German Generalfeldmarschall Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg went down in history as a great national hero who almost won the First World War for his Fatherland. As Chief of the General Staff and commander-in-chief of German forces on the Eastern Front, he showed good judgment and persuaded Kaiser Wilhelm II to bring further military operations to an end.
It is hardly surprising that the people of Germany, then still the Weimar Republic, subsequently elected their beloved field marshal to the office of Reich President twice.
Unfortunately, in 1932 Hindenburg made a mistake that cost millions of innocent people their lives. He invited a young, promising politician, Adolf Hitler, to become Reich Chancellor. Hitler's nationalist program appealed to Hindenburg, a German aristocrat who traced his ancestry all the way back to Henry IV. Hitler did not immediately do away with his benefactor, but nobly waited for the elderly president to die. He then abolished the office, proclaimed himself Führer, and began ruling alone.
The Airship
The airship Hindenburg was designed and built by outstanding engineers at the German company Zeppelin. It was far from the world's first airship, but it was the largest and most technically advanced. The principal improvement over its predecessors was the use of the light gas helium for lift, whereas earlier models had been filled with hydrogen, a treacherous, explosive gas that was presumably responsible for their crashes. However, when only two months remained before the giant was to enter service, disagreements arose between Germany and the United States, which was supposed to supply the helium. The design had to be altered, and the airship eventually flew on hydrogen. Interestingly, the original plan was to christen the vessel Adolf Hitler. But the name Hindenburg was chosen instead. Wouldn't the newspaper headline “Adolf Hitler crashed last night” have sounded rather special back in 1937?
The handsome airship successfully completed test flights over Europe and then safely crossed the Atlantic on a training flight, inspiring universal admiration and giving investors hope for the rapid development of this form of transportation and handsome profits.
But on May 6, 1937, all those hopes came crashing down with the airship. And the point was not even that it exploded after all. After all, cynical as it may sound, almost all its predecessors had met the same fate. What mattered was that the Hindenburg disaster appeared in the press practically “live,” as a unique report from the scene. This was the airship's first passenger voyage from Europe to New York, and the whole world's attention was focused on this remarkable event. Hundreds of press photographers rushed to the planned landing site to welcome the Hindenburg. But instead of flowers and triumphant greetings, their lenses captured tongues of flame, columns of smoke, and burning wreckage. Published by newspapers around the world, these pictures made a devastating impression. Passenger travel by airship could no longer be contemplated.
Although everything happened almost instantaneously—the giant caught fire and fell in no more than thirty seconds—many professionals were standing with their cameras ready and, despite their shock, managed to take photographs. These people fulfilled their professional duty with honor, and those are not merely grand words. They were not war correspondents accustomed to gunfire and explosions, but ordinary newspaper reporters. Their first, natural reaction should have been to run and save themselves. But they did not run.
Among the photographers were Charles Hoff, Gus Pasquarella, Bill Springfield, Jack Snyder, and Murray Becker. In all, the Daily Mirror obtained nine photographs of the crash, while the World-Telegram received more than twenty. The New York Sunday Mirror became the “lucky” owner of the only color photograph, taken by photographer Jerry Sheedy. The largest newspaper in the United States, the New York Post, had so many photographs that they could not fit in a single issue and were published throughout the following week.
And yet, among the multitude of photographs, only one became engraved in people's memories and survived the decades.
That photograph was taken by an immigrant named Sam Shere. He was born in Minsk, Belarus, in 1904. During the years of anti-Jewish pogroms, his family managed to move to the United States. Samuel spent his entire life in New York, where he first worked as an assistant to well-known photographers and then secured a position with the prestigious magazine Life. Shere, still young and unknown, arrived early at the Hindenburg's landing site to secure a place as close as possible to the landing area. But he had miscalculated: a crowd had already gathered. He was a man of substantial build, with exceptionally broad shoulders, and by using his elbows and fists he eventually managed to force his way into the front rows.
The airship was already over New York when a warning of a possible thunderstorm was received. The captain had to wait for the weather front to pass and circled over Manhattan for several hours, giving his European passengers an opportunity to admire what were then still a novelty: skyscrapers. The crowd waiting below grew bored. With nothing better to do, Shere began photographing everything in sight. Consequently, when the guest of honor finally approached the mooring mast and dropped its landing ropes, the film in Shere's camera was almost used up. He had only two frames left.
A brilliant burst of flame overhead literally blinded him. Before he had even understood what was happening, or what was burning, Shere threw his arms up with the camera and, without looking through the viewfinder, took a single photograph. The next instant, the blast wave hurled him aside. He struck his head and lost consciousness. When he came to, he discovered that even while unconscious he had gripped his camera firmly in his hands, and fortunately it was undamaged. This single photograph, taken “blind” by a professional of the highest caliber, became the iconic image of the Hindenburg that entered history.
Shere received all manner of awards and continued a successful career with the prestigious agency International News Photos. He photographed exclusively presidents and prominent politicians and ended his days in 1977 in a comfortable retirement home in Smyrna Beach, Florida.