Last survivor of Hindenburg disaster was 8 when giant airship exploded in flames
Werner Doehner, who has died aged 90, was the last survivor of the Hindenburg airship disaster in 1937. At the time of the tragedy, Doehner was 8 and travelling aboard the zeppelin with his family.
His father Hermann, 50, was the general manager of Beick, Felix, a pharmaceutical company based in Mexico City. He had been on business in Hamburg, and suggested to his wife Matilde that they and the children travel home to Mexico aboard the Hindenburg.
Matilde Doehner was nervous, but her husband persuaded her that the airship would save them two days, crossing the
Atlantic in half the time that a liner could. Nor did it lack in the luxuries, with comforts including a dedicated smoking room and a baby grand piano, made of aluminium to save weight.
When LZ 129 left Frankfurt on May 3, 1937, bound for the United States with about 100 passengers and crew, the Doehners were accompanied by Werner, his brother Walter, 10, and their sister Irene, 14. The family’s two older boys were not with them.
Werner recalled how enormous the Hindenburg had seemed when they boarded. At more than 240 metres long, it was the largest aircraft then built, held aloft by almost 200,000 cubic metres of hydrogen stored in 16 giant bags. A toy tank that Werner had been given by a great-aunt was speedily confiscated by a steward since it gave off sparks.
Strong winds meant that the ship was half a day behind schedule when it reached the US on May 6. The captain took a short cut over Manhattan, delighting both the crowds below and Werner, who remembered seeing the Empire State Building.
A few hours later, delayed still further by thunderstorms, it prepared to moor at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The Doehners were in the portside dining room, although Hermann had gone to their cabin to fetch an extra roll of film for his camera. Suddenly, the zeppelin lurched and tilted, and the family were flung against the back wall. Those on the ground saw the airship burst into flames at the rear and begin to fall. Within 30 seconds, it was an inferno.
As the dining room became a fireball, that part of the ship levelled up as it dropped, and Matilde Doehner was able to push Walter out of an observation window. When she tried to do the same to Werner, he cannoned off the frame, and by the time she succeeded with a second attempt, his hair and face were on fire.
He fell about 6m before being caught by a steward, who smothered the flames. Matilde went back for Irene, but she refused to come without her father and her mother jumped without her; she broke her pelvis on landing.
Irene was subsequently found in the
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Do you know someone who deserves a Life Story? Email obituaries@dompost.co.nz wreckage by another steward. She was in a state of profound shock and her burns were so bad that a nurse fainted on seeing them. Irene died the next day in hospital, while Hermann Doehner’s body was identified from his wedding ring. He was one of 35 passengers and crew who perished – another person was killed on the ground – but 62 escaped.
The newsreel footage and the evocative commentary by the radio journalist Herb Morrison – ‘‘Oh, the humanity!’’ – ensured that the disaster was seen around the globe and thereafter lodged in the collective memory (a photograph of the Hindenburg ablaze was used for the cover of Led Zeppelin’s debut LP more than 30 years later). The official cause of the accident was ascribed to hydrogen being set alight by a static spark, but there have been many other theories since, including sabotage.
As they recuperated in hospital in New York, the Doehners became for a time the face of the tragedy. Reporters and photographers invited themselves into their rooms and took pictures of them – including Irene – lying burned in their beds. Matilde gamely gave interviews until she became exhausted. Nurses later praised her strength in keeping up her sons’ morale despite her own injuries and the loss of her husband and daughter.
At first, until the swelling subsided, there were fears for Werner’s sight. He had also been badly burned on his hands and legs – he could recall a nurse bursting his blisters with a needle. The family eventually returned home to Mexico the following year.
After taking a degree in electrical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Werner worked for the Comision Federal de Electricidad, the country’s stateowned utility. He continued to pursue a career in the energy sector, in Ecuador as well as in Mexico, and in 1984 joined General Electric and moved to Philadelphia. He retired in 1999 and lived in Colorado until moving to New Hampshire last year.
He married in 1967 and had a son, Bernd, who recalls being taken by his father to the air station at Lakehurst, but not being shown the memorial to the disaster, of which he says his father repressed memories. – Telegraph Group