Sabotage
A time bomb is another possible cause of the disaster. Witnesses saw the fire jetting from just ahead of the top tail fin of the Hindenburg. This could have been the result of a detonation inside the frame of the airship. A time bomb is the most likely devise that could have been used and the explosion designed to go off when the ship had been empty. If this was the case then as the Hindenburg was so late to arrive at Lakehurst the bomb went of before the passengers had disembarked.
The motive for a bomb in this case would not have been the loss of life, but the embarrassment of the Nazi party, who were becoming more powerful. There were many opponents of the Nazi regime, but the disaster was blamed on an act of God by Chancellor Hitler at the time.
One of the passengers, Joseph Spah, was cited as the bomber as he made several trips to the depths of the ship to visit his dog. He survived. Another was Erich Spehl, a quiet member of the crew, who was thought to have had anti-nazi friends. he wsa killed in the explosion.
The majority of the surviving crew believed that the cause was sabotage, but they believed that the whole crew were innocent and that it must have been a passenger who was to blame.