LZ 129 Hindenburg in the context of "Rigid airship"

The 1930s (pronounced "nineteen-thirties" and commonly abbreviated as "the '30s" or "the Thirties") was a decade that began on January 1, 1930, and ended on December 31, 1939. In the United States, the Dust Bowl led to the nickname the "Dirty Thirties".

The decade was defined by a global economic and political crisis that culminated in the Second World War. It saw the collapse of the international financial system, beginning with the Wall Street crash of 1929, the largest stock market crash in American history. The subsequent economic downfall, called the Great Depression, had traumatic social effects worldwide, leading to widespread poverty and unemployment, especially in the economic superpower of the United States and in Germany, which was already struggling with the payment of reparations for the First World War. The Dust Bowl in the United States (which led to the nickname the "Dirty Thirties") exacerbated the scarcity of wealth. U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who took office in 1933, introduced a program of broad-scale social reforms and stimulus plans called the New Deal in response to the crisis. The Soviet Union's second five-year plan gave heavy industry top priority, putting the Soviet Union not far behind Germany as one of the major steel-producing countries of the world, while also improving communications. First-wave feminism made advances, with women gaining the right to vote in South Africa (1930, whites only), Brazil (1933), and Cuba (1933). Following the rise of Adolf Hitler and the emergence of the NSDAP as the country's sole legal party in 1933, Germany imposed a series of laws which discriminated against Jews and other ethnic minorities.

An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air to achieve the lift needed to stay airborne.

In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability, but the inherent flammability led to several fatal accidents that rendered hydrogen airships obsolete. The alternative lifting gas, helium, is not flammable, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only available for airship usage in North America. Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.

The Hindenburg disaster was an airship accident that occurred on May 6, 1937, in Manchester Township, New Jersey, United States. The LZ 129 Hindenburg (Luftschiff Zeppelin #129; Registration: D-LZ 129) was a German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of the Hindenburg class, the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume. Filled with hydrogen, it caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst. The accident caused 35 fatalities (13 passengers and 22 crewmen) among the 97 people on board (36 passengers and 61 crewmen), and an additional fatality on the ground.

The disaster was the subject of newsreel coverage, photographs and Herbert Morrison's recorded radio eyewitness reports from the landing field, which were broadcast the next day. A variety of theories have been put forward for both the cause of ignition and the initial fuel for the ensuing fire. The publicity shattered public confidence in the giant passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the abrupt end of the airship era.

Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium–copper alloys. The term is a combination of Düren and aluminium. Its use as a trade name is obsolete. Today the term mainly refers to aluminium-copper alloys, designated as the 2000 series by the international alloy designation system (IADS), as with 2014 and 2024 alloys used in airframe fabrication.

Duralumin was developed in 1909 in Germany.Duralumin is known for its strength and hardness, making it suitable for various applications, especially in the aviation and aerospace industry. However, it is susceptible to corrosion, which can be mitigated by using alclad-duralum materials.

The two Hindenburg-class airships were hydrogen-filled, passenger-carrying rigid airships built in Germany in the 1930s and named in honor of Paul von Hindenburg. They were the last such aircraft to be constructed, and in terms of their length, height, and volume, the largest aircraft ever built. During the 1930s, airships like the Hindenburg class were widely considered the future of air travel, and the lead ship of the class, LZ 129 Hindenburg, established a regular transatlantic service. The airship's destruction in a highly publicized accident was the end of these expectations. The second ship, LZ 130 Graf Zeppelin, was never operated on a regular passenger service, and was scrapped in 1940 along with its namesake predecessor, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin, by order of Hermann Göring.

Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei (lit. 'German Zeppelin Airship Company'), abbreviated DZR, is a German limited-liability company that operates commercial passenger zeppelin flights. The current incarnation of the DZR was founded in 2001 and is based in Friedrichshafen. It is a subsidiary of Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik and operates Zeppelin NT "Next Generation" airships. By 2009 the DZR had transported over 55,000 passengers. As of 2012 the DZR flies a schedule of 12 tour routes between March and November in Southern Germany. The company also operates flights to other selected cities as well as charter flights.

In the mid-1930s, the DZR was a commercial airline based in Frankfurt that operated zeppelins in regular transatlantic revenue service, including the famous LZ 129 Hindenburg. Following the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 the DZR stopped transatlantic service, although it launched a new airship in 1938 and had another on order. Plans for more operations ended at the outbreak of World War II and its remaining two zeppelins were dismantled and scrapped in 1940. Today's DZR sees itself as the successor of this original airline and is incorporated under the same name.

R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme, a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry–appointed team and was effectively in competition with the government-funded but privately designed and built R100. When built, it was the world's largest flying craft at 731 ft (223 m) in length, and it was not surpassed by another hydrogen-filled rigid airship until the LZ 129 Hindenburg was launched seven years later.

After trial flights and subsequent modifications to increase lifting capacity, which included lengthening the ship by 46 ft (14 m) to add another gasbag, the R101 crashed in France during its maiden overseas voyage on 5 October 1930, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. Among the passengers killed were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible's designers from the Royal Airship Works.