'' 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 ever built , and in terms of their length and volume , the largest Zeppelins ever to fly . 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 destruction of this same ship in a highly publicized accident was to prove the death knell for these expectations . The second ship , LZ 130 '' Graf Zeppelin '' , was never operated on a regular passenger service , and was scrapped in 1940 by the order of Hermann Göring
highly publicized accident
Hindenburg disaster
Hindenburg-class airship