Max Pruss

Captain Max Pruss (13 September 1891 - 28 November 1960) was the commander of the Hindenburg on its last voyage and a surviving crew member of the zeppelin disaster.

Biography

Max Pruss was born in 1891 in Sgon, East Prussia (now Zgon, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland). He joined the German Navy in 1906 and completed airship training during World War I, serving as an elevatorman on the German zeppelins. Pruss received command of the Hindenburg in 1936.

Hindenburg disaster

Pruss was commander of the airship during the Hindenburg disaster of 6 May 1937. Pruss and several crew members rode the Hindenburg down to the ground as it burned, then ordered everybody out. He carried radio operator Willy Speck out of the wreckage, then looked for survivors until rescuers were forced to restrain him. Pruss, however, suffered extensive burns and had to be taken out by ambulance to Paul Kimball Hospital in Lakehurst. The burns were so extensive that he was given last rites, but his condition improved over the next few months. Pruss was unable to testify at investigative committees, but officially he was not held responsible. Pruss maintained that the disaster was caused by sabotage, and dismissed the possibility that it was sparked by lightning.

After the Hindenburg

Pruss returned to Germany around October 1937, where he served as commandant of Frankfurt Airport as World War II broke out. By this time he was already urging the modernization of Germany's remaining Zeppelin fleet, and during a 1940 visit of Hermann Göring to Frankfurt Airport this was the subject of an alleged quarrel between Pruss and Göring. In the 1950s Pruss tried to raise money for new Zeppelin construction, citing the comfort and luxury of this mode of transportation. He died in 1960 of pneumonia after a stomach operation. Pruss would not see his dream realized until over 30 years later with the construction of a new airship at the Friedrichshafen complex by Zeppelin Neue Technologie (NT).

References

• Hindenburg Captain Max Pruss - airships.net
• Faces of the Hindenburg