franz for his patience and generosity with a random fellow like myself who came up to him out of the blue holding a 67 year-old photograph. It's my hope that this article tells his story in as accurate and respectful a way as possible, and that it in some small way repays the kindness that he showed me.

Wilhelm Balla

   Crew Member

   Age: 25

   Hometown: Munich, Germany

   Occupation: Night steward

   Location at time of fire: Passenger decks, portside 
   dining room

   Survived


Wilhelm Balla was born on March 28, 1912 in Castrop-Rauxel, near Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley. His parents, Gottlieb and Wilhelmine Balla, had moved there from East Prussia at the turn of the century, and his father worked as a coal miner. Willy Balla was the first of 12 siblings, with his youngest brother, Helmut, having been born in September of 1927 when Balla was 15 years old.

Willy Balla and his siblings, 1915. From left: Fritz, age 2; Willy, age 3;
their mother, Wilhelmine, age 22; Hermann, age 1, stepsister Änni, age 6.

After finishing primary school, Balla began an apprenticeship as a waiter at the Hotel Lindenhof in Dortmund. However, within a few years the Great Depression had caused Germany’s economy to implode for the second time in as many decades. With rampant unemployment making jobs scarce, Balla and one of his good friends wandered throughout Germany, Austria, Italy and Switzerland, where they earned their living for the next couple of years as itinerant laborers, picking up whatever odd jobs they could find at factories and farms. They were also both pretty fair mandolin players, which earned them a few extra pfennigs here and there.

Willy Balla and friend playing their mandolins during their Wanderschaft.

By 1932, Balla had returned to Germany, where he attended a servant’s school in Munich and worked for the next several years as a butler in aristocratic houses, and also as a restaurant waiter. It was during this time in Munich that he met a young lady named Albertina Brandl. Willy Balla and Tina Brandl were married in 1936, and they would remain together for the next 52 years.

Albertina Balla, mid-late 1930s

Though he had grown up in Westfalia, Wilhelm Balla came to view Munich as his second home. But as he would later write in his journals, he would periodically wrestle with his own wanderlust, and he dreamed of traveling not just throughout Germany and Europe as he had done, but of visiting other lands – Africa, South America, the United States. With the rapid advancements in aviation since the first world war, what Balla really wanted was to fly to these places via airplane or airship.

Wilhelm Balla feeding the pigeons in Odeonsplatz, Munich, circa 1936

One day, Balla happened across a newspaper article about the LZ 129, Germany’s latest (and as-yet unnamed) Zeppelin, which had been under construction for several years. The article stated, “The new airship is nearing completion in the Zeppelin hangar in Friedrichshafen and is designed to carry passenger and mail traffic to South and North America.” Balla, like so many of his countrymen, had followed the exploits of the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin and had read with great interest of the airship’s flights across the ocean, wondering how (or if) he would ever be able to afford the 1,500 Reichsmark fare to South America – roughly a year’s wages for him at the time.

It occurred to Balla that with his experience as a waiter and a butler, he was easily qualified to be an airship steward, serving the wealthy passengers whom the Zeppelins flew to and fro across the ocean. The only problem was, there were hundreds of applicants vying for roughly half a dozen open steward positions aboard the new LZ 129. His chances at landing one of these coveted jobs seemed exceedingly remote.

Then, Balla hit upon a clever plan. By chance, he had heard that Dr. Ludwig Lehmann, the father of the new airship’s commander, Captain Ernst A. Lehmann, also lived in Munich. Balla went to Dr. Lehmann’s house, introduced himself, and begged Lehmann to speak with his son on his behalf and ask if he would help him to secure one of the steward jobs. Dr. Lehmann was apparently impressed by the young man’s audacity, and a couple of weeks later Balla received a letter notifying him that he had indeed been hired by the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei as one of the LZ 129’s stewards.

Willy and Tina Balla, circa 1936 – Balla is wearing his new Zeppelin crew uniform.
(photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

On January 20, 1936, Wilhelm Balla arrived at the Zeppelin works in Friedrichshafen, where the finishing touches were being put on the LZ 129 prior to her inaugural test flights. The new airship would not be ready to begin making these flights for at least another month or so, but in the meantime, Balla had been asked to report for duty immediately so that he could familiarize himself with the Zeppelins by working with the maintenance crew that was overhauling the Graf Zeppelin. One of a Zeppelin steward’s duties was to answer passengers’ questions about the airship, and assisting with the work being done on the Graf Zeppelin would serve as a good crash course in the construction and operation of these sky giants.

Balla would later recall that first day in his journal:

When I entered the hall, I could not believe my eyes . Before me lay the airship Graf Zeppelin, which had so often crossed the South Atlantic. The underside of the ship was being repaired, and the outer cover was partly removed and being replaced, because the ship would not be flying again until early March.

Herr Feucht of the Zeppelin works led Balla on a tour of the Graf Zeppelin, showing him the interior of the gondola that housed the ship’s bridge, her radio room and kitchen, and her well-appointed passenger lounge and cabins. Then Feucht led Balla through a small door and into the ship’s interior.

We stepped inside the airship. I was never more surprised than by what I now saw, which was simply unbelievable to me. The entire ship’s interior above me was empty, 32 meters high and a length of about 200 meters, nothing but girders, struts and bracing wires. “Yes,” Mr. Feucht said, “the ship is empty now, but in a few days we’ll be installing the 16 gas cells. You will help with that.”

We walked along the keel catwalk, which was only half a meter wide, and half a meter below that was the bottom of the ship – the envelope. Foreman Feucht said, “Don’t step off of the edge, or you’ll have your own private air voyage all the way to the ground.” So, at first I walked as carefully as possible, as I valued my life, however in time I became so experienced at it that I could have run along the catwalk blindfolded.

For the next month or so, Balla assisted with the work being done on the Graf Zeppelin to prepare her for the new flight season. He not only helped to install the refurbished gas cells, but he also used an electric riveting hammer as he and the construction crew replaced worn and damaged girders and latticework. Balla also accompanied Chief Steward Heinrich Kubis on a tour of the almost-completed LZ 129 which, with more advanced design and extensive passenger accommodations than the LZ 127, astounded him almost as much as his initial tour of the Graf Zeppelin had.

At last, on March 4th, 1936, Balla joined Chief Kubis and fellow stewards Eugen Nunnenmacher and R. Keuerleber aboard the new airship’s first test flight. Although the ship carried no passengers on this flight, only Zeppelin Company representatives and political officials who were aboard as observers, Kubis wanted to make sure that his team of stewards were thoroughly familiar with the passenger accommodations. It was a short flight. The LZ 129 spent three hours flying over Friedrichshafen and Lake Constance as the command crew tried out the controls and the mechanics made sure that the engines were in order. However, the flight made a deep and lasting impression on Balla, who had long dreamed of seeing the world from above.

The Hindenburg – her outer cover still in obvious need of its last couple of
coats of doping compound – floats aloft on her first test flight, March 4th, 1936.

The next day they made another test flight, this one of 8 hours duration so that the ship could receive its official certificate of airworthiness. This time, Balla and the other stewards served a breakfast of beef soup and a lunch of Hungarian goulash. To Balla’s delight, the LZ 129 also flew over his adopted home town of Munich, where the citizens poured out into the streets to see the new airship, waving enthusiastically and sending loud cheers aloft.

After about two weeks of trial flights, during which Balla and the rest of Chief Kubis’ stewards settled into their routine of duties serving full multi-course meals and attending to a variety of passenger needs, the LZ 129 finally received her name. Though there was no official christening ceremony, the new ship would now fly under the name Hindenburg.

The Hindenburg’s first flight after her name had been painted in two-meter tall red gothic letters alongside her bow was a four-day cross-country flight, along with the Graf Zeppelin, during which the airships would promote Hitler’s move to remilitarize the Rhineland. This flight is especially notable to historians not only for the fact that it was a blatant propaganda stunt on behalf of the Nazi government, but also because a botched downwind takeoff at the start of the flight damaged the Hindenburg’s lower tail fin and necessitated repairs and a second takeoff later in the day.

However, for Wilhelm Balla, the flight was even more noteworthy because they flew over the village of Castrop-Rauxel, where he had grown up and where his family still lived. Everyone in town turned out to see the new Zeppelin, of course. As Balla later learned, his youngest brother Helmut watched the airship with his schoolmates. When young Helmut excitedly informed them that his brother was one of the Hindenburg’s crew members, his stock among his classmates rose tremendously and they all gathered around him, eager to hear more about the mighty Zeppelin floating above them.

All of this was merely prelude, however, to the flights that followed. Balla had been fascinated by the sight of his homeland from above, but his true passion was for flying to the exotic foreign lands that he had long dreamed of visiting by air. The day after the Hindenburg landed at Friedrichshafen after her four-day propaganda cruise over Germany, Balla and the rest of the stewards joined Chef Xaver Maier and his kitchen staff in provisioning the ship for its first four-day flight across the South Atlantic to the new airship port near Rio de Janeiro. Together, they loaded enough food, beverages and ice onto the Hindenburg to keep 91 passengers and crew fed for the duration of the four-day flight. As they stowed everything on broad food storage platforms alongside the keel walkway, Balla and his comrades took care to situate the perishable items so as to prevent them from spoiling as they flew through the hot equatorial climate.

Wilhelm Balla poses in an early 1936 publicity photo highlighting
the Hindenburg’s innovative all-electric onboard kitchen.
(photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

Then the stewards went through the passenger cabins, polishing the fixtures and putting new linen on all the beds, before seeing to the common areas and making sure that all was in perfect order for the arrival of the 37 passengers the next morning, March 31, 1936. Balla helped to show the guests to their cabins, and would later recall the unexpected difficulty of communicating with people who were from many different countries, who spoke a variety of different languages.

When everyone was aboard and the last freight and mail had been stowed, the Hindenburg prepared to depart. Balla stood at one of the broad observation windows alongside the passenger decks, listening as a military band near the hangar played the old Swabian folk song “Muß i' denn, zum Städtele hinaus.” He solemnly reflected on the gravity of the moment: at long last he was finally going to see Brazil – not merely from the air as he’d always imagined, but from the unique vantage point of the most advanced and comfortable mode of air travel that mankind had yet devised.

As Balla pondered his good fortune, the ground began to drop away, as if on cue. The ground crew having released the airship, it ascended silently and, to those aboard, almost imperceptibly – aside from the fact that the well-wishers on the ground below suddenly appeared to be growing smaller. When the Hindenburg was about 250 feet above the ground, the engines roared to life and the airship made a brief circle over the airfield before flying southeast toward Basel and the Rhône valley. By the next morning, they had already reached the Canary Islands.

Wilhelm Balla’s official duty was as the Hindenburg’s night steward, and so a great deal of his regular duties would take place while most everyone else aboard was asleep. He would clean the now-empty dining room and the lounge as well as the rest of the common areas, and would respond when passengers pushed a button in their cabins to request assistance. As they would in a fine hotel, the passengers would leave their shoes outside their cabin doors at night to be shined, and Balla would make sure that they were all gleaming like new by the time the passengers awoke the following morning.

One of the Hindenburg’s passengers leaves his shoes
outside of his cabin for the night steward to shine.
(photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

But when his duties were finished, instead of going straight to bed, Balla would often sit next to the large observation windows in the empty passenger lounge. He would later remember how eager he was to spend every free moment at the windows on that first flight over the ocean so that he wouldn’t miss anything, watching the sea sliding by in peaceful silence below at night and, during the day, marveling along with the passengers at the islands, schools of fish and occasional steamship that would appear below as they flew over the South Atlantic.

Balla’s night shift also gave his crewmates a perfect opportunity to indulge in an old mariner’s tradition. Balla would later recall:

On the third day of the voyage, it was just about three o’clock in the morning when the phone near me rang. One of the mechanics on duty told me that he’d seen a passenger wandering along the keel walkway, and that I should go and check to make sure that everything was in order. Since this sort of thing wasn’t permitted, I headed straight for the walkway. So, I was innocently strolling along the catwalk when suddenly I got an massive amount of water poured over my head. I stood there, looking like a drowned rat when I heard loud laughter above me and looked up. I saw there up in the girders three men holding buckets, having just played a corker of a practical joke on me. So, this was the famous equatorial baptism! As proof, I was presented with a baptismal certificate. I was naturally very proud of this.

      Wilhelm Balla’s Taufschein – his certificate of baptism commemorating his first crossing of the equator.
      The certificate, one of which was presented to each passenger and crew member on their first flight to
      South America, was drawn by Dr. Eckener’s brother Alexander, a professional painter and printmaker.
                                                                                                             (photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

Early on the morning of April 4th, after almost exactly 4 days in the air, the Hindenburg arrived over Rio de Janeiro just before dawn. The sight was not one that Balla would forget:

It was still dark when Rio appeared, a sea of lights spread out before us. We had reached our destination! It was too beautiful, to see this magnificent city from above in all her blazing splendor. I had to keep asking myself, “Am I dreaming, or is this reality?”

The following month, Balla realized yet another one of his dreams as the Hindenburg made her first flight to the United States, where she would moor at the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, NJ, about 50 miles south of New York. This time the airship took off from Friedrichshafen in the evening, and by the time they reached the English Channel it was too dark to see much of anything.

I was on night duty and could see the beacons and the coastal lights. Around 3 o’clock in the morning, Captain Lehmann came up to me in the passenger lounge. We sat down in the writing room and talked for about two hours about everything under the sun. He couldn’t sleep, and was happy to have somebody to talk to. I often wondered about the fact that he got so little sleep. He was simply very conscientious, and always wanted to make sure that he had everything under control.

Toward morning, the first passengers were already coming out of their cabins, so as not to miss the sunrise. I was relieved at 6:00, and looked forward to getting some sleep.

Two days later, in the wee hours of the morning, the Hindenburg reached the east coast of the United States, arriving over New York City at about 5:00 AM. The sun was just rising, and New Yorkers climbed on the roofs of buildings and craned their necks for their first look at the new Queen of the Skies. Wilhelm Balla was still on night duty, and was astounded by what he saw.

When we reached the Statue of Liberty, a concert of sirens began that I never experienced again. Every ship in New York’s harbor joined in, stopping only when we flew on once again. Likewise, it was the first time the people of New York had been able to greet us. Then we flew over New York’s skyscrapers. I cannot describe in words the kind of impression that this made on me.

The Hindenburg flies over New York City in the early morning hours of May 9, 1936, on her first flight to the United States. The Zeppelin’s 5.7 million candle-power searchlight can be seen shining down from amidships.

After circling the city, a crowd-pleaser for the passengers which would become a tradition on subsequent flights to Lakehurst, the Hindenburg flew on to Lakehurst. The airfield was packed with throngs of people anxious for a close look at the new airship, and guards were stationed around the visitors’ area to keep spectators clear of the mooring area. Balla watched as the US Navy ground crew expertly connected the ship to her mooring mast and guided her into the vast airship hangar.

Now as I climbed out of the ship and tried to leave the hangar, I was instantly surrounded by hundreds of enthusiastic Americans who blocked my way. Now I had achieved a bit of a celebrity status, because everyone around me demanded my autograph. It took me over an hour to make it a couple hundred yards to the hangar exit. As soon as I left the hangar, I suddenly found myself sitting in a car that was parked there and was pressured by its occupants into driving to New York with them. It was a sincere invitation, and they would fulfill all of my wishes if I would do them the honor of riding along with them. Owners of other cars made the same offer to my comrades. For these people we were, quite simply, a sensation.

After nearly four days of being treated like royalty by their newfound American friends, Balla and his comrades welcomed a new group of passengers aboard for the Hindenburg’s return flight to Germany. This time, rather than landing at Friedrichshafen, they landed at what was to be their new home base – the Rhein-Main airfield at Frankfurt. Balla and his wife, Tina, moved to a house in Walldorf, a village just south of the airfield where most of the Hindenburg’s crew would live while new homes were being built for them in the new town of Zeppelinheim, just to the northeast.

After the second flight to South America at the end of May, the Hindenburg was put in the Zeppelin works hangar at Löwenthal for minor repairs and to have some additional features added. One of these new additions quickly became a favorite of Balla’s. In the extreme bow of the ship, among the mooring platforms from which crewmen handled the forward landing lines during takeoffs and landings, a new observation area was installed. On either side of the keel, a small bench and table were bolted to the framework, with a long vertical window in front of each.

I, myself, would often choose this place, as it had the most wonderful view, especially when there was something interesting to see. […] It is hardly possible to describe how beautiful the view was. […] If I had time off duty, I would often spend hours at the window in the bow watching the activity on the various islands that we would fly over. Sometimes I would even wish I could be dropped off on one of those islands and then be picked up again on the homeward voyage. Naturally, this was just wishful thinking. I was a crew member of the LZ 129 Hindenburg, and had duties to fulfill aboard her.

Balla and another steward in the Hindenburg’s dining room.
(photo courtesy of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmBH Archive)

Wilhelm Balla made every one of the Hindenburg’s subsequent flights, and would later write a journal of his experiences as a Zeppelin steward. In his journal, Balla captured many details about his day to day experiences aboard the Hindenburg. Many from the ship’s early flights have already been recounted here, but the remainder of the 1936 flight season was to prove as memorable to Balla as the beginning had been.

When the Hindenburg was moored at Lakehurst, Captain Lehmann would grant visitor passes to various people, often VIPs, and Balla was often the crew member who was assigned to lead these special guests on tours of the ship. In this way, he got to know and become friends with a great many Americans, many of whom would take him into New York on day trips.

In addition to his night duties, Balla would also serve passengers during the day (when he wasn’t sleeping after his shift was over at 6:00 AM, of course.) He would make his way forward to the ship’s radio room where the radio operator would hand him the latest edition of the daily onboard newspaper, which would provide passengers with the latest news from around the world. Balla would pin the paper to the bulletin board at the head of the gangway stairs in the central cabin area, where there was also a map of the world on which the ship’s current position was marked in red pencil.

The Hindenburg hovers low over the stadium during the
opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

In August, the Hindenburg flew over the opening ceremonies for the 1936 Olympic Games. In addition to the spectacle of viewing Berlin’s massive new Olympic Stadium from the air, Balla would also remember one of the lighter moments of the flight. After circling over Berlin for an hour or so, the Hindenburg flew over Tempelhof airfield to drop off some sacks of mail, much sought-after by stamp collectors for the special onboard Olympic flight cancellation. The sacks were attached to parachutes and dropped from one of the hatches that lined the airship’s belly.

In the course of this, there occurred a mishap in which one of the parachutes failed to open. The mail sack slammed into the ground and burst open. The wind then blew the letters and cards across the entire airport. There was a great deal of laughter as we saw how the airfield workers chased down the individual letters.

On the Hindenburg’s next-to-last flight back from South America during the 1936 season, Balla would recall another yet momentous event:

On the evening of the second day, we were told that on our homeward flight we would meet up with the Graf Zeppelin over the ocean. Everyone now waited eagerly for this encounter. Suddenly we saw a tiny light appear off the port bow, which grew bigger and bigger. From the ship, we saw nothing yet because of the darkness. Soon, however, there were more and more lights, and now we flew past each other about 300 meters apart. I leapt for the light switches and turned them on and off several times to convey our greetings. Immediately, the people on the Graf Zeppelin went with the same tactic and blinked across at us. We flew a few circles around our sister ship, and they did likewise. This unique meeting so far from home lasted maybe 10 minutes, and then each ship resumed its original course, one toward Brazil, and the other toward Frankfurt.

The Hindenburg as seen from engine car #1 on the Graf Zeppelin as the two airships
meet over the South Atlantic. This is actually from the second time the two ships
crossed paths during a Rio flight, during the Hindenburg’s final 1936 flight to Rio
in late November of that year. The meeting described above by Balla occurred just
after midnight on November 7th, when it was far too dark to take any photos. 

As he recorded his experiences in his journal, Balla would also make note of many of the various celebrity passengers who flew with them, particularly along the North Atlantic route to and from the United States. Former world heavyweight boxing champion Max Schmeling flew twice with them. Schmeling first traveled aboard the Hindenburg on his way back to Germany following his June, 1936 victory over Joe Louis as both boxers vied for a shot at the reigning world champion, James Braddock. Balla would later recall Schmeling as being very gracious, signing autographs for his fellow passengers and spending a lot of time enjoying the view from the observation windows.

Douglas and Sylvia Fairbanks pose with Max Schmeling in front of the control car
of the USS Los Angeles following their arrival at Lakehurst in August of 1936.

Schmeling returned to the States aboard the Hindenburg in August of that year, on the same flight as another celebrity – silent film legend, Douglas Fairbanks and his new wife, Lady Sylvia Ashley. Balla would remember the couple not so much for Fairbanks’ fame as a former Hollywood swashbuckler, but because of their six-month old Scottish terrier, Bobby. Bobby, rather than being kept in the ship’s kennel area, was allowed free run of the passenger area, much to the dismay of the stewards. Balla would later describe him, quite bluntly, as ”…a naughty little puppy who left his calling cards for us all over the ship.”

Sylvia Fairbanks and her terrier, Bobby, aboard the Hindenburg.

Balla would also remember the special VIP flights that the Hindenburg would occasionally make. In June of 1936 Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, who ran the German industrial giant, Friedrich Krupp, AG, chartered the Hindenburg to carry himself and 50 others, including family members and Krupp AG officials on a sightseeing flight over Switzerland. At the end of the flight, which afforded an unparalleled aerial view of the Alps and the Swiss countryside, Herr Krupp presented each member of the Hindenburg’s crew with a pair of cufflinks made of genuine Krupp steel, which Balla later described as being “more valuable to me than if they had been made of gold.”

During the Hindenburg’s last visit to the United States in October of 1936, a VIP flight was arranged as a way of courting financiers and influential business and political leaders for a planned German/American international airship service. The day cruise over the colorful autumn New England countryside came to be known as the “Millionaires’ Flight”, and it was later said that the combined worth of the passengers exceeded a billion dollars. Balla served such luminaries as Nelson Rockefeller and Eddie Rickenbacker a sumptuous lunch that featured swallow’s nest soup, Rhein salmon, tenderloin steak in goose liver sauce and fine wines and champagne. Over the course of the flight, Balla added quite a few new signatures to his autograph book – which ended up being lost with the rest of his personal effects in the disaster at Lakehurst the following spring.

As the flight season drew to a close, Wilhelm Balla’s love of airship travel had grown to the point where he began to think about the future and consider whether there might be roles for him beyond that of a steward.

On one of the last flights of 1936, I asked Captain Lehmann if I might eventually have the possibility of becoming an airship helmsman. He conceded me an opportunity if I were to undertake the necessary studies to gain requisite skills, which would include attending the navigation school in Hamburg. I was overjoyed by this proposition.

Wilhelm Balla was, of course, aboard the Hindenburg’s first North American flight of 1937 when it left Frankfurt on the evening of May 3rd. It was a fairly unremarkable flight, except for the head winds and cloudy skies that persisted throughout the voyage. Three days later, on the evening of May 6th, the Hindenburg arrived over the airfield at Lakehurst, NJ, approximately 12 hours behind schedule.

Balla was downstairs on B-deck, and made his way up to the dining room to watch the landing maneuver. He stopped by the bar and asked bar steward Max Schulze if he wanted to come along. Schulze, however, was busy cleaning the bar and opted to stay behind. As he began climbing the stairs to A-deck, Balla encountered the ship’s new stewardess, Emilie Imhof, who had just been hired the previous November. He asked if she wanted to come on up to the dining room with him, since it was her first flight to North America. She also opted to stay downstairs, as she had to get the linens changed in the new bank of passenger cabins that had been installed on B-deck the previous fall. Balla continued on up to the dining room, not realizing that he would see neither of them alive again.

The Hindenburg hovers about 800 feet beyond her mooring mast, moments before the fire . 

He made his way to the observation windows that ran alongside the dining room, and found a spot near the forward-most window, through which he watched the airship’s landing ropes drop and the ground crew pick them up. As he politely stood aside to allow some of the passengers to get a better look, he suddenly heard a muffled explosion and felt the ship give a sharp jerk.

The floor tilted as the stern of the ship dropped to the ground, and Balla fell to the floor, pulled by two nearby passengers who had also lost their footing. He heard another explosion closer to the passenger compartment, and thought to himself that he'd rather break his neck jumping out a window than to burn alive. He stopped his slide aft by grabbing hold of the handrail, pulled himself toward a nearby window, and noticed passengers beginning to jump out of the windows as the ship grounded itself. He looked aft and saw one of the passengers, Mrs. Matilde Doehner, toss her two young sons out of the ship. Balla himself leaped out a window from a height of about 20 feet, landed in the sand and got up to try and help the passengers still trapped in the ship. When he went to get up, however, he realized that he'd twisted his right ankle and was having trouble standing up on it.

Barely more than half a minute after the fire first appeared, the Hindenburg
lay smoldering on the Lakehurst airfield, with ground crew and spectators
beginning to run toward the wreck to assist survivors.

Balla saw 14 year-old Irene Doehner leap from one of the other windows and limped over to help fellow steward Eugen Nunnemacher put out the fire on her clothes and in her hair. The two young Doehner boys, Walter and Werner, were standing nearby crying, and Balla accompanied them to a nearby ambulance. Rescuers tried to get Balla to get into the ambulance with them, but he refused to go, believing that he should instead stay and try to help. But by then, anyone who could be pulled alive from the wreckage was already being taken to the infirmary. Other than his sore ankle, Balla was virtually unharmed. He was eventually taken to the air station’s infirmary where his foot was examined and taped up, and then he went over to the airship hangar where he sent a telegram home to his wife: “Bin gesund” – “I’m well.”

Wilhelm Balla (right) along with fellow steward Fritz Deeg (white jacket, center)
and Chief Engineer Rudolf Sauter (dark jacket and bandaged head, left) leave Hangar
One at Lakehurst after identifying the bodies of fire victims, on May 7th, 1937.

Wilhelm Balla stayed in the United States for nine days following the disaster. The day after the crash, he returned with other crew survivors to the Lakehurst air base in order to help identify the bodies of the fire victims. He testified before the Board of Inquiry on May 14th, and the following day he returned to Germany with a group of fellow crew survivors (mostly stewards and kitchen staff) aboard the steamship Europa.

Following his return to Germany, Balla and his wife moved from their home in Walldorf and returned to Munich, where Wilhelm continued to work in restaurants until Europe once more descended into war. He was drafted into the Wehrmacht (regular army) in 1940 and, possibly due to his service aboard the Hindenburg, ended up being assigned to a Luftwaffe unit and stationed in Norway for most of the war.

Wilhelm Balla in his Luftwaffe uniform, 1941

In 1941, while Balla was home in Munich on leave, he invited his youngest brother, Helmut, for a visit. Since Helmut was 15 years old and almost finished with school, Wilhelm asked him what he intended to do after graduation. Helmut replied that he’d probably look for an apprenticeship as a metal worker, so that if nothing else he could find work at the coal mines where their father worked. Wilhelm suggested that he might be able to use his connections in the restaurant business to help Helmut to get a waiter’s apprenticeship in one of Munich’s finer hotels. Helmut gladly accepted, and once he had graduated school the following year he found an apprenticeship at the Regina Palast Hotel. During this time, he lived with Wilhelm and his wife, Tina – though Wilhelm was only home from the war occasionally when he could get a furlough.

Helmut and Willy Balla in Odeonsplatz in Munich in 1941

Meanwhile, the war took its toll on the Balla family. Wilhelm’s brother, Heinz, was drafted into military service in December of 1940. The following summer, following Russia’s declaration of war on Germany, Heinz Balla was sent to the Eastern Front. Here, he was badly wounded in combat and died in a field hospital on August 10, 1941, at the age of 21.

In late 1942, Wilhelm’s 19 year-old brother Alfred was also drafted into service, and was immediately sent to the Eastern Front, without being given even a short leave to visit his family before his transfer. Two weeks later, Alfred Balla, like his older brother Heinz before him, met his “Heldentod für Führer, Volk und Vaterland” (a phrase that all too many Germans were becoming familiar with, an impressive-sounding yet rather hollow official government condolence on the loss of their sons and brothers) when he, too, was killed in battle.

                                 
                                                         Heinz Balla                                                  Alfred Balla
                                                          1920-1941                                                   1923-1942

Meanwhile, the Balla family could take some genuine consolation in the fact that Wilhelm was still stationed up north in Norway, far from the worst of the fighting and unlikely to meet his “heroic death for Führer, countrymen and Fatherland.” And yet, the war was not yet done with their family. Castrop-Rauxel was in the heart of the Ruhr Valley, a key industrial area with numerous coke plants, steelworks and oil refineries, as well as the coal mines in which Wilhelm’s father, Gottlieb Balla, had spent his life working. This made the Ruhr a prime target for strategic bombing by the Allies throughout the war. On the night of August 6-7, 1944, as sirens announced the approach of yet another formation of Allied bombers, Gottlieb’s wife, Wilhelmine, had taken their three daughters to the local air raid shelter, while Gottlieb and his youngest son, 15 year-old Günter, hid in the basement of the family home.

Gottlieb Balla

On this particular night, although the Balla family did not know this at the time, the bombers were targeting the Krupp Oilworks and the rail yards in Wanne-Eickel, about five miles away. When the drone of the bombers had faded away into the distance and the sound of flak had subsided, Gottlieb decided to take a look upstairs to make sure that nothing was on fire, since the Allies were known to drop incendiaries along with their regular explosive bombs. Just as Gottlieb emerged from the basement, a single stray bomb – apparently the only bomb to fall on Castrop-Rauxel that night – exploded directly in front of the Balla home, destroying most of the house and killing Gottlieb Balla instantly.

Wilhelm Balla and four of his brothers at their father’s funeral in August of 1944.
From left: Günter, Wilhelm, Hermann, Helmut and Fritz.

Fortunately, Wilhelm Balla’s Luftwaffe unit saw no combat during his time in Norway, and it was during this time that he began to write down his memoirs of his year and a half as a Zeppelin steward. However, fate seemed determined to take just one more shot at the Balla family. Just before the end of the war, with Vienna besieged by Russian troops, Balla was transferred to Austria where he ended up being captured by the Russians. With the end of the war virtually days away, instead of preparing to return home to Tina and the rest of his family, Balla was instead sent to a labor camp in Siberia, where he would spend the next five years.

Wilhelm Balla (indicated by X) and his comrades on the day they were
released from their captivity in a Siberian labor camp, November 17, 1949.

Wilhelm Balla was finally released from Russian captivity and returned to Germany in November of 1949, where he spent some time at a rest home for returning POWs in Abtsee bei Laufen, in southeastern Bavaria. Once he had taken some time to recuperate from his long and grueling imprisonment, Balla returned to the restaurant business as a sales representative. He continued to make a good living for himself and his wife, and eventually retired in 1977 at the age of 65.

Until the end of his life, Wilhelm Balla remained convinced that an airship filled with helium rather than inflammable hydrogen would prove to be the safest, most comfortable mode of transportation in the world.


           
              Wilhelm Balla, circa 1950s                                                  Willy and Tina Balla, 1961


On May 7th, 1988, 51 years almost to the day following his narrow escape from the Hindenburg disaster, Wilhelm Balla passed away in Munich from a liver ailment at the age of 76. He and his wife Tina had been together for more than half a century.

My deepest thanks to Helmut Balla, Wilhelm Balla’s youngest brother, for providing me with a wealth of information and photos that allowed me to greatly expand upon what had been a comparatively brief article. Helmut was kind enough to send me copies of family photos and a recent Zeppelin Museum publication (available HERE) that included an edited version of Wilhelm Balla’s journal, translated excerpts of which I’ve included here. Helmut also sent me a copy of his own autobiography, “Biografie eines 84-Jährigen” (available HERE), a fascinating look at his own life and a source of valuable information about Wilhelm and the rest of the family. In addition to the photos and books, Helmut has also been very generous in corresponding with me via email to clear up various questions that have come up as I’ve assembled the information presented here. Ein herzliches Dankeschön, Helmut!