The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I

“The captain of the passenger ferry had reported Herr Diesel missing at sea, in international waters where there was no legal jurisdiction and no investigatory authority. Since there was no body, there had been no coroner’s report. There was no trial by admiralty nor even a company hearing. There had been no official investigation at all.”

Brunt provides key contextual information about Diesel’s disappearance, showing readers why there are so many questions about it that remain, while also acknowledging the constraints that investigators were up against.

“Throughout history, the world has often adopted technological advances in ways the inventor never imagined, and certainly never intended. [...] As empires, both political and corporate, applied revolutionary technologies to accelerate their advance, the unintended consequences of an inventor’s brainchild could wreak havoc and terror.”

The complicated historical context of Diesel’s life is central to Brunt’s argument about his death or disappearance. Here, we see the important role that industrial, political, and monetary interests have on the direction and uses of industrial innovation; often, those interests have the final say, not the inventor.

“Four people are key to understanding the quarter century leading up to the Great War: John D. Rockefeller, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Winston Churchill, and—overlooked until now—Rudolf Diesel. By walking the paths of these men in the decades before the war and connecting facts previously thought to be unrelated, a shroud of mystery dissolves to reveal the truth about Rudolf Diesel’s fate.”

The final two sentences of the Prologue create suspense, drawing on the tropes of the mystery or thriller genre. By opening his book with the end of Diesel’s life, Brunt shows readers the lens through which he will be reviewing historical facts—he is interested primarily in drawing conclusions about Rudolf Diesel’s death or disappearance.