Hindenburg Crash Mail - the Scout Covers

Introduction

The 1937 World Scout Jamboree The Fifth World Scout Jamboree took place in the Netherlands in the summer of 1937. On April 1, 1937, the Netherlands issued a series of commemorative postage stamps on the occasion of the event, designed by Pijke Koch. The set consisted of three stamps: 1½ cents (domestic printed matter rate), 6 cents (domestic letter rate) and 12½ cents (foreign letters). The designs for the 1½ cents and 6 cents values need no further explanation: the 1½ cents value shows the Boy Scout badge, and the 6 cents value shows the close-up of a Boy Scout drumming, with flags in the background. Less obvious is why the artist selected Hermes for the 12½ cents stamp. Hermes was the messenger god of the ancient Greece, and "as a pathfinder to unknown places, he was ready to help others", the symbolic intention becomes clear. The Hermes statue, by the artist Praxiteles, dates from the 4th century B.C., and is now housed in the Archaeological Museum at Olympia, Greece. The Jamboree stamps saw many different usages from the First Day of Issue on April 1, until they were withdrawn from sale on September 1, 1937. Probably the most famous of all the Jamboree connected postal items is the use of the Jamboree stamps in May before the Jamboree opened on mail carried on the last flight of the zeppelin Hindenburg.

The disaster flight

To most of the onlookers, the first sign that there was anything wrong came when a burst of flame appeared just forward of the upper fin. In seconds the flame engulfed the tail and began moving forward. The ground crew shrank back as the fire roared toward the bow and the tail began to fall. Through the flames figures could be seen dropping to the ground. The tail hit first then the rest of the ship came crashing down. Men and women, some with their clothes on fire, emerged from the inferno. Some crawled. Some ran. Some stumbled and fell. Between the first flash of fire and the crash, only thirty-four seconds had elapsed.

In that unbelievable half minute, broadcaster Herb Morrison suddenly found himself reporting the biggest story of his life -- and it was almost too much for him. His smooth delivery became a jumble of impressions as the emotions of the unfolding disaster took hold. “It’s burst into flames...get this, Charlie, get this, Charlie... Get out of the way, please, oh, my, this is terrible, oh, my, get out of the way, please! It is burning, burst into flames and is falling on the mooring mast and all the folks we...this is one of the worst catastrophes in the world!...Oh, it’s four or five hundred feet into the sky, it’s a terrific crash ladies and gentlemen...oh, the humanity and all the passengers!”

For a period of 60 years, the cause of the disaster was blamed on burning hydrogen. One commonly accepted theory was a broken wire cutting one of the gas cells, which resulted in hydrogen escaping and mingling with air under the outer cover. The burning hydrogen theory prevailed, even though Max Pruss, the captain of the doomed ship, insisted there was no indication of gas loss on the bridge, riggers reported all gas cells were evenly inflated, and no one reported smelling garlic, the scent of which had been added to the lifting gas to help detect a leak. So what had set the outer cover afire? It is possible that the actual cause of the fire was the extreme flammability of the covering material brought about by discharges of an electrostatic nature. This interesting theory is discussed by Van Treuren [2] and by Duggan [3]. The static spark theory and other possible causes are thoroughly discussed in Cause of the Hindenburg Disaster [4].

Very little mail was salvaged

USPO letter of transmittal sent with the Thoolen covers to the Wooster Postmaster re their delivery to the addressee. The letter states 17 covers. Courtesy Matthew Bennett International auctions. Click for larger image.

The 'Thoolen' covers A number of Dutch covers were sent from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to Mr. G. Thoolen, c/o Mr. Donald E. Dickason, Wooster, Ohio, U.S.A. It is understood that each of these covers was franked with one 12½c Jamboree stamp, but this cannot be confirmed due to the fact that the stamp on one of the covers was totally destroyed by the fire. The 'Thoolen' covers were postmarked at Rotterdam-Waalhaven on May 1, 1937, then sent to Frankfurt, Germany, and placed on board the Hindenburg for the trip to America. Gerard Thoolen was a stamp dealer in 's Gravenhage (The Hague), the Netherlands. It is known that Mr. Thoolen also sent several covers by the airship Hindenburg to his stamp dealer colleague Donald E. Dickason in Wooster, Ohio, in 1936, and Mr. Dickason returned these to Mr. Thoolen upon receipt. Mr. Dickason was then past president of the American Air Mail Society. Mr. Thoolen's Hindenburg crash covers were purchased by Mr. Dickason in 1937. Falk's Hindenburg Crash Mail - The search Goes on, 1976 [5] lists 17 items mailed from the Netherlands. These are the 'Thoolen' covers mentioned above. Further research by Ganz in Netherlands Hindenburg Crash Mail, 1985-86 [6] and How Many of the Dutch Dispatches Survived?, 1987 [7] increased the number to 26, that is nine covers in addition to the 17 'Thoolen' covers. Seven of these additional nine covers are franked with Jamboree stamps. The Dutch airmail catalogue Luchtpostcatalogus van Nederland en Overzeese Rijksdelen, 1998 [8] and the two leading zeppelin mail catalogues, Sieger [9] and Michel [10], all state only 23 salvaged covers with Dutch franking. Michel [10] mentions specifically that 18 covers to Thoolen at Wooster, OH are recorded (i.e. one cover more than the other sources), and five covers to other addressees. The transmittal letter from Albert Goldman, Postmaster in New York, to the Postmaster in Wooster, Ohio, dated May 19, 1937 states: Enclosure addressed to: (2 packages) 17 letters Mr. G. Thoolen, Care Mr. Donald E. Dickason, Wooster, Ohio. A letter from the First Assistant Postmaster General Office in Washington DC dated August 13, 1938 to Charles W. Mihle says: the records of this Department indicate that . . . 17 for Mr. Thoolen. It was therefore believed that the number of 'Thoolen' covers presented in the Michel catalogue is incorrect, and for a long time 17 'Thoolen' covers were recorded. However, additional covers have been reported, thus increasing the known number of genuine 'Thoolen' covers to 19 (plus one doubtful cover). In this writer's opinion, cover #10 listed below is questionable since no postmark is readable. It may be a genuine 1937 cover, or a 1936 cover which has been treated or forged to look like a 1937 cover. Dieter Leder [13] states that is is a forgery.

Thoolen himself says only 13 covers! To further complicate the question about how many 'Thoolen' covers there were, the illustration above shows that stamp dealer Thoolen himself in a 1939 letter operated with a lower number of covers, only 13! The Dutch letter translates to Dear Mr. Buisman, Thank you for your letter. Herewith you receive two remainings of two covers, sent by the Hindenburg which burned. From my mailings, luckily 13 pieces were salvaged. 11 of them are for sale in the USA and the two less nicer ones went back to Holland. They are absolutely genuine and went by the Hindenburg. My price for both interesting pieces (segment cut out). I give lifelong guarantee. Perhaps Mr. Thoolen stated a low number of covers in an attempt to increase the price?

Dieter Leder authored a superb book in 2012 LZ129 Hindenburg Zeppelin Crash Mail [13]. This book describes in great detail how mail was salvaged from the wreck, and he attributes each piece of mail to identified findings. Leder also demonstrates that the 'Thoolen' covers were in two groups. Each group shows the progressive way the fire advanced and affected the covers when studying burning traces and paper loss. In 2021, a previously unrecorded 'Thoolen' cover was auctioned, and it fits nicely in between Leder's numbers B-5 and B-6, see below.
The last word is probably not said about the 'Thoolen' covers, and further research is encouraged.

Covers to other addressees

"The American postmaster hands a burnt cover from the perished Zeppelin to the addressee."
This is one of the covers #18-20 below (courtesy Karl Pfankuch & Co).

Sieger [9], Michel [10] and Leder [12] warn about forged Hindenburg crash mail items. The recorded forgeries are covers with genuine German postage stamps and forged or altered postmarks.

Postage rates

		Recorded Hindenburg Crash Mail Items from the Netherlands:
No.		Addressee		Postmarked
1-17, 27-29		Mr. G. Thoolen, c/o Mr. Donald E. Dickason, Wooster, Ohio		Rotterdam-Waalhaven, May 1.
18-20		Donald C. Rose, 1104 Henry Street, St. Joseph, Missouri		Amsterdam Watergraafsmeer, April 30.
21-22		R.F. Lutz, Philadelphia, Pa.		's Hertogenbosch, May 1.
23		Mrs. Benn Lewis, Ocean Ave., Brooklyn, NY		Amsterdam Centraal Station, May 1.
24		Eva List, 1143 Forest Avenue, Ann Arbor, Mich.		Amsterdam Centraal Station, May 2.
25		Mr. P. Mak, Hillside Avenue, Nutley, NJ		Schiedam, May 1.
26		Mrs. E. Le Mee, 6802 Ridge Blvd, Brooklyn, NY		Haarlem, May 1 or 2.
30		Unknown		Unknown.

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to John 'Ben' Adams, Zvi Aloni, Julian van Beveren, Koos Biesheuvel, Panayotis D. Cangelaris, Josef Doert, Oded Eliashar, Cheryl R. Ganz, Randall S. Frank, John Ineson FRPSL, Robert F. Kan, Dr. Frederick P. Lawrence FRPSL, Dieter Leder, Karl Pfankuch & Co. and Bjørn Schøyen for their valuable contributions to this article.

References:

1. Uzakewicz, Douglas, Lighter than Air, SOSSI Journal (Scouts On Stamps Society International), May/June 1995, pp7-16, with supplement in SOSSI Journal, May/June 1996, pp12-13.
2. Van Treuren, Richard G., Odorless, Colorless, Blameless, Air & Space Smithsonian magazine, May 1997, pp14-16.
3. Duggan, John, LZ 129 Hindenburg - The Complete Story, 2002.
4. aerospaceweb.org Cause of the Hindenburg Disaster http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/investigations/q0277.shtml
5. Falk, Arthur, Hindenburg Crash Mail - The search Goes on, 1976.
6. Ganz, Cheryl, Netherlands Hindenburg Crash Mail, The Zeppelin Collector, published in The Jack Knight Air Log & AFA News, July-September 1985, pp30-33, with updates in January-March 1986 p51, July-September 1986 p47, October 1986 p40.
7. Ganz, Cheryl, How Many of the Dutch Dispatches Survived?, The American Philatelist, May 1987, pp458-460.
8. De Vliegende Hollander, Luchtpost-catalogus van Nederland en Overzeese Rijksdelen, 1998.
9. Sieger, Zeppelinpost Spezial-katalog, 22nd edition, 2001.
10. Michel, Zeppelin Specialized Catalogue, 2003.
11. Verschuur, W.F., Zeppelin en Zeppelinpost, Jubileumtentoonstellingsgids Alphilia '96, 1996.
12. Leder, Dieter, The Forgeries of the Lakehurst Mail, The Airpost Journal, June 1998, pp217-220.
13. Leder, Dieter, LZ 129 Hindenburg Zeppelin Crash Mail, ISBN 978-3-940702-35-7, 2012

Other resources:

• SOSSI website, http://www.sossi.org :
  • 1937 World Jamboree Zeppelin Scout Mail
  • Scouting Postal History of the 1930's
  • Stamp Collecting Merit Badge
• The Cangelaris Philatelic Collection, http://www.cangelaris.com/exsco.htm
• Scoutpost-Information, Journal of ArGe Pfadfinder e.V., http://www.arge-pfadfinder.org
• Hindenburg Crash Mail (National Postal Museum, Washington D.C., USA), http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/1d_Hindenburg.html
• The Wreck and Crash Mail Society, http://wreckandcrash.org/
• eZEP.de, web portal for zeppelin mail and airship memorabilia

Please inform the author at hallvard@slettebo.no, should you have further information on Hindenburg crash covers with Dutch franking. In particular, new or improved illustrations of such covers are appreciated.