Zeppelin Fleet Commander Peter Strasser "der Valkyrie"
zeppelin captain peterStrasser died leading the last WW1 German airborne attack on England. his airship was shot down over the english channel. his body and those of his crew were recovered by boat or washed ashore on the kent coastline. public opinion was so strongly against the "baby killers" that local people refused to let the airmen be interred in the local churchyard and so they were hastily buried at sea...
1919.. plucked, unconscious, from the channel by a German seaplane, horribly burned and clinging to a piece of the airships aluminum frame and fabric - peter Strasser is returned to germany to recover. after a year of painful surgery and recuperation he is offered command of a new fleet of super Zeppelins to help combat the rampaging Bolshevik hordes sweeping across europe.
FASHIONing a part of his downed airship's framework that saved his life INTO A CRUTCH he eagerly takes command of his new ship, "wotan". these retro-fitted Zeppelins have flight decks and maintenance hangars and are powered by new maybach engines. they act as high altitude re-fuelling stations for the new long-range fighters that can now land, re-fuel and re-arm, then return to the whirling maelstrom of battle below.
Each airship is named after one of the Gods and characters of Norse mythology and crewed by loyal, wounded and disfigured veterans. eager to serve the fatherland again and escape the gaze and judgement of civilian life. cruising at the limits of human endurance these Zeppelin stations are vulnerable only to the latest aircraft the enemy can produce.