Ferdinand von Zeppelin

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name soon became synonymous with airships and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s. He founded the company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. Family and personal life Ferdinand was the scion of a . Zepelin, the family's eponymous hometown, is a small community outside the town of Bützow in Mecklenburg. Ferdinand was the son of Württemberg Minister and Hofmarschall Friedrich Jerôme Wilhelm Karl Graf von Zeppelin (1807–1886) and his wife Amélie Françoise Pauline (born Macaire d'Hogguer) (1816–1852). Ferdinand spent his childhood with his sister and brother at their Girsberg manor near Konstanz, where he was educated by private tutors. Ferdinand married Isabella Freiin von Wolff in Berlin. She was from the house of Alt-Schwanenburg (located in the present-day town of Gulbene in Latvia, then part of Livonia). They had a daughter, Helene (Hella) von Zeppelin (1879–1967) who in 1909 married Graf Alexander von Brandenstein-Zeppelin (1881–1949).