Werner Gustav Doehner, the last survivor of Hindenburg disaster, dead at 90

Werner Gustav Doehner, the last survivor of the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, died last week at his home in Laconia, New Hampshire. He was 90 years old.

Doehner was born in Germany and was 8 when the airship burst into flames and crashed while docking in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, . His father and sister were among the 35 people killed.

“We were close to a window, and my mother took my brother and threw him out. She grabbed me and fell back and then threw me out,” Doehner said in a rare interview in 2017. “She tried to get my sister, but she was too heavy, and my mother decided to get out by the time the zeppelin was nearly on the ground.”

Doehner, who died Nov. 8, was one of 62 passengers and crew to survive the disaster. He had burns to his face, both hands and down his right leg from the knee. He would remain in various hospitals for treatment and surgery until the following January.

“He did not talk about it,” according to his son Bernie Doehner, adding that his father took him to visit the naval station years later, but not the Hindenburg memorial, itself.

At the time of its completion in 1936, the LZ 129 Hindenburg was the largest aircraft ever built.

Doehner grew up in Mexico and moved to the U.S. in 1984, his obituary said. He was an electrical engineer, working for General Electric before retiring from New England Electric System in Westborough, Massachusetts in 1999. He lived to Parachute, Colorado, from 2001 to 2018, when he moved to New Hampshire.

In addition to his son, he is survived by his wife or 52 years, Elin.

With Post wires