Completed in 1936 and named after the late German president Paul von Hindenburg, it was the world’s first transatlantic commercial airliner and a symbol of the country’s revived potency - a point underlined by the huge Nazi swastikas that graced its tail fins.

On command of propaganda minister Josef Goebbels, its first appearance was in the skies over every large German town, raining down on them Nazi campaign pamphlets and blaring patriotic music. There was a small problem, however. The Hindenburg was designed to run on helium (a non-volatile gas) but America refused to sell it to the Germans for fear of it being used for military purposes - as it had been against the Allies during the First World War.

The Germans decided to use hydrogen instead, which might have been all right if the 190,000 standard cubic-metres of this highly volatile gas had been carried in bags more protective than mere cloth. But they weren’tI and one theory is that the electrical storms over New York City on May 3, 1937 led to an electrostatic discharge setting light to a hydrogen leak. The Hindenburg was on the outward journey of its 11th return transatlantic flight when it caught fire and exploded as it landed at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.

Thirty-six passengers and crew members were killed out of the 97 on board.

Later investigations (immediately favoured by the Hydrogen Association) placed the blame not with the hydrogen but with the nature of the Hindenburg’s fabric envelope, involving a highly inflammable “aluminised cellulose acetate butyrate dopant” and claim it was this that caught fire in the highly electrical atmospheric conditions at the fateful hour - the airship burned but didn’t explode.

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