The Hidden Hindenburg

The Untold Story of the Tragedy, the Nazi Secrets, and the Quest to Rule the Skies

By: Michael McCarthy

Narrated by: P.J. Ochlan

By the author of Ashes Under Water, here is one of the great untold stories of World War II. The Hidden Hindenburg at last reveals the cause of aviation's most famous disaster and the duplicity that kept the truth from coming to light for three generations. It also finally catches up with a German legend who misled the world about the Hindenburg to bury his own Nazi connections.

Drawing on previously unpublished documents from the National Archives in Washington, along with archival collections in Germany, this definitive account explores how the Hindenburg was connected to the Dachau concentration camp, a futuristic German rocket that terrified the Allies, and a classified project that imported Nazi scientists to America after the war.

It took author Michael McCarthy four years to get to the bottom of this epic disaster, in which the largest object civilization has ever managed to fly burnt up in less than one minute. Along the way, he found a tale of international intrigue, revealing a whistleblower, a cover-up, and corruption on two continents.

©2020 Michael McCarthy (P)2020 Tantor

Electronic Narrator??

Appreciated the Nazi history behind the Zeppelins however the narrator did no favors to the author as his style was truly annoying and detracted from the story. I’m actually still not convinced this wasn’t read by a robot. I think hearing Alexa or Siri tell this tale would have been a more pleasing experience.

Not the writer for the task.

Many times journalists turn out to be competent historians telling a tale very well. This is not one of those journalists. It reads like an Entertainment Tonight scandal segment from start to finish and never elevates itself from that level. It detracts from the subject matter greatly and makes you want to slap his editor for not demanding better writing. This is good investigative journalism at its core, seeking out the documents and files behind known events and not stopping at the speculative conclusions of earlier era writers who have tackled the subject en masse, i.e. what caused the Hindenburg disaster? McCarthy appears to have the answer and it feels more reasonable than the older attempted explanations. This would be enough but he delves into Hugo Eckener's Nazi connections and his use and approval of slave prisoner labor during the war at the factories the Zeppelin company operated in lieu of building airships. That's a really valuable addition to the Zeppelin story. It's just utterly frustrating that the author is not up to the task of presenting it responsibly and I feel he goes overboard with some character assassination of other folks involved in the era of Zeppelins that's just not necessary and detracts from the seriousness of the story. This is a case where the publisher could have had a major hit on their hands if they had insisted on a coauthor for McCarthy who cleaned up his nasty tabloid style.

Not about the Hindenburg

This history mainly concentrates on the Nazi regime, including their rise to power. It's not really a book about the Hindenburg, although the Hindenburg does gets mentioned when the natural progression of history reaches the point where the Hindenburg was relevant. It's also mainly an attack on Hugo Eckener, who is clearly the "villain" targeted by this book. Granted, if the book had concentrated on the Hindenburg and the other German airships of the time, it would have been a much shorter book, but it also would have been about what the title and sub-title promised it was about.