The Airship

Franz Xavier Stannebein a young boy at the turn of the 20th century wants to do nothing more than fly He carries this dream through his years at an orphanage and into adulthood as a merchant in Spain He eventually invests everything he has into building his own version of an airship He later meets some industrialists in Germany who want to support his idea and they ask him to build an airfield in Spain When he sees the Nazis use the field during the Spanish Civil War however he feels betrayed and goes to Germany to protest There he is thrown into an insane asylum in Leipzig After WWII his grandson and other survivors of the family searches for him only to find the empty asylum Based on the novel Das LuftSchiff Biografische Nachlasse zu den Fantasien meines Grossvaters 1974 by Fritz Rudolf Fries The noncamera animation in the film was created by internationally known director Lutz Dammbeck