1. Max Pruss was the captain of the Zeppelin LZ 129 Hindenburg on its last voyage and a surviving crew member of the disaster.
11 Facts About Max Pruss
1. 2.
Max Pruss was born in 1891 in Sgonn, East Prussia.
3.
Max Pruss joined the German Navy in 1906 and completed airship training during World War I, serving as an elevatorman on the German Zeppelins.
4.
Max Pruss was commander of the airship during the Hindenburg disaster of 6 May 1937.
5.
Max Pruss carried radio operator Willy Speck out of the wreckage, then looked for survivors until rescuers were forced to restrain him.
6.
Max Pruss suffered extensive burns and had to be taken out by ambulance to Paul Kimball Hospital in Lakewood.
7.
Max Pruss was unable to testify at investigative committees, but officially he was not held responsible.
8.
Max Pruss insisted that such turns were normal procedure, and that the stern heaviness experienced during the approach was normal due to rainwater being displaced at the tail.
9.
Max Pruss returned to Germany around October 1937, where he served as commandant of Frankfurt Airport as World War II broke out.
10.
Max Pruss died in 1960 of pneumonia after a stomach operation.
11.
Max Pruss did not see his dream realized, as his death was over 30 years before the construction of a new airship at the Friedrichshafen complex by Zeppelin Neue Technologie.