"Shadow Before The Flame"
by Catherine Grace Katz
How much do you know about the 1937 explosion and crashing of the German airship Hindenburg? If you are like me, you have no doubt seen film footage of the fiery explosion of this airship (it wasn't a "zeppelin", nor was it a "blimp", but an "airship", a distinction that you will learn about when reading this book). You have probably heard the famous recording of broadcaster Herb Morrison's description of the disaster as it unfolded before his eyes. You have no doubt used the phrase "Oh, the humanity" at some point in your life without even being aware of its origin.
Did you know that the Hindenburg had been in service for several years prior to the crash, and had in fact been making transatlantic passenger flights between Europe and North and South America during that time period? I did not.
Did you realize that over sixty of the ninety or so people on board survived the crash? I did not. Thirty-six of the on board died as result of the crash.
Did you realize that the Hindenburg remains to this day that largest aircraft ever built? I did not.
And do you know anything about the stories of the people who were on board that fateful flight? I am sure that you did not.
Author Catherine Grace Katz fills in the blanks about many of the individual passengers and crew. In her own words, the variety of people on board (a meatpacking executive, a perfume manufacturer, a vaudeville performer, a husband and wife team of authors, a single American woman, a young Yale student) were like the cast of characters in an Agatha Christie novel. She tells us all about the people, how they came to be on board that flight, and what happened to them afterwards.
The story is also told amidst the backdrop of what was happening in Germany during the 1930's leading you to the 1937 flight. The rise of Hitler, the suppression of the Jews during that period, and how the Nazis were more than happy to use the success of their airship fleet to glorify Aryan supremacy, and to use its destruction to scapegoat their enemies of the state. Interestingly enough, Hitler himself said that he "would never ride on an airship." Sadly, reading about how the Nazis and the fascists came to power in Europe, and the passing of laws and incendiary methods that were used brings to mind much of what we are seeing in the world and in America today, but that is another matter entirely, and I won't dwell on that here.
I really liked the book. I loved how Katz got into the lives of those on board, and her descriptions of those moments on board the ship leading up to the awful thirty-four seconds that consumed the Hindenburg in flames are almost cinematic. While her extensive research probably gave her an idea as to what was unfolding on the ship during the moments, I am sure that no one still living really knows, but this is probably as close as we can come to it eighty-nine years later.
This is also the story of news media and how primitive it was back in 1937. The medium of radio was less than twenty years old at the time, and it was the policy of all broadcasting networks to only air live programming. Nothing was ever recorded. How Herb Morrison convinced his bosses at station WLS in Chicago to send him to Lakehurst, NJ to record (on recording equipment that was new at the time, but very primitive by today's standards) is a story in itself. The fact that Morrison was there and captured the catastrophe as it occurred was pure luck, but it preserved forever that awful scene. You can find newsreel footage the event and recordings of Morrison's play-by-play on YouTube. It is worth the effort. Anyway, realizing that they had history on wax disc recordings, WLS played Morrison's broadcast repeatedly, which by doing so, led to changes in the way news was delivered to the public from that day forward.
My only criticism of the book was how deep in the weeds Katz got in describing how airships like the Hindenburg were constructed and how they operated. If you are a pilot or an engineer, you will probably dig all of that, but I tended to skim over those passages in the book. The same went for the details in how electrical sparks might have been generated and how that might have caused the ship to go up in flames.
I mentioned that this was heavily researched. The text of the book is only 360 pages, which made it a relatively easy read, but the footnotes, bibliography, and index run 105 pages long. Katz could have made this a dry historical tome, but she did not.
If you went to any college campus today, and asked a cross section of today's students to "tell me about the Hindenburg", I wonder how many would even have a small idea of what you was talking about. The story of the Hindenburg should not be forgotten.
Three stars from The Grandstander for this book.
The Hindenburg flies over New York City.
Photo was taken in 1936 on one of the ship previous trips.
Note the swastikas on the tail fins.
Lakehurst, New Jersey
May 6, 1937
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