Career

However, Spiess"s machine was not actually constructed until 1913, and was the first and only French rigid airship. Joseph Spiess was born on 10 September 1838, the son of a printer, in the city of Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin département, in the Alsace region of France. He served as a warrant officer in the Franco-Prussian War from 1870 to 1871, and when Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by the German Empire, Spiess opted to retain his French nationality.

Joseph Spiess died on 31 March 1917, and is buried with other family members in the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise in Paris.

His gravestone has a bronze frieze depicting his airship.