From the Enlightenment to Romanticism periods following the invention of the flying balloon

The Enlightenment period which dominated Europe in the 18th century sought to define the world under empiric thought, in search of clarity and objectivity. During this period the modern science was developed. The basis for the development of the natural sciences was the work of social thinkers of the 17th century, who described the human being, on empirical principles, as someone who aspires for freedom, education, equality and toleration. These principles led to writing of the first encyclopedia in France, the flourishing of science and industry in this state and the rise of the bourgeoisie. 

The most significant technological achievement of the period, remarkably corresponds with the social ideas, was the invention of the flying balloon in 1783. It was developed simultaneosly in two different scientific-technological directions, a combination unmatched even nowdays in its originality. The flying balloon soaring by hot air was invented by the Montgolfier brothers. The flying balloon soaring by hydrogen gas was invented, a few months later, thanks to the scientist Lavoisier ability to produce this gas industrially. 

The flying balloon is considered, along with the wheel and the print, one of the ten major technological inventions in the history of mankind. The first impression of the giant silk balloon, colorfully painted, which was flown by the Montgolfier brothers for the first time over Paris in the fall of 1783 was immense. The impression of the much more effective hydrogen baloon, who flew for days and hundreds of miles, was beyond imagination. Everyone could now rise upto the sky and watch the world from above. The result was that the people revolt against the corrupt monarchy. But in the absence of proper cultural background social chaos took place, in the form of the bloody French Revolution.

During the chaos of the French Revolution it was Napoleon, an ambitious artillery officer who was among the first to use observation balloons for artillery purposes, who tried to impose political order in Europe, but without success. The wars he conducted caused political reaction that lasted a hundred years. This clumsy political development corresponded remarkably with the flying baloon technological development. The Reaction period of all the 19th century can be paralleled, by its nature of simple conservativity, to the simple reaction which is needed to creates the hot air or hydrogen.

The flying balloon started to be in use for  military intelligence, but especially when anchored to the ground to prevent the loss of observers and expensive equipment. After many successful flights in France, the balloon got attention in America and was used in the Civil War by the North for observations. It was one of the decisive factors of the victory over the South. Science fiction writers like Jules Verne described flying balloons with engines, but during the 19th century it remained at the mercy of the winds and therefore of limited use.

During the 19th century, in parallel with the Reaction period, the French Revolution sent ideological waves at Central Europe and shocked the Enlightenment ideas. In Germany in particular, a romantic period with its own uniqueness changed the way of thinking and affected the climate of thought. The Romantic period sought to break the limits of thought in favor of emotional values, undefined yearning and desire for the endless and unrealistic love. It was realized through belief in struggle and pathos. The Romanticism period was parallel to the central human desire at that time to fight the winds and navigate successfully in the sky.
This combination of Romanticism and Reactionism will be the backwind for Hitler.

Aviation importance to Germany

In the hundred years which passed from late 18th century up to late 19th century there have been sharp ideological and political transformations in Europe. They can be described as a transition from the Enlightenment period to the Romanticism period. These changes occurred in correlatation with the rapid technological developments, particulary in aviation. It was the transformation from the agricultural revolution to the industrial revolution. From God revealed out of cycles of fertility and growth to God who is revealed out of the machines. In aviation, this transformation was manifested through the development of the flying baloon, which its era of dominating the skies is paralel to the era of Romanticism.

The flying baloon, and later on the airship and airplane, were revolutionary inventions that science did not predict. They were created by technical ingenuity of practical men. There was not a proper preparation of society for them. During the 19th century flying balloons created new paths and destinies. Human beings soared to the skies of God realms and earth’s gravity was unchained. Human boundaries and limits have been redefined, creating a revolution of worldview. But instead of adopting the positive ideas of the French Revolution, Europe got regressed into reactionary monarchies during the 19th century.

In early 20th century there were more ideological changes that came with the invention of the airship and airplane. Romanticism was replaced with Modernism. The universal ideas of the French Revolution were converted into extreme nationalism. Man was released gradually from traditional conceptions about flight, which were always involved with wings of the birds and replaced it with new concepts, were high fixed speed became the supreme value. At the same time aviation was transformed, in an era of modern and total states where national defense became the ultimate goal, not just to a symbol of progress, but also to a symbol of unity and national victory. In the aviation dictatorships of the first half of the 20th century, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan and Italy, the airplane was kind of a religious icon, a new form of religious fanaticism. It was identical with the spiritual flight.

During the second half of the 20th century Modernism gave way to Post Modernism . During this period the missile replaced the airplane as ruler of the skies. The armed balistic missille, controlled at the touch of a button which can eliminate humanity, brought people to cynical worldview centered on themselves.

The spread of Romanticism movement, contributed to a new political world view among the Germans, who lived until the late 19th century in small kingdoms ruled from towering hilltop castles and fought each other. The natural desire was to unite under one roof. In the second half of the 19th century they started a process of consolidating the small German states into one big state, called the Second Reich. The process came to an end only after Hitler's rise to power, when all police forces were consolidated into one central police controlled by the SS. Second Reich was the period in which Germany has moved from Romanticism to Modernism. German Modernism had a militarist face, according to the German political tradition. Below are few key concepts to describe the period:

Pan German - During the Second Reich many German citizens joined a romantic movement with broad popular definitions, the Pan German, which had irrational belief in anything that was 'Germany'. Pan German organizations were vocal and influential, with political pressure groups who often made declarations of intent and mobilized public support. They advocated modern paganism with alternatives to the established religions using appropriate rituals and texts.

Bismarck - Otto von Bismarck, the giant in body and spirit, was the Iron Chancellor of the Second Reich who began to unite the German states gradually under the control of Prussia, the great and powerful kingdom from the north.

The process created Germany as a constitutional monarchy. The emperor was an influential icon, who united all corners of the nation. Actual control was in the hands of Bismarck. But after the death of Bismarck there was not a political leader of stature to counterweight the emperor. As a result, Germany was dominated in the early 20th century by capricious and powerful emperor with few skills to manage huge modern state.

The Second Reich was characterized by a conservative and dominant central government. Bismarck used three main components for establishing its policies: modernization, imperialism, and militarism.

Modernization - Rapid industrialization and modernization took place, aided by the great migration of population from villages to cities. Smoking tall chimneys of factories were popular icon of this period. Modernization took place in recognition of the fact that the real political power is still in the hands of the aristocrats, despite the greater importance of manufacturers.

Imperialism - Bismarck understood the value of the colonies as an addition and as a unifying factor. One of his arguments was that Great Britain's international standing has limited the economic growth of Germany and threatened its security, because economic survival depends on the availability of foreign markets. German imperialism promised the masses of all the social spectrum limitless possibilities in overseas countries. German imperialism was spread especially across the borders of Germany, and the neighboring states became part of its sphere of influence.

Militarism - Imperialism demanded strong army, which was already an essential component of the centralized regime of Bismarck. In the past the powerful army of Prussia gave her a world reputation of great importance. But Prussia didn’t have non-European colonial tradition. Now, it had the momentum to take advantage of a full military potential. the imperialist and militaristic mindset united and inflamed the aristocracy, industrialists and the public and contributed to waves of intense nationalism.

Due to all these reasons and more, united Germany developed aviation with great enthusiasm. Later it would even be nicknamed a 'nation of aviators'. Biographies of Germany’s aviation pioneers shows just how great was their enthusiasm and contribution to the development of aviation in the world. It is equally possible to see how wrong choices made throughout their way shaped the destiny for their homeland and consequently how much it tempted the state to control the decision-making process on the issue, instead of letting free competition.

Otto Lilienthal was a German engineer of Jewish origin, a pioneer of aviation and world's most famous aviator during late 19th century. Lilienthal did much to promote aviation and was the first man who designed and built a glider that could carry a person. Lilienthal was attracted from the begining to the idea of flying through the imitation of the structure and movement of the wings of the birds, since this idea cdominated the perception of aviation in Europe from ancient times to Leonardo Da-Vinci. His brother Gustav continued this line of thought after his untimely death in an aerial accident and tried intensively, until the 1930th, to built a big airplane with waving wings, long after the airplane with fixed wings and propeller became a sole ruler of the skies.

In the late 19th century the Germans developed another air transport mode which and much more efficient, the airship. This was elongated flying balloon wuth a rigid frame and driven by motors, thus allowing movement not only by the grace of the winds. The airship too was invented by a Jew, David Schwartz, but was named after the key figure who developed and promoted it in Germany, Count Zeppelin, and after him all airships became known just as Zeppelins. Despite the initial enthusiasm, it was a huge machine and therefore very expensive, cumbersome and vulnerable, especially due to the use of flamable hydrogen gas to create lift capacity. Airship development was not possible through private enterprise alone. It needed the support of the German people, eager to finance and stimulate these air pioneers. After the first airship crashed and discouraged the inventors, it was the turn of businessmen and politicians who sold the dream to the masses. Thanks to the public's financial support and  enthusiasm, aviation enthusiasts won the idea of count Zeppelin to produce more and more airships and to make them, eventually, the major strategic weapon during World War I. It was despite the rapid development of airplane technology.

The airplane was invented in the United States and Germany imported the technological innovation while focusing on the airship. Germany was then in the mid of its rapid modernizm, colonialism and militarism and therefore the airplane created an internal conflict. There was an intense incentive to adopt imported technologies at the expense of local technologies, but at a huge price for the national pride.

Aviation Industry in Germany was developed from zero to be a najor part of the economy within few years. It was developed not just as an integral part of technological development, in  process similar to that of many other modern states. In Germany, during the first part of 20th century, instead of being integrated organically, it took the leading position of the economy, society and politics. Development and independence of any state are directly dependent on its means of transport and this is one more important reason why in Germany the airship, and later the airplane, were of absolute importance. Germany is a country isolated by natural barriers: the Alps in the south, the Baltic and the North Sea in the north and the Rhine river in the west. Intuitively, the advanced state developed air mindedness few steps higher and further. It became the combined icon of mobility, unity, modernizm, colonialism, militarism and nationalism altogether.

Otto Lilienthal

During the development of aviation there has always been a sharp difference between 'experts' and 'prophets'. Experts were the experienced ones from the inside and were skeptical about the possibility of rapid development of aviation. When excited reporters asked Orville Wright about his predictions about the development of aviation he said that "prophecy is not my vocation”. The Wright brothers lived in a reality of everyday practical experience, of primarily small and gradual improvements in the area. When other aviation pioneers were asked to the prophecy, each one gave very careful predictions. Prophets, compared with the experts, were romantic visionaries who came from outside. Some of them were intellectuals, writers and poets, and some communication professionals, businessmen, politicians, and the public at large, who were all very enthusiastic about the new medium. Everybody composed countless phrases and tried various projects.

The biographies of the aviation pioneers of Germany shows just how great was their enthusiasm and contribution to the development of world aviation. It is equally possible to see how their wrong choices change the destiny for their homeland, and so as a result how much Germany was enslaved to dominate the decision-making process on the issue. Prominent among them is Otto Lilienthal's biography.

In the heart of the phenomenon of mind there is a true verticality. This verticality is not empty rhetoric. It is a principle of order, a law which governs the mind fabric - a scale along which the individual can experience various degrees of distinguished insights. Mental life, all the clever and delicate feelings, hopes and fears, all the moral forces which are involved in the future of the individual, have vertical differential in the mathematical meaning of the word. If we want to know really how emotions evolve, the first thing to do is to determine the extent to which they make us heavier or lighter. The positive or negative vertical differential indicates well the impact and purpose of emotions on the mind. Of all the metaphors, the metaphors of height, lift, depth, sedimentation and fall, are accepted and agreed above all else. Nothing explain them but they explain everything. These metaphors have an extraordinary power: they control the dialectic of enthusiasm and despair. Vertical boldness is so vital, so clear - its superiority can not be denied - that the mind can not turn away from recognizing its direct and immediate meaning.

Gaston Bashelard writes in the second chapter of his book 'Air and Dreams’ that the wings that are not visible are those that fly as far. The mind doesn’t feels quick affection to birds flying in the sky. Their flight movement creates immediate abstraction and a stunning dynamic image which is perfect, full and complete. The reason for this fast and complete impression is the beauty of the dynamic image. This abstraction leads us to the flowless flight that we experience without formal images during dreams, which is reduced to a full joy and a whole impression of lightness. This abstract flight itself is used as an axis. Around it the many images of our daily existence are gathered. The reason birds attract our attention is not their colors. Their main beauty is their flight. This flight is a base for the dynamic imagination. In the reality of dynamic imagination flying create a unique colour. The vision becomes at once the memory of our dreams and a passion for a reward that God promised us. We are envious of the bird’s part in the univers and we associate wings with what we love, because we feel instinctively that in the domain of joy and bless our bodies will move in space like a bird in the air. Bird Psychology creates a super natural ideal which associates the reality we experienced with a dream. Man, according to this ideal, will become a super bird which, far from this world, will fly among the infinite worlds to its real environment, the land of air. In folklore tales and the romantic creation as well we find many imaginative descriptions, direct and indirect, of flight. the bird, graceful and light, reflects images of love, youth, sweetness and purity. These features are, in fact, primary mental realities. We associate so many features to the birds that cross the sky during the day because we experience through our imagination a joyous flight, one that creates in us youth impression. This is also because the dreamy flight is usually also pure sensuality.

The bird, created to live in the air, the purest and most mysterious element, is inevitably the shape of the final creation, the supreme and most independent shape. The wing, an integral part of flying, bestows noble and ideal perfection to almost all realities. Our soul, escaping from the earthly existence which draws us down to the bottom of this earth, will transform into a magnificent body, easier and faster than of any bird. The role of the natural wing is to float up and carry what is heavy to where the gods stay. More than anything else belonging to the body, it is a partner of the divine nature. By its material power, this partnership provides a very practical significance to the abstract partnership. As the saying goes:''I never loved someone without associating wings to the love”. Therefore it is immediately clear that human wings are a barrier. Whether the artist has designed them large or small, sagging or swinging, ruffled or smooth, they remain motionless for our mind. Imagination is unable to make the link. The image, the winged statue, is static. The wings are a symbol of flying to satisfy allegorical tradition and reason, but we have to look somewhere else for different dynamic hints.

Only indirect processes allow the best solution for the problem of presenting the idea of wings to the human mind. Imagination creates an immediate connection between the purity of the air and the movement of the wings. Bird's body is made ​​from the air surrounding her and her life are made from ​​the movement that carries her on and on. All the feelings that we encounter in everyday life are refined, as they eventually channeled, to the flight experience reality in the creative imagination. Therefore ‘flight of ideas’ is not just allegory and a worn phrase but the true movement of birds’ abstract wings. The changing of the shape of the wings in the air is actually the hidden engine of all human spirituality, its DNA code.

Otto Lilienthal [1848-1896] was a German engineer of Jewish origin, aviation pioneer and the world's most famous Aviator in the late 19th century. Lilienthal did a lot to promote aviation and was the first person who designed and built a glider that could carry a person in the air. Based on researches he conducted on the flight of birds he wrote a book on Aeronautics, published in 1889, which was used later by the Wright brothers. One of his major discoveries was that he showed the advantages of a curved wing against a flat wing. For his flights Lilienthal constructed in Berlin an artificial hill that he built with his own money. Within five years he had produced a commercial model of glider for amateurs. His gliders hovered for hundreds of meters and for few seconds, yet it was an almost unprecedented achievement in human history.

Lilienthal thought of birds flying in the wind in the perspective of Birds Psychology and not just as the model for human aviation. He was attracted to the idea of flights through imitation of the structure and movement of the birds’ wings because this idea dominated the perception of European aviation from ancient ages to Leonardo Da-Vinci. His observations on the flight of birds, especially flying storks, reinforced his conclusion that the bird is the one that should be a model for human aviation. He attributed great importance to the complexity of wings movements and argued not to give up their imitation, because it means losing all hope of flying. He argued, consequently, that the flight is primarily a personal matter and can be defined as ‘the way a person is flying in any direction he wants, by an installation attached to his body, of which the use requires personal skill’. However, despite his confidence in his way, Lilienthal asked not see in his achievements more then what they were. The photographs showed him hovering in the sky and created the impression that the problem of human flight was solved, but he stated that he is in the same place of a child who tries to imitate adult actions. Lilienthal's aviation career indeed lasted only few years:

1893 - Lilienthal built his artificial hill on the outskirts of Berlin and started to perform his flights, some of them to a distance of 250 meters. The same year he began building few models of gliders and a flying machine with motor-driven flapping wings. Over hundreds of attempts, which he documented with photographs, he could gradually improve the results of duration, height, and distance.

1894 - He started serial commercial production of simple and efficientl glider, but sold only few units.

1895 - He received visits of famous aviation pioneers, Langley from United States and Zocovsky from Russia.

1896 - He continued experimenting with new models. On 9 August 1896 he crashed after more than 2500 flights and was killed at the age of 48. The crash that caused his death happened after he lost control during a standard glider’s flight, as a result of a strong and unexpected side wind gust.

Lilienthal wrote and lectured a lot about his inventions. He published articles in scientific and popular journals. He became one of the most famous icons of the late 19th century. He photographed consistency his flights by professional photographers and the images combined the innovation of photojournalism with the innovation of his flights. Lilienthal was received with the same degree of enthusiasm among the scientific community and the public alike and his lectures about interesting experiments received applause. Lilienthal said that it is impossible to invent the art of flight in the same way gunpowder was invented, because theory has not much room for this occupation and only actual experiments are meaningful. This is correct even for our days, when advanced wind tunnels and computer technologies are in use.

Nowdays Lilienthal is known as the first successful aviation pioneer in history. His pioneering research on birds’ wings surfaces make him one of the founders of Aerodynamic science and created the foundation for concepts that are used today. His research and his flights from 1891 to 1896 led to the invention of the motorized aircraft which flew successfully for the first time in 1903.

Flights in gliders with birds-like wings is one of the primary experiences documented in human culture. Since dawn of civilization people have tried to imitate the flight of birds by building hand-made wings. The legend in Greek mythology about Daedalus and Icarus is just one testament of many, since in almost all cultures of the world there are similar legends about people who tried to imitate the flight of birds by tying wings and flapping them with the arms’ muscles. It is possible that the winged angels figures are religious evidence for it. The legend of Daedalus and Icarus illustrates how big was the gap between the will and the ability. Muscles strength required for a bird’s flight is huge relative to the strength of human arms muscles. In addition, a bird's wing is very aerodynamic, a result of an evolution of tens of millions of years and until now it could not be properly duplicated by modern science. A prominent example of human failure in this area is the attempts of Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century. Leonardo worked for many years on drawing the structure of the wings of birds and studied their movement in air currents. Later he drew glider models based mainly on imitating the movement of their wings and possibly even built some of them. But analysis of the plans shows that they did not have any chance to take off.

Therefore the enterprise of Lilienthal is of enormous importance. The Jewish tailor’s son from Germany - Poland border town was, at the end of the 19th century, the first man who managed to partially mimic birds gliding. Lilienthal researched well the structure of the birds’ wings and the way they fly. He built rigid non-flapping wings, harnessed them to his body and jumped with them against the wind from a hill he constructed. Lilienthal used knowledge and technology that were known to human civilization thousands of years before his time. Research observations of birds in flight were made ​​by scholars of all ancient civilizations. His use for gliders’ construction of light wooden beams and strong silk fabric also was common in the ancient world. Yet there was not in the ancient world, medieval and modern times, a genius who planned and executed what Lilienthal did.

The legend of Daedalus and Icarus is a useful and common paradigm among aviation historians, which describes the many victims that development of aviation demanded, from its beginnings to the present. Lilienthal is known for number of maxims. One is: "Aircraft design is nothing, building it is something, but it's all to fly it’. His second important maxim is about flight risks: ‘It requires sacrifice’. German nationalists used this phrase repeatedly to highlight the achievements of German aviation through commemoration of the victims it demanded, in war and peace alike, during the crusade towards the sky that the Nazis had carried out in the 1930th, inspired by Nietzsche.

The biography of Otto Lilienthal is connected to that of his brother Gustav Lilienthal [1849-1933]. The two brothers worked together their entire lives on technical, social and cultural projects in addition to aviation, some are of great importance to this days. During his lifetime, based on his trusted gliders, Otto tried to add to them the possibility of flapping wings using a small and efficient engine which they developed. The results were not encouraging, but Gustav kept the attempts intensely until the 1930th and built a big airplane with flapping wings which could not ever takeoff, long even after the aircraft with fixed wings and propeller had become the sole dominator of the skies. This mistake was very common since not only the movement of the wings of the bird was considered as an essential component for creating the lift for flight, but wings flapping was perceived also as an essential element of the soul, just like the leaves on trees. 'Flight of Ideas’ is not just a worn allegory but an abstract truth. The changing shape of the wings in the air is actually the hidden engine of all human spirituality.

Another Jewish personality who expressed human anxiety about overcoming gravity not in a completely natural way was Theodor Hertzel. In 1896 Hertzel wrote a story called 'Airship’ about a man who invented an aircraft, one of the biggest dreams of his time, but destroys it with his own hands because of his understanding that this invention may be used in the future as a distructive tool for wars. This prediction was original in Hertzel's time, since the majority of mankind regarded the aircraft as an instrument which will bring peace to the world. It is possible also that this prediction was in the root of Hertzel’s Zionism. Hertzel wrote in 1896: “The earth floats in mid-air. Perhaps similarly I can found and stabilize the Jewish state without a firm support. The secret lies in the motion. I beleive that dirigible airship will somehow be invented on this principle”.

We can, in a poetic way, learn about the enormous impact of birds’ wings flapping on human thinking also from the theory of relativity by Albert Einstein: The birds ability to overcome gravity can be described in his terms as ‘energy which is invested in constant, fast and endless movement and create chain reaction’.

Sigmund Freud too was probably influenced by Otto Lilienthal in his research of human sexuality and the Oedipus complex in particular. Flight and sensuality are bound together in the reality of dreams and in this respect Lilienthal was clearly a phallic figure.

Most serious studies about the personality of Adolf Hitler claim that he suffered from psychological development complexes. No doubt, in view of the historical facts, that Hitler projected from his personal troubles to the politics of modern Germany and he probebly regarded the Jewish aviation pioneers as part of these problems and therefore a legitimate reason for antisimitism, in light of the airplane invention by the Wright Brothers and Germany’s defeat in World War One.

The Wright brothers have stated that Lilienthal was an influential figure on their way to the revolutionary design of the aircraft with fixed wings, although their invention was a huge leap and unconventional scientific and cultural breakthrough. They came to Germany in 1909, as part of a European tour which aroused tremendous interest and made ​​them the world's most famous people. The Europeans, unlike the Americans who rejected at first the invention of the airplane, quickly adopted the new invention because of their general interest in aviation. This interest was largely thanks to Lilienthal and David Shwartz, whose development of aviation engine for airships surely contributed to the Wright Brothers.

The Invention of the fixed-wing aircraft with propeller is a significant cultural landmark, which manifested the transition from Romanticism to Modernism. Futurism was artistic and social movement that started in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century and continues today. It was largely Italian, but there were parallel movements also in Russia, England and many other countries. Futurism turned to the feelings of modern man and his experiences of mass production, the media, and advanced transportation and communication systems, from the airplane to the phone, from the cinema to fast food. These are all expressions of modernity which changed necessarily the perception of all daily life and therefore alter the modes of expression of the poet and painter. The airplane’s invention had created a chain reaction: Aviation was the most valued subject for the Italian Futurist artists. Italian Fascism was inspired directly by Futurism and German Nazism was inspired directly by that Fascism. So it was ideologically and in all political, social and military actions.