Project Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen / RE-SEARCH 2026

How was the airship transformed into potent symbol during the era of National Socialism and how do these images continue to influence collective memory? Jonas Englert explores these and other questions in a new work he developed for the exhibition “Perceived Truths. Zeppelins and National Socialism” with the support of the RE-SEARCH. ZF-Fellowship.

In Englert’s view, the Zeppelin is not primarily a piece of historical technology, but rather an image and a reflection of collective ideas, emotions, and supressed narratives. The seemingly natural awe inspired by its presence in the sky becomes a critical question.

His exploration of the airship as both a visual and an imaginary phenomenon involves a critical analysis of its pictorial history as well as an artistic examination of its “connotative energy”, the affective structures and attributions that unfold beneath the surface of Zeppelin representations.

From generation to generation, concepts of nationalism, technological superiority, manliness, expansion, and hero worship became condensed in the image of the Zeppelin. Thusly charged with symbolism, the motif soon became an effective instrument for political presentation and propaganda – in the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, and especially, under National Socialism. Long before Hitler seized power, National Socialist ideology also became embedded in Zeppelin iconography and continues to inform present-day perceptions.

Englert regards this visual efficacy as part of a long line ranging from aviation utopias to contemporary narratives of conquering outer space and planetary expansionism. His multi-channel video work is a montage of heterogenous image and film material. The components in this plethora of imagery are not unravelled but arranged into new constellations which expose, disturb, and disrupt their affective attributions.

Propaganda manifests as an affective dispositif, not as a cohesive iconographic programme – an impression that is underscored by seemingly marginal archival objects, such as medals and honorary plaques with motivational slogans, ribbons from the funeral wreaths of crew members killed in action or other symbolically charged visual formulas from film and literature. The composition draws on emotional appeals, identification, and implicit promises of control, supremacy, and boundless expansion to promote the normalisation of violence and national hubris.

As it was not his aim to present a detached retrospective that treats fascism as a concluded historical phenomenon, Englert also looked at contemporary perspectives. His investigations into the perpetuation of affective images and internalised concepts of nationalism, masculinity, power, and omnipotence include manifestations in contexts with less overt symbolism. The artist’s strategy is to let images take effect, only to disrupt them through re-contextualisation, juxtaposition, superimposition, and montage. The resulting open space for thoughts and images allows viewers to recognise the seemingly evident as contrived, and to question “perceived truths” that become politically effective, precisely because they elude pure reason.

Mara-Johanna Kölmel