In the period prior to and immediately after World War I, the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin operated excursion flights within Germany. In the mid to late 1930s, they added regularly scheduled passenger flights to both Rio de Janaro in Brazil and Lakehurst, New Jersey in the United States. The "Graf Zeppelin" and "Hindenburg" were to be the forerunners of a transatlantic dirigible fleet. The Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation (Akron, Ohio) was formed to manufacture passenger airships for this purpose. While the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation did manufacture airships for the U.S. Navy, the commercial venture never got off the ground. The commercial Zeppelins logged in over 1,000,000 miles without loss of life.

To advertise its flights, posters were commissioned by the Zeppelin-Hamburg Line. Post offices of various countries issued special airmail stamps. Medallions were struck commemorating flights. The resulting images were of outstanding quality, brilliant and to the point.