A Look at Life Aboard the <em>Hindenburg</em> Before Disaster Struck
Ernst Lehmann had transported some interesting creatures in his time as a zeppelin captain—prize Trakehner horses from Prussia; gorillas, chimpanzees, and monkeys used in scientific research; guinea pigs; canaries; carrier pigeons; even queen bees—but perhaps the species that made itself the biggest nuisance for the crew was dogs.
恩斯特·莱曼（Ernst Lehmann）在担任齐柏林飞艇船长期间运输过一些有趣的动物——来自普鲁士的特拉克纳奖马；用于科学研究的大猩猩、黑猩猩和猴子；豚鼠；金丝雀；信鸽；甚至还有蜂王——但对船员来说最大的麻烦也许是狗。
Dogs always seemed to come along with American entertainer owners who were apparently unable to travel without them.
狗似乎总是伴随着美国艺人老板，他们显然无法没有它们来旅行。
The year before, the silent film actor Douglas Fairbanks, star of swashbuckling hits like The Mark of Zorro , Robin Hood , and The Three Musketeers , was traveling home from Europe with his new bride, the former Lady Sylvia Ashley, and their six-month‑old Scottie named Bobby Burns.
一年前，出演过《佐罗的印记》、《罗宾汉》和《三个火枪手》等热门影片的无声电影演员道格拉斯·费尔班克斯带着他的新婚妻子西尔维娅·阿什利夫人和六个月大的名叫鲍比·伯恩斯的斯科蒂从欧洲回家。
While in flight, Mrs. Fairbanks had allowed little Bobby Burns off his leash so he could avail himself of the facilities.
在飞行途中，费尔班克斯夫人松开了小鲍比·伯恩斯的皮带，以便他可以使用这些设施。
As the first animal aboard the new airship, he decided to mark his territory, leaving, as steward Wilhelm Balla quipped, his “business cards everywhere” while Mrs. Fairbanks worked on a jigsaw puzzle.
作为新飞艇上的第一只动物，他决定标记自己的领地，正如乘务员威廉·巴拉（Wilhelm Balla）调侃的那样，在费尔班克斯夫人玩拼图游戏时，他的“名片到处都是”。
Passengers’ casual disregard for the sheer wonder of flight, or just how quickly they became bored and defaulted to their mindless earthly activities, never ceased to amaze Lehmann.
乘客们对飞行的纯粹奇迹的漫不经心的漠视，或者他们很快就感到无聊并默认进行他们无意识的尘世活动，一直让莱曼感到惊讶。
On the Graf Zeppelin ’s very first flight over Germany in 1928, he had passed through the dining room and found two passengers who had already grown tired of looking out the window and were instead sitting quietly playing a game of chess.
1928年，齐柏林伯爵号第一次飞越德国时，他穿过餐厅，发现两名乘客已经厌倦了看窗外，而是安静地坐着下棋。
“How quickly men become accustomed to the unusual!” he had remarked with disdain.
“人们多么快就习惯了不寻常的事情！”他轻蔑地说道。
Man had dreamed of flying for centuries.
几个世纪以来，人类一直梦想着飞行。
“What was a miracle yesterday, becomes a habit today,” he had harrumphed in his memoir.
“昨天的奇迹，今天变成了一种习惯，”他在回忆录中大声说道。
Lehmann’s was a complaint shared by many groundbreaking aviators, of the heavier‑ and lighter‑than‑air varieties alike.
莱曼的问题是许多开创性的飞行员的共同抱怨，无论是比空气重还是比空气轻的品种都是如此。
Even Charles Lindbergh agreed.
甚至查尔斯·林德伯格也同意。
“In developing aviation, in making it a form of commerce, in replacing the wild freedom of danger with the civilized bonds of safety,” he mused, “must we give up this miracle of air?”
“在发展航空业，使其成为一种商业形式，在用文明的安全纽带取代危险的狂野自由时，”他若有所思地说，“我们必须放弃这个空气奇迹吗？”
Passengers’ casual disregard for the sheer wonder of flight, or just how quickly they became bored and defaulted to their mindless earthly activities, never ceased to amaze Lehmann.
乘客们对飞行的纯粹奇迹的漫不经心的漠视，或者他们很快就感到无聊并默认进行他们无意识的尘世活动，一直让莱曼感到惊讶。
It could not have been lost upon Lehmann that this first trip of the Hindenburg ’s 1937 season had commenced a mere eighteen days shy of the tenth anniversary of Lindbergh’s own “miracle of air.” While Lindbergh’s achievement was remarkable, many seemed to forget that he had only accomplished what airships had been proving possible since the British beat the Germans to transatlantic zeppelin flight in 1919.
莱曼不可能忘记，兴登堡号 1937 年赛季的首次航行距离林德伯格自己的“空中奇迹”十周年纪念日仅剩 18 天。虽然林德伯格的成就令人瞩目，但许多人似乎忘记了，自 1919 年英国击败德国实现跨大西洋齐柏林飞艇飞行以来，他只完成了飞艇被证明可以实现的任务。
The rivalry between airships and airplanes aside, the brotherhood of aviators had witnessed some remarkable sights in the first three decades of the twentieth century.
除了飞艇和飞机之间的竞争之外，飞行员兄弟在二十世纪的前三十年也见证了一些非凡的景象。
Only an airman knew that when flying over London, the lights along the Thames looked like the Milky Way, and only from an aircraft could the “benumbing” and “monstrous” vastness of the swamps, forests, and streams of Siberia be appreciated in their endless expanse.
只有飞行员知道，飞越伦敦上空时，泰晤士河沿岸的灯光就像银河一样，只有在飞机上才能欣赏到西伯利亚沼泽、森林和溪流的“麻木”和“可怕”。
So uncharted was their route on the round‑the‑world flight that when planning their journey over the Stanovoy mountains in the Russian Far East, the crew could find almost no information about the height of the range aside from one report that suggested the section in question was 3,500 feet high.
他们的环球飞行路线是如此未知，以至于在计划飞越俄罗斯远东斯坦诺沃伊山脉的旅程时，机组人员几乎找不到任何有关该范围高度的信息，除了一份报告表明该部分高 3,500 英尺。
As a precaution, Eckener added an extra 2,000 feet of clearance as they groped their way through fog and clouds.
作为预防措施，埃克纳在他们在雾和云中摸索前进时额外增加了 2,000 英尺的间隙。
Just before they reached the Sea of Okhotsk, the clouds finally dispersed, and only then did the crew realize they had cleared the mountain ridge by a mere three hundred feet.
就在到达鄂霍次克海之前，云层终于散去，船员们才意识到他们已经把山脊清除了仅仅三百英尺。
After Siberia’s wild, hostile nature, it was a “refreshing” relief when they reached the island of Hokkaido the next morning and could look down to see “neatly divided…rice fields, gardens, and clean houses.”
在经历了西伯利亚狂野、充满敌意的大自然之后，第二天早上，当他们到达北海道岛时，他们看到了“整齐划一的……稻田、花园和干净的房子”，这是一种“令人耳目一新”的解脱。
On a zeppelin, as a DZR marketing pamphlet exclaimed, “the prophetic vision of Jules Verne has been realized.” Passengers could experience for themselves the stuff of science fiction novels.
在齐柏林飞艇上，正如 DZR 营销小册子所惊呼的那样，“儒勒·凡尔纳的预言已经实现。”乘客可以亲身体验科幻小说中的情节。
In describing this balance between wonder and commerce, DZR might have done a bit too much to convince nervous fliers that riding on a zeppelin was as easy as sitting in their own living rooms.
在描述奇迹与商业之间的这种平衡时，DZR 可能做得有点过分了，为了让紧张的乘客相信乘坐齐柏林飞艇就像坐在自己的客厅里一样容易。
In the passenger lounge, where card games and jigsaw puzzles always began to appear midway through the first full day of the crossing, some passengers seemed oblivious to the fact they were airborne at all.
在乘客休息室里，纸牌游戏和拼图游戏总是在过境的第一天中途开始出现，一些乘客似乎根本没有意识到他们已经在空中了。
Perhaps Lehmann’s frustration with the passengers was unfairly placed and actually had more to do with the demands of his job, which had changed considerably since he had been promoted.
也许莱曼对乘客的不满是不公平的，实际上更多的是与他的工作要求有关，自从他升职以来，他的工作已经发生了很大的变化。
Lehmann now had to be bothered with all the nonflying aspects of the zeppelin business, in which he had little interest but which made a great impression on the passengers.
莱曼现在不得不担心齐柏林飞艇业务的所有非飞行方面，他对此兴趣不大，但却给乘客留下了深刻的印象。
Things like advertising, marketing, and the minutiae of internal operations now took up a great deal of his time.
诸如广告、营销和内部运营的细节之类的事情现在占用了他大量的时间。
Over the last year, DZR had been making a series of investments in its future operations to ensure that its international clientele saw zeppelins as the height of comfort, convenience, safety, and glamour in travel.
去年，DZR 对其未来运营进行了一系列投资，以确保其国际客户将齐柏林飞艇视为旅行中舒适、便利、安全和魅力的巅峰之作。
It had been aggressively expanding advertising abroad, including a targeted effort to promote airship service to Europe for the coronation and the Paris Exposition.
该公司一直在积极扩大海外广告，包括有针对性地推广飞艇服务，以参加加冕礼和巴黎博览会。
DZR had also offered some of its business associates free flights in exchange for a report with their general impressions and suggestions for improvement.
DZR 还向一些商业伙伴提供免费航班，以换取他们的总体印象和改进建议的报告。
One of them, a Brit named George Grant, who was an assistant manager at the firm that handled zeppelin bookings in London, had joined this flight.
其中一位名叫乔治·格兰特的英国人也加入了这趟航班，他是伦敦一家负责飞艇预订的公司的助理经理。
Grant seemed to be enjoying his paid vacation.
格兰特似乎很享受他的带薪假期。
So far, he had neglected his report, aside from noting that linen covers should be placed at the heads of the beds in the cabins to prevent grease marks marring the cabins’ fabric‑covered walls, and went about touring the airship with the stewards instead.
到目前为止，他除了指出舱内床头应铺上亚麻布罩以防止油渍弄脏舱内织物覆盖的墙壁外，都没有理睬他的报告，而是和乘务员一起巡视着飞艇。
While DZR actively courted such feedback from its own associates, the general public sometimes took it upon themselves to write in with unsolicited advice.
尽管 DZR 积极寻求其同事的反馈，但公众有时也会主动写信提出建议。
DZR had recently received a letter from a man named Hinrich Schröder, a children’s toilet seat manufacturer.
DZR 最近收到一封来自儿童马桶座圈制造商 Hinrich Schröder 的来信。
He had noticed a newspaper article about DZR having hired a stewardess, from which he concluded there would be increasingly more children traveling on board.
他注意到报纸上有一篇关于 DZR 雇用了一名空姐的文章，从中他得出结论，飞机上旅行的儿童将会越来越多。
Therefore, he concluded, the zeppelins required sanitary facilities for these “little guests.” He wrote that he hoped to receive an order from DZR for his toilet seats, which attached to the main seat and could be folded up so that adults need not be bothered and children would not have to use a pot.
因此，他得出结论，齐柏林飞艇需要为这些“小客人”提供卫生设施。他写道，他希望收到 DZR 的马桶座订单，该马桶座固定在主座上，可以折叠起来，这样大人就不用打扰，孩子也不必使用锅。
Herr Schröder would, unfortunately, be disappointed.
不幸的是，施罗德先生会感到失望。
DZR’s biggest effort by far, which had taken up considerable amounts of Ernst Lehmann’s time over the last few months, was a push to capture the attention and the business of wealthy American travelers, who, attracted by the time savings of zeppelin travel, made up 70 to 80 percent of its paying customer base by 1937.
DZR 迄今为止最大的努力是吸引富有的美国旅行者的注意力和业务，在过去的几个月里占用了恩斯特·莱曼 (Ernst Lehmann) 的大量时间。到 1937 年，这些美国旅行者被齐柏林飞艇旅行节省的时间所吸引，占其付费客户群的 70% 到 80%。
“Our century has been called the technical age.
“我们的世纪被称为技术时代。
It has also been called the age of abbreviation,” Lehmann wrote in his memoir with an air of disdain.
这也被称为缩写时代。”莱曼在回忆录中带着不屑的语气写道。
“Time is money, the American says; to decrease time means to save money.” This deliberate shift toward the American market had begun in earnest the prior October with the Hindenburg ’s “Millionaires Flight,” where over seventy mostly wealthy and high‑profile American passengers took a ten‑and‑a‑half‑hour cruise over the Eastern Seaboard.
“美国人说，时间就是金钱；减少时间就意味着省钱。”这种向美国市场的有意转变从去年 10 月兴登堡号的“百万富翁航班”开始，七十多名美国乘客大多是富有和知名的美国乘客，在东海岸进行了十个半小时的航行。
They included Wall Street financiers like Nelson Rockefeller and Winthrop Aldrich, aviation leaders like Great War ace and Eastern Airlines General Manager Eddie Rickenbacker, Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, and Goodyear’s Paul Litchfield.
他们包括纳尔逊·洛克菲勒和温思罗普·奥尔德里奇等华尔街金融家、伟大战争王牌和东方航空公司总经理埃迪·里肯巴克等航空业领袖、泛美航空创始人胡安·特里普和固特异的保罗·利奇菲尔德。
All together, the passengers’ net worth was over a billion dollars.
乘客的净资产加起来超过十亿美元。
By the beginning of 1937, it appeared that overtures to American passengers were proving successful.
到 1937 年初，事实证明，向美国乘客提出的建议似乎取得了成功。
It was only May, and three quarters of the Hindenburg ’s 1937 bookings were for Americans.
当时只是五月，兴登堡号 1937 年的预订量中有四分之三是美国人。
If the numerous American passengers relaxing in the smoking lounge with drinks in hand or inscribing postcards in the writing room were any indication, DZR seemed to be attracting exactly the kind of well‑heeled executives it sought to entice.
如果说众多美国乘客在吸烟室里手里拿着饮料放松，或者在写作室里写下明信片有什么迹象的话，那么 DZR 似乎正在吸引的正是它试图吸引的那种富有的高管。
American packer Nelson Morris was by far the wealthiest passenger on board, and both the speed of travel and the allure of flight clearly appealed to him.
美国包装工人尼尔森·莫里斯是迄今为止机上最富有的乘客，旅行的速度和飞行的吸引力显然都对他有吸引力。
Better yet, he had purchased a second ticket for his friend Bert Dolan.
更好的是，他为他的朋友伯特·多兰购买了第二张票。
Fortunately, Morris was the antithesis of unimpressed passengers who so rankled Lehmann.
幸运的是，莫里斯与那些不为所动的乘客相反，这些乘客让莱曼很恼火。
He clearly fancied himself a fellow airman and was already seeking out the steward for a tour of the Hindenburg ’s vast structure.
他显然自认为是一名飞行员，并且已经在寻找乘务员参观兴登堡号的巨大结构。
Also keen was passenger Peter Belin, the young Yale graduate on his way home to Washington, DC, after a year in Paris.
同样热衷的还有年轻的耶鲁大学毕业生彼得·贝林(Peter Belin)，他在巴黎待了一年后，正在返回华盛顿特区的途中。
Belin was related to the Du Pont family of gunpowder‑industry millionaires, but his presence also showed that DZR was making inroads with the influential Washington set.
贝林与火药行业百万富翁杜邦家族有亲戚关系，但他的存在也表明 DZR 正在向具有影响力的华盛顿集团进军。
His father, F.
他的父亲，F.
Lammot Belin, had left private business to become a diplomat, serving as one of the State Department’s earliest chief protocol officers and then as ambassador to Poland from 1932 to 1933.
拉莫特·贝林 (Lammot Belin) 离开私营企业成为一名外交官，曾担任国务院最早的首席礼宾官之一，随后于 1932 年至 1933 年担任驻波兰大使。
Peter Belin planned to have a similar career and already had that inherent cosmopolitan ease about him.
彼得·贝林（Peter Belin）计划从事类似的职业，并且他已经拥有了与生俱来的国际大都会的轻松自在。
As with Morris, he enjoyed the technical aspect of flight.
和莫里斯一样，他喜欢飞行的技术方面。
Alongside being a member of the undefeated Yale soccer team, the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, and the Book and Snake secret society, Belin had also taken flying lessons at New Haven Municipal Airport and received his pilot’s license from the Boeing Aeronautical School.
除了是不败的耶鲁足球队、Alpha Delta Phi 兄弟会和书与蛇秘密社团的成员之外，贝林还在纽黑文市立机场学习了飞行课程，并从波音航空学校获得了飞行员执照。
Throughout the day, the square‑jawed, dark‑haired young man with a broad smile would take out a pen and a folded paper map of the Western Hemisphere and smooth it out on one of the small writing tables.
一整天，这个方下巴、黑发、笑容满面的年轻人都会拿出一支笔和一张折叠的西半球纸质地图，把它放在一张小写字台上。
Checking the airship’s coordinates, which the crew posted along with news bulletins in the reading room, he would draw a dot to mark their position and connect it back to the previous dot, charting their progress since their Frankfurt departure.
检查飞艇的坐标（机组人员将其与阅览室的新闻公告一起发布），他会画一个点来标记他们的位置，并将其连接回前一个点，绘制出自法兰克福出发以来他们的进度。
Fantastically wealthy passengers like Nelson Morris and Peter Belin had easily been sold on air travel as fellow, albeit not terribly experienced, airmen, but San Francisco canning executive Moritz Feibusch was part of the next tier of lower‑profile but highly successful Americans whom DZR was courting and who had been drawn in by the promise of adventure.
像纳尔逊·莫里斯（Nelson Morris）和彼得·贝林（Peter Belin）这样非常富有的乘客很容易在航空旅行中被推销为飞行员，尽管他们的经验不是很丰富，但旧金山罐头公司的高管莫里茨·费布施（Moritz Feibusch）是 DZR 正在追求的下一层低调但非常成功的美国人，他们被冒险的承诺所吸引。
Feibusch was a German Jewish immigrant originally from Rogasen, or Rogoźno, a now Polish town that, like Alsace, had traded hands at various times in its history.
费布施是一位德国犹太移民，最初来自罗加森（Rogasen）或罗戈兹诺（Rogoźno），现在是一个波兰小镇，与阿尔萨斯一样，在历史上的不同时期也曾经历过易手。
Feibusch, a slender, gray‑haired, bespectacled fifty-seven‑year‑old of average height, seemed utterly delighted by his good fortune in life and was determined to make the most of it.
费布施是一位身材苗条、白发、戴着眼镜的五十七岁老人，中等身高，他似乎对自己生活中的好运气感到非常高兴，并决心充分利用它。
As a young man, he had moved to San Francisco, where he got a job working for Prager’s Department Store.
作为一个年轻人，他搬到了旧金山，在那里他找到了一份为普拉格百货公司工作的工作。
He became a merchandise broker and within a few years had built his own canned foods company, which sold products like Pebble Beach Tuna Flakes and Sardines and Calbear Fruit Salad.
他成为一名商品经纪人，并在几年内建立了自己的罐头食品公司，销售圆石滩金枪鱼片、沙丁鱼和卡贝尔水果沙拉等产品。
He owned a home on the edge of Golden Gate Park, and he and his wife, a violinist and composer, had traveled extensively throughout Britain, Italy, Turkey, Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Syria, the British Mandate of Palestine, and, of course, back to Germany and Poland to visit his large family.
他在金门公园的边缘拥有一所房子，他和他的妻子（一位小提琴家和作曲家）曾广泛旅行过英国、意大利、土耳其、捷克斯洛伐克、埃及、叙利亚、英国托管地巴勒斯坦，当然，还回到德国和波兰看望他的大家庭。
He had even managed to bring three of his brothers, their wives, and three nephews over from Germany—its climate increasingly hostile to Jews—to live in San Francisco and was in the process of adopting one of his nephews.
他甚至设法将他的三个兄弟、他们的妻子和三个侄子从德国（德国的气候对犹太人越来越敌视）带到旧金山居住，并且正在收养他的一个侄子。
After his wife died in 1935, he took several extended trips, including to Paris, where he began a new travel tradition.
1935 年妻子去世后，他进行了几次长途旅行，其中包括去巴黎，在那里他开始了新的旅行传统。
He had a set of custom postcards designed with the words “ Souvenir de mon ascension ” and a cartoon of himself as a giant wearing a boater hat and spats standing jauntily on the Eiffel Tower, which he sent to business contacts, family, and friends.
他设计了一套定制明信片，上面写着“我的升天纪念品”，还有一幅自己的漫画，画中的自己是一个戴着平顶帽、高高兴兴地站在埃菲尔铁塔上的巨人，他把这些明信片寄给了业务联系人、家人和朋友。
Feibusch was on his way home from his annual business trip to Europe.
费布施正在结束一年一度的欧洲出差回家的路上。
His manager and secretary had returned by steamship, but Feibusch had decided to treat himself to a few additional weeks abroad with an airship journey as a climactic conclusion.
他的经理和秘书乘轮船回来了，但费布什决定在国外多待几周，并以飞艇之旅作为高潮。
This adventure had clearly been on his mind for some time, as he had previously sent souvenir mail to his brother in Berlin on the 1929 round‑the‑world flight of the Graf Zeppelin .
这次冒险显然已经在他的脑海里有一段时间了，因为他之前曾在 1929 年齐柏林伯爵号环球飞行中给柏林的兄弟寄过纪念邮件。
Once again he had a set of two hundred custom postcards printed, this time a compilation of his passport photo and an image of the zeppelin flying above.
他再次印制了一套 200 张定制明信片，这次是他的护照照片和飞艇飞过上方的照片的合集。
(Interestingly, despite being Jewish, he opted for authenticity and included the Hindenburg ’s very visible swastikas on the artistic rendering.) Though enthusiastic travelers were more likely to proselytize zeppelin travel to family and friends, DZR was happy to sell a ticket to anyone willing to pay.
（有趣的是，尽管他是犹太人，但他选择了真实性，并在艺术渲染上加入了兴登堡非常明显的纳粹标志。）尽管热情的旅行者更有可能向家人和朋友推销齐柏林飞艇旅行，但 DZR 很乐意向任何愿意付费的人出售门票。
Philip Mangone, for example, who had thus far put in little appearance in the public rooms and largely kept to his cabin, was a sturdy fifty‑two‑year‑old Italian American and a dispassionate traveler.
例如，菲利普·曼戈内 (Philip Mangone) 是一位 52 岁的意大利裔美国人，是一位身体健壮的意大利裔美国人，也是一位冷静的旅行者，迄今为止，他很少在公共房间露面，大部分时间都呆在自己的小屋里。
This was just one more transatlantic crossing to add to an impressive tally over nearly half a century after having immigrated to New York from Calabria with his family as a child.
他小时候与家人从卡拉布里亚移民到纽约，这只是他近半个世纪以来又一次跨大西洋航行，为这一令人印象深刻的记录再添一笔。
He was a seventh‑generation tailor with an eighth‑grade education who started his career as a fitter at the B.
他是第七代裁缝，受过八年级教育，他的职业生涯始于 B.
Altman department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and had gone on to become one of the era’s chicest designers, specializing in women’s tailored looks, particularly suits and reversible capes.
曼哈顿第五大道的奥特曼百货公司后来成为了那个时代最时尚的设计师之一，专门设计女性定制服装，尤其是西装和双面披风。
He was best known for having developed the swagger coat and topper.
他最出名的是开发了招摇的外套和礼帽。
Back in 1915, twenty‑two years earlier almost to the day, he had been booked to travel on board the Lusitania but had canceled at the last minute, narrowly escaping disaster.
早在 1915 年，也就是 22 年前的今天，他就已预订乘坐卢西塔尼亚号旅行，但在最后一刻取消了，险些酿成大祸。
On that very voyage, the Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a U‑boat off the coast of Ireland.
就在那次航行中，卢西塔尼亚号在爱尔兰海岸被一艘潜艇用鱼雷击沉。
Such a near miss with fate apparently left Mangone unfazed.
如此险些与命运擦肩而过，显然曼戈尼并不担心。
His booking on the Hindenburg was purely practical in nature.
他预订兴登堡号纯粹是为了实用。
True to American form in this age of abbreviation, he had decided to fly simply to save four extra days to stay on schedule with his fall collection.
忠于这个缩写时代的美国人风格，他决定乘飞机只是为了节省额外四天的时间，以便按计划完成他的秋季系列。
The reality was that as the novelty of the technology wore off and airship journeys became as commonplace as crossing the Atlantic on an ocean liner, no doubt there would be more and more travelers with Mangone’s attitude than with that of Morris, Belin, and Feibusch.
现实情况是，随着技术的新鲜感逐渐消失，飞艇旅行变得像乘坐远洋客轮横渡大西洋一样司空见惯，毫无疑问，持曼戈尼态度的旅行者会比持莫里斯、贝林和费布施态度的旅行者越来越多。
Lehmann really should not complain, because those time savers were the difference between a profitable enterprise and his beloved airships becoming an odd relic of a short‑lived era.
莱曼确实不应该抱怨，因为这些节省的时间是一个盈利的企业和他心爱的飞艇成为一个短暂时代的奇怪遗迹之间的区别。
DZR had recently implemented a number of changes for the 1937 season to ensure that the onboard experience met with these Americans’ approval.
DZR 最近对 1937 年赛季进行了多项更改，以确保船上体验得到这些美国人的认可。
There was a sense of irony to this, as the zeppelin company was facing an increasingly split reality.
这有一种讽刺的感觉，因为齐柏林飞艇公司面临着日益分裂的现实。
On the one hand, the outward image of the zeppelins was becoming progressively more associated with the Nazi regime.
一方面，齐柏林飞艇的外在形象逐渐与纳粹政权联系在一起。
Meanwhile, inside the airships and in DZR’s commercial practices, everything was becoming more and more American every day.
与此同时，飞艇内部和 DZR 的商业实践中，一切都变得越来越美国化。
Over the winter, Willy von Meister, DZR’s representative in the United States, had written Lehmann a twenty‑page letter filled with suggestions for improvement.
整个冬天，DZR 驻美国代表威利·冯·梅斯特 (Willy von Meister) 给莱曼写了一封长达 20 页的信，其中充满了改进建议。
Von Meister, a tall and imposing six foot six (compared with Lehmann’s approximate five foot two), was culturally well placed to make these suggestions.
冯·梅斯特身高 6 英尺 6 英寸，身材高大，气势磅礴（而莱曼身高约 5 英尺 2 英寸），在文化上很适合提出这些建议。
Through his German father, the former governor of the state of Hesse, von Meister was a godson of the last kaiser, Wilhelm II, but his mother was an American raised in London.
冯·梅斯特的父亲是黑森州前州长，是德国人，是最后一位德皇威廉二世的教子，但他的母亲是在伦敦长大的美国人。
He had lived in the United States for over a decade.
他在美国生活了十多年。
That such mundane minutiae should frustrate Lehmann was no surprise.
如此平凡的细节让莱曼感到沮丧并不奇怪。
He was not a businessman who enjoyed tinkering with inputs to maximize the bottom line.
他不是一个喜欢通过调整投入来最大化利润的商人。
He was a true airman in his heart and soul.
他在内心和灵魂上都是一名真正的飞行员。
First and foremost, von Meister instructed Lehmann, the stewards must provide carafes of ice water on the tables in the lounge and dining room: “Americans should not have to give up the habit of drinking ice water on board.” Menus and news posted on the reading room blackboard should be posted in both German and English, and on all trips to Germany, the chief steward should announce which golf club Americans could use while in Frankfurt.
首先，冯·梅斯特指示莱曼，乘务员必须在休息室和餐厅的桌子上提供一瓶冰水：“美国人不应该放弃在飞机上喝冰水的习惯。”阅览室黑板上张贴的菜单和新闻应以德语和英语张贴，并且在所有前往德国的旅行中，首席乘务员应宣布美国人在法兰克福期间可以使用哪个高尔夫俱乐部。
Von Meister also emphasized the need to provide additional entertainment on board, no doubt much to Lehmann’s chagrin, as it carried the implication that zeppelin travel was, well, rather boring.
冯·梅斯特还强调需要在船上提供额外的娱乐，这无疑让莱曼非常懊恼，因为它暗示着齐柏林飞艇旅行相当无聊。
As it took most of the first day of a two‑day trip for passengers to get to know each other sufficiently to gather for games of bridge and skat, the stewards should supply more games for two people, such as chess and backgammon, both very popular in the United States.
由于两天行程的第一天，乘客们需要花大部分时间来充分了解彼此，才能聚在一起玩桥牌和滑冰游戏，乘务员应该提供更多适合两人玩的游戏，比如国际象棋和双陆棋，这两种游戏在美国都很流行。
They should also provide other physically lightweight entertainments, like Ping‑Pong balls and paddles for play on the longer dining tables between meals and jigsaw puzzles with pleasant scenes (though none so large that they could not be finished by the end of the short trip).
他们还应该提供其他体力较轻的娱乐活动，比如在两餐之间在较长的餐桌上玩的乒乓球和球拍，以及场景愉快的拼图游戏（尽管没有大到在短途旅行结束时无法完成的程度）。
It was also essential to have a doctor on board.
船上有一名医生也很重要。
Thus far, DZR had been lucky that no passenger had fallen seriously ill while in the air, but it was only a matter of time until their luck ran out.
到目前为止，DZR 很幸运，没有乘客在空中患上重病，但他们的运气耗尽只是时间问题。
“It is very easy to imagine that a German doctor who doesn’t have a private practice or is not a particularly good doctor, or has too little interest in private practice” would be interested in such a unique (and generally unchallenging) occupation, wrote von Meister.
冯·梅斯特写道：“很容易想象，一个没有私人诊所、不是一个特别好的医生、或者对私人诊所兴趣太少的德国医生”会对这样一个独特的（通常没有挑战性的）职业感兴趣。
“I am convinced that the extra weight and the additional cost of one such man would pay off in spades,” he concluded, not least because a small number of American passengers tended to show up drunk and could cause themselves small injuries.
他总结道：“我相信，这样一个人的额外重量和额外费用绝对会带来回报。”尤其是因为少数美国乘客往往喝醉了，可能会给自己造成轻伤。
When his medical services were not required, the doctor could conduct airship tours or organize bridge games as a sort of entertainment czar.
当不需要医疗服务时，医生可以进行飞艇之旅或组织桥牌游戏，作为一种娱乐沙皇。
As doctors were generally good with people, his thinking went, the doctor could also serve as a guest relations go‑between for American passengers and German crew.
他认为，由于医生通常与人相处融洽，因此医生也可以充当美国乘客和德国机组人员的宾客关系中间人。
Passengers had complained on several occasions that the stewards could be a bit overbearing in suggesting they change out of their relaxed daytime traveling suits and into proper dinner attire.
乘客们曾多次抱怨，乘务员建议他们脱下宽松的白天旅行套装，换上得体的晚宴服装，这可能有点专横。
DZR had accepted von Meister’s suggestion and hired twenty‑seven‑year‑old Dr. Kurt Rüdiger for the 1937 season.
DZR 接受了 von Meister 的建议，并聘请了 27 岁的 Kurt Rüdiger 博士负责 1937 年的赛季。
Another point of contention between passengers and crew was the meals themselves, particularly special requests the kitchen was unenthusiastic about accommodating.
乘客和机组人员之间的另一个争论点是膳食本身，特别是厨房对满足特殊要求并不热心。
“The kitchen,” von Meister instructed Lehmann, “is generally described as ‘difficult.’ A large percentage of Americans either have spoiled stomachs or an ‘idiosyncrasy’ that means they can’t eat this or that.” Each morning, the crew should put out the full day’s menu (in English) at breakfast so that passengers could communicate which foods they could not tolerate.
“厨房，”冯·梅斯特指导莱曼，“通常被描述为‘困难’。很大一部分美国人要么胃不好，要么有‘怪癖’，这意味着他们不能吃这个或那个。”每天早上，机组人员应该在早餐时拿出全天的菜单（英文），以便乘客能够告知他们不能忍受哪些食物。
The bar steward, Max Schulze, also needed to be “more courteous in his dealings with the guests,” whose egress to and from the smoking room he patrolled to ensure no one brought anything flammable out from behind the air‑lock door.
酒吧服务员马克斯·舒尔茨（Max Schulze）还需要“在与客人打交道时更加有礼貌”，他会巡逻客人进出吸烟室的出口，以确保没有人从气闸门后面带出任何易燃物品。
As a previous passenger who had flown to Rio the year before had quipped, so tight was the security around anything flammable leaving the smoking lounge that “one felt like a boy having a fag behind the greenhouse.
正如一位前一年飞往里约热内卢的乘客所调侃的那样，离开吸烟室的任何易燃物周围的安全措施如此严格，“感觉就像一个男孩在温室后面拿着一根烟”。
I always imagined that Dr. Eckener was waiting for me outside with a birch and mortarboard and gown.” Schulze also needed to “drink less himself and avoid ingratiating himself too much with the passengers.” It was essential that the bar never run out of liquor, especially rye or bourbon whiskey, necessary ingredients in the popular Manhattan cocktail.
我总是想象埃克纳博士拿着桦木、学位帽和长袍在外面等我。”舒尔茨还需要“自己少喝酒，避免过多讨好乘客”。酒吧永远不要缺酒，尤其是黑麦或波本威士忌，这是流行的曼哈顿鸡尾酒的必要成分。
The bar should also provide a souvenir.
酒吧还应该提供纪念品。
“I will send you a small metal ‘skewer’ that is served with the cocktails in the Hotel Waldorf‑Astoria,” von Meister offered.
“我会寄给您一个小金属‘串’，它会与华尔道夫阿斯托里亚酒店的鸡尾酒一起供应，”冯·梅斯特说道。
Finally, DZR needed to concede to Americans where their preferences related to cleanliness and comfort differed.
最后，DZR 需要向美国人做出让步，他们对清洁度和舒适度的偏好存在差异。
In the four B deck lavatories, DZR needed to supply either a basket of small, single‑use hand towels or disposable paper napkins for drying hands, rather than one large communal towel, which “according to American custom” was “very undesirable.” “The American has a need for freshness” and did not want to “participate in a communal towel.” Nor did Americans like the bedding offered.
在 B 甲板的四个卫生间中，DZR 需要提供一篮子一次性小手巾或用于擦手的一次性餐巾纸，而不是一条大的公用毛巾，“根据美国习惯”，这是“非常不可取的”。 “美国人需要新鲜感”并且不想“参与公共毛巾”。美国人也不喜欢提供的床上用品。
Rather than one single, fluffy duvet, DZR should switch to the American style of bedding with a sheet and several wool blankets, even though the duvet was far easier for the stewards to shake out and refold in tight cabins.
DZR 应该改用带有床单和几条羊毛毯的美式床上用品，而不是单层蓬松的羽绒被，尽管羽绒被对于乘务员来说更容易在狭小的客舱中抖落并重新折叠。
Though it was not the German way, von Meister felt strongly that “these things don’t cost much and are amenities that improve the overall impression of the service.”
虽然这不是德国人的方式，但冯·梅斯特强烈地感觉到“这些东西花费不多，而且是改善服务整体印象的便利设施。”
Von Meister did have one other suggestion at large, and that was to expand the fire‑protection measures in the passenger compartments.
冯·梅斯特确实还有另一项建议，那就是扩大客舱的防火措施。
“I’m thinking about the possibility of rapid‑fire extinguishing systems, with compressed carbonic acid, [and] smoke detectors, as used on seagoing ships….It could happen that a drunk passenger starts smoking and is careless,” assuming he got past Max Schulze at the bar.
“我正在考虑在海船上使用带有压缩碳酸、[和]烟雾探测器的快速灭火系统的可能性……醉酒的乘客可能会因为粗心而开始吸烟，”假设他在酒吧里遇到了马克斯·舒尔茨(Max Schulze)。
Of course, such equipment, he recognized, could “only be of use in the early stages of a fire.”
当然，他承认，此类设备“只能在火灾的早期阶段使用”。
None of von Meister’s suggestions were meant to directly criticize Lehmann or any other individual and their work.
冯·梅斯特的所有建议都无意直接批评莱曼或任何其他个人及其工作。
They were merely a reflection of the reality that “we are dealing with a very spoiled public in the North Atlantic service” who would “only be prepared to use the airship if the entire journey is smooth, comfortable and without unpleasant incidents.”
它们仅仅反映了这样一个现实：“我们正在与北大西洋服务中被宠坏的公众打交道”，他们“只有在整个旅程顺利、舒适且没有不愉快的事件的情况下才准备使用飞艇。”
That such mundane minutiae should frustrate Lehmann was no surprise.
如此平凡的细节让莱曼感到沮丧并不奇怪。
He was not a businessman who enjoyed tinkering with inputs to maximize the bottom line.
他不是一个喜欢通过调整投入来最大化利润的商人。
He was a true airman in his heart and soul.
他在内心和灵魂上都是一名真正的飞行员。
Nor was he alone in his frustration over the direction in which his beloved industry had turned.
对他所热爱的行业的转变方向感到沮丧的也不是他一个人。
Reflecting on how attitudes toward air travel had changed in the short amount of time since he had first crossed the Atlantic, compared with the millennia that men had spent yearning for the freedom of birds and control over the air above, Charles Lindbergh mused, “Will men fly through the sky in the future without seeing what I have seen, without feeling what I have felt?
查尔斯·林德伯格（Charles Lindbergh）反思了自从他第一次横渡大西洋以来的短时间内，人们对航空旅行的态度发生了怎样的变化，与人类数千年来对鸟类自由和对天空的控制的向往相比，查尔斯·林德伯格（Charles Lindbergh）沉思道：“未来，人们会在没有看到我所看到的、没有感受到我所感受到的情况下飞翔在天空吗？
Is that true of all things we call human progress—do the gods retire as commerce and science advance?”
我们所说的人类进步的一切都是如此吗——众神会随着商业和科学的进步而退休吗？
Since the allegorical days of Icarus, countless men had lost their lives in failed experiments as they strove to achieve the miracle of flight.
自从伊卡洛斯的寓言时代以来，无数人在努力实现飞行奇迹的过程中因失败的实验而丧生。
Now, thanks to the airship and its perfection in the hands of German engineers, Lehmann could proudly say, “The fight to conquer the air has ended in the defeat of the elemental forces of Nature.” And yet, just as quickly as the fight had been won, the beneficiaries of such a triumph of human engineering went back to their newspapers, their card games, and their cheap jigsaw puzzles, their tricky stomachs and their nuisance pets, and had the nerve to be bored.
现在，多亏了飞艇及其在德国工程师手中的完美，莱曼可以自豪地说：“征服天空的战斗已经以自然元素力量的失败而告终。”然而，就在这场战斗刚刚赢得胜利时，人类工程学这一胜利的受益者又回到了他们的报纸、纸牌游戏、廉价的拼图游戏、棘手的胃和令人讨厌的宠物中，并且有勇气感到无聊。
From Shadow Before the Flame: The Hindenburg Disaster and the Prelude to War by Catherine Grace Katz.
《火焰前的阴影：兴登堡灾难和战争前奏》凯瑟琳·格蕾丝·卡茨著。
Published on September 22, 2026 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.
由企鹅兰登书屋 (Penguin Random House, LLC) 旗下企鹅出版集团 (Penguin Publishing Group) 旗下品牌 Viking 于 2026 年 9 月 22 日出版。
Copyright © 2026 by Catherine Grace Katz.
版权所有 © 2026 凯瑟琳·格雷斯·卡茨。