The Zeppelin NT (""Neue Technologie"", German for "new technology") is a class of helium-filled airships being manufactured since the 1990s by the German company Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH (ZLT) in Friedrichshafen.
 The initial model is the NT07.
 The company considers itself the successor of the companies founded by Ferdinand von Zeppelin which constructed and operated the very successful Zeppelin airships in the first third of the 20th century.
 There are, however, a number of notable differences between the Zeppelin NT and the airships of those days, as well as between the Zeppelin NT and usual non-rigid airships known as blimps.
 The Zeppelin NT is classified as a semi-rigid airship.
David Schwarz (Croatian: "David Švarc" , ] ; 20 December 1850 – 13 January 1897) was a Croatian-Hungarian aviation pioneer of Jewish descent born in the Austrian Empire.
 He is known for creating the first airship with a rigid hull, in his case one made entirely of metal, an essential step in creating a dirigible, that is: an airship whose flight trajectory can be fully controlled with the help of engine-driven propellers.
 Schwarz died only months before the airship was flown.
 Some sources have claimed that Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin purchased Schwarz's airship patent from his widow, a claim which has been disputed.
 He was the father of the opera and operetta soprano Vera Schwarz (1888–1964).
Mount Zeppelin ( ) is a mountain, 1,265 m, standing 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of Eckener Point on Pefaur (Ventimiglia) Peninsula, Danco Coast on the west coast of Graham Land.
 Charted by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Gerlache, 1897-99.
 Named by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee (UK-APC) in 1960 for Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), German aeronautical engineer who perfected the large-scale rigid airship, 1894-1917.
A Zeppelin was a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (] ) who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century.
 Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893.
 They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899.
 After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word "zeppelin" came to be commonly used to refer to all rigid airships.
 Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service.
 By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights.
 During World War I the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and scouts, killing over 500 people in bombing raids in Britain.
Airship development in the United Kingdom lagged behind that of Germany and France.
 The first British designed and built airship was constructed by Stanley Spencer, and on 22 September 1902 was flown 30 mi from Crystal Palace, London to Ruislip, carrying an advertisement for baby food.
 A series of more practical airships was constructed by Ernest Willows, the "Willows Number 1" making its first flight near Cardiff on 5 August 1905.
 The Royal Navy realised that airships similar to Ferdinand von Zeppelin's designs could be of great use and in 1909 ordered construction of a rigid airship.
 This was completed in 1911 but was wrecked while leaving the hangar before it had flown.
 Meanwhile, the British Army's School of Ballooning, later the Air Battalion Royal Engineers, acquired a small fleet of semi-rigid and non-rigid airships for observation purposes; they were taken over by the Royal Navy on the creation of the Royal Naval Air Service in 1914.
 A large number of rigid and non-rigid airships were mainly used to counter the U-Boat campaign in World War I.
 Interest in military airships declined at the end of the war, but some success in the commercial field inspired the Imperial Airship Scheme; however, the disastrous crash of the R101 in 1930 ended serious government and commercial interest in airships.
 Since the 1970s, there have been persistent efforts to revive a British airship industry, using new designs, materials and technologies.
LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" (Deutsches Luftschiff Zeppelin #127 ; Registration: D-LZ 127) was a German-built and -operated, passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled, rigid airship which operated commercially from 1928 to 1937.
 When it entered commercial service in 1928, it became the first commercial passenger transatlantic flight service in the world.
 It was named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who was a count ("Graf") in the German nobility.
 During its operating life, the airship made 590 flights covering more than 1.7 million kilometers (over 1 million miles).
 It was designed to be operated by a crew of 36 officers and men.
 The LZ 127 was the longest rigid airship at the time of its completion and was only surpassed by the USS "Akron" in 1931.
 It was scrapped for fighter plane parts in 1940.
The Zeppelin LZ 3 was a German experimental airship constructed in Friedrichshafen under the direction of Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
 It was first flown on 9 October 1906 and was later purchased by the German Army and operated as Z I until being retired in 1913.
 Before being purchased by the Army, LZ 3 made many flights and carried a number of influential passengers, including the German Crown Prince.
Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is a German company which, during the early 20th century, was a leader in the design and manufacture of rigid airships, specifically of the Zeppelin type.
 The company was founded by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
 'Luftschiffbau' is a German word meaning "building of airships".
Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin (8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer, who founded the Zeppelin airship company.
Theodor Kober (1865 to 1930) was a twentieth-century German aviation engineer who contributed to the building of the first Zeppelin.
 As an engineer Kober had worked for a balloon manufacturer and in the 1890s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin enlisted him to produce designs for his airship concept.
 After several years he and Zeppelin produced the design for the Zeppelin LZ1.
 Later, in 1912 he founded the Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen GmbH with financial support from Zeppelin to build over 40% of the Imperial German Navy seaplanes during World War I.

Question: What army rank did Count Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin reach before founding the airship manufacturing company bearing his name?
Answer: general