Girsberg Manor near Constance		   Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich von Zeppelin was born in the city of Constance on July 8, 1838. His father was councillor to the court of the Duke of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. His mother belonged to a family of textile manufacturers by the name of Macaire in Constance. Count Zeppelin, his sister Eugenia and his brother Eberhard spent their childhood in the manorial domain Girsberg near Constance.


The children were mainly educated by private teachers who lived with the family. Their last teacher, Vicar Robert Moser, became a lifelong friend of the family and especially of Count Zeppelin.

 

Count Zeppelin 1853

Count Zeppelin as a cadette

 

In 1853 Count Zeppelin left Girsberg to enrol in the Realschule in Cannstatt near Stuttgart, a year later he changed to the Polytechnical Academy in Stuttgart. In 1855 he became a cadette of the military school in Ludwigsburg and decided to take up a military career as an officer in the army of Württemberg.

In 1863 Count Zeppelin took a leave of absence for several months in order to study military strategies in the American Civil War. He travelled to America and participated in the war on the side of the Northern Army. Together with two Russians and two Indians he later undertook an expedition to the springs of the Mississippi and took the opportunity to ascend in the balloon of Professor Steiner in St. Paul, Minnesota.

 

Memebers of the expedition:
Count Zeppelin in the back on the right

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