1933 (Oct 7th) Gibraltar, Registered to Argentina by Zeppelin

1933 (Oct 7th) Gibraltar, Registered to Argentina by Zeppelin

The Century of Progress Flight to 1933 Chicago World’s Fair

By late 1933, Graf Zeppelin had not been to the United States in over four years, since the Round-the-World flight of 1929.  When the Zeppelin Company was asked to fly the ship to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair, officially dubbed the “Century of Progress International Exposition,” Eckener agreed on condition that the United States issue a special commemorative stamp and share the postal revenue with the Zeppelin Company.  After initial opposition by the United States Post Office (and President Franklin Roosevelt’s initial rejection of the idea of a fourth zeppelin stamp), the Post Office eventually agreed to issue the stamp, and so at the end of Graf Zeppelin’s last flight to South America in October, 1933, instead of returning directly to Germany from Brazil, Graf Zeppelin flew to the United States for stops in Miami, Akron, and Chicago.

While Graf Zeppelin’s appearance was one of the highlights of the Chicago Fair, the swastika-emblazoned ship, which was viewed as a symbol of the new government in Berlin, triggered strong political responses from both supporters and opponents of Hitler’s regime, especially among German-Americans.  The political controversy muted the enthusiasm that Americans had previously displayed toward the German ship during its earlier visits, and when Eckener took Graf Zeppelin on a aerial circuit around Chicago to show his ship to the residents of the city, he was careful to to fly a clockwise pattern so that Chicagoans would see only the tricolour German flag on the starboard fin, and not the swastika flag painted on the port fin under the new regulations issued by the German Air Ministry.