Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin Probably hardly a shape of aviation history is part of as many legends as Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin. He was born on July 8, 1838 in Konstanz at the Bodensee. He was educated at the Ludwigsburg Military Academy and the University of Tübingen. He entered the Prussian army in 1858 and went to the United States in 1863 to work as a military observer for the Union army and observed the Civil War. Zeppelin served in the Franco-German War of 1870-1871; he retired in 1891 with the rank of brigadier general. It was quite usual in his noble and high-decorated family, that he chose a military career. And later explor