Reassessing the Hindenburg Disaster, w/ Catherine Katz

On May 6, 1937, the German airship Hindenburg came in to land at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Crowds were waiting. Radio was already rolling. Thirty-four seconds later the greatest aircraft of its age was gone—and a reporter on the field was crying into a microphone words we still know: Oh, the humanity.

We remember the fire. We are worse at remembering what the ship was for.

Historian Catherine Grace Katz joins History Shorts for a full conversation about her new book, Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War. This is not another "what sparked it" special. It is the Hindenburg put back where it belongs: on the collision course between a flying symbol of progress, a rising Nazi state, a failed helium deal with Washington, and the invention of breaking-news radio.

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