80 Years Ago Today: The Hindenburg Disaster

May 6, 1937 is a day many cannot forget: the day the Hindenburg crashed in New Jersey and killed more than 30 people.

Photograph: Murray Becker/AP

To commemorate this day, German World is sharing this article by Joanna Walters from The Guardian.

The huge airship had circled three times around the Empire State Building. It was on its way to land in New Jersey. From her home in southern Pennsylvania, Libby Magness Weisberg watched the Hindenburg glide by.

“It was amazing how beautiful it was,” she told the Guardian on Saturday. “The silver airship against a clear blue sky. How enormous. It was the most exquisite thing I had ever seen.”

Then the zeppelin turned. Its tail swung into view. On it, stark and black, were swastikas.

“We had no inkling of what Hitler was really doing to the Jews already, but I knew Germany was the enemy,” said Weisberg, 89. “I was startled, and that beauty up there turned into fear.”

Read more here.