During World War I the Germans achieved moderate success in long-range bombing operations with the zeppelin-type rigid airship, which could attain higher altitudes than the airplanes then available. On two occasions during 1917, German zeppelins made flights of almost 100 hours' duration. Such performances led many people to believe that large airships would play a prominent part in aviation development. A number of zeppelins were distributed to the Allied countries as a part of postwar reparations by Germany.

Of many subsequent zeppelins, the two most famous were the Graf Zeppelin, completed in September 1928, and the giant Hindenburg, first flown in 1936. The Graf Zeppelin inaugurated transatlantic flight service, and by the time of its decommissioning in 1937 had made 590 flights, including 144 ocean crossings, and had flown more than 1.6 million km (1 million miles). In 1929 the craft covered about 34,600 km (21,500 miles) in a world flight that was completed in an elapsed time of approximately 21 days. The Hindenburg, 245 metres (804 feet) long, was powered by four 1,100-horsepower diesel engines, giving it a maximum speed of 135 km (84 miles) per hour. In 1936 this airship carried a total of 1,002 passengers on 10 scheduled round trips between Germany and the United States. On May 6, 1937, while landing at Lakehurst, New Jersey, the hydrogen-inflated craft burst into flames and was completely destroyed, with a loss of 36 lives. The Zeppelin airship works were destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II, and building of the huge rigid airships was never resumed. In 1993, descendant companies of Luftschiffsbau-Zeppelin founded Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH, which built the Zeppelin NT (“New Technology”), a smaller (75-metre, or 250-foot) helium-filled airship that in 2001 began to offer short sightseeing trips over Lake Constance and other locations.