The Hidden Hindenburg

By the author of Ashes Under Water (Lyons Press), 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Drawing on previously unpublished documents from the National Archives in Washington, along with archival collections in Germany, this definitive account explores how the Hindenburg was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.

About the Author

Michael McCarthy worked for twenty-two years for the Wall Street Journal, as a reporter and editor in New York and Chicago. He wrote about aviation and other industries. In 2014, he published Ashes Under Water: The SS Eastland and the Shipwreck That Shook America (Lyons Press). That nonfiction work brought to life a tragedy in which more than eight hundred people, mostly poor women and children, perished in a steamship capsize.

The book hit the New York Times e-book bestseller list in the summer of 2015. His Eastland book also sparked a documentary film, for which he was interviewed, from Chicago-based Moshman Productions.