On 24 April 1912 the Imperial German Navy ordered its first Zeppelin — an enlarged version of the airships operated by DELAG — which received the naval designation Z 1 and entered Navy service in October 1912 . On 18 January 1913 Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office , obtained the agreement of Kaiser Wilhelm II to a five-year program of expansion of German naval-airship strength , involving the building of two airship bases and constructing a fleet of ten airships . The first airship of the program , L 2 , was ordered on 30 January . L 1 was lost on 9 September near Heligoland when caught in a storm while taking part in an exercise with the German fleet . 14 crew members drowned , the first fatalities in a Zeppelin accident . Less than six weeks later , on 17 October , LZ 18 ( L 2 ) caught fire during its acceptance trials , killing the entire crew . These accidents deprived the Navy of most of its experienced personnel : the head of the Admiralty Air Department was killed in the L 1 and his successor died in the L 2 . The Navy was left with three partially trained crews . The next Navy zeppelin , the M class L 3 did not enter service until May 1914 : in the meantime , '' Sachsen '' was hired from DELAG as a training ship
lost on 9 September
Helgoland Island air disaster
Zeppelin