![]() He places all three men in the context of a Europe shattered by the first world war. Robert Gellately elegantly scrutinises their differences and highlights their similarities. Hitler is almost universally vilified Lenin remains entombed on Red Square as Russia's most distinguished corpse and modern Russia is looking more kindly on Stalin's memory. That is an oddly controversial statement. IN THEIR different ways they were as bad as each other, the three monsters of 20th-century Europe. If the CL-160 is successful as well as safe, journalists might one day be able to write about airships without using the H-word. Despite a weak stockmarket, Mr von Gablenz hopes to raise more money this year.Īre his investors backing another Hindenburg? Modern airships are different beasts: they use helium, not flammable hydrogen, and are wrapped in sturdy material. Investors snapped up private share issues, and an initial public offering last year raised euro96m CargoLifter is now among Germany's 100 biggest firms by market capitalisation. Subsidies paid for half the cost of the hangar (because Brand is in down-at-heel eastern Germany). So far, around half of the development costs have been raised. “The problem is to build up the capacity.” “The market is so big,” says Mr von Gablenz. ![]() To serve even 10% of that would require 200 airships CargoLifter could build only four a year in one hangar. The cost of carrying a load (up to 160 tonnes, at 50 mph) should also be low compared with planes or lorries.ĭoes enough demand exist? The global market for big loads is around 30m tonnes a year. But once the CL-160 is airborne, the cost of building extra ships should be low. The cost of development is euro590m ($505m), says Carl von Gablenz, CargoLifter's chief executive. The idea is to carry not people, but cargo: heavy loads, such as turbines, or bulky ones, such as segments of oil refineries. CargoLifter's plans, however, are the most monumental. Several companies are convinced that airships are ripe for a comeback, including the venerable Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, whose new craft recently won clearance to carry passengers, a dozen at a time. This is the hangar out of which CargoLifter's CL-160 will emerge in 2003. The time-warp feeling ends when a gigantic space-age dome, 360 metres long and 107 metres high, comes into view. And the business of the airfield's new owner, CargoLifter, is the development of giant airships, a means of transport few have taken seriously since the Hindenburg went up in flames in 1937. The huge airfield is dotted with 42 hangars, still camouflaged, that once housed Soviet MIGs. The level-crossing nearby is operated manually. A JOURNEY to Brand airfield, some 60km (37 miles) south of Berlin, could almost be a trip back in time.
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