The Zeppelin Organization at the Time of Its Greatest Activity 1918-1919
The Zeppelin Endowment for the Propagation of Air Navigation (Zeppelinstiftung zur Foerderung der Luftfahrt) which Count Zeppelin founded with the subscription fund of 6,000,000 marks presented to him by the German people in 1908, is administered by a Board of Directors, of which Baron Max Freiherr von Gemmingen, Zeppelin’s nephew, who worked with him from the start, is Chairman. The other Directors are Baron von Bassus and Dr. Hugo Eckener.
The Zeppelin Endowment owns Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin (Zeppelin Airship Building Co.), the construction company organized in 1908 and controls the “DELAG” organized, as stated before, in 1910 for the operation of commercial Zeppelins. Interested in the “DELAG” are a number of financiers, though with all the others, it was under the personal supervision of Count Zeppelin, and after him the Directorate of the Zeppelin Endowment.
At the time of the Armistice the construction and operating companies employed 1,600 persons on their executive and engineering staffs and 12,000 workmen.
Many subsidiary companies were organized and operated, specializing in the various branches of Zeppelin work, experimenting and producing.