*Ranked 10th on Amazon US chart immediately after publication
*The greatest mystery of the 20th century, buried in power and conspiracy.

The Engine That Changed the World, and the Vanished Inventor

On September 29, 1913, the world-renowned inventor Rudolf Diesel was on board the passenger ship Dresden bound for London.
The revolutionary internal combustion diesel engine he created was a cutting-edge technology that completely changed the landscape of global industry.
But on that very ship, Diesel disappeared without a trace in the vast ocean in the middle of the night.
This mysterious disappearance shocked the world and raised numerous questions and suspicions, including whether it was an accidental death, suicide, or murder.


Rudolf Diesel barely survived a poor childhood and became a millionaire by developing a powerful engine that could run without expensive petroleum fuel.
He toured the rising power of the United States twice, recording profound insights and interacting with world-renowned figures such as Winston Churchill, Thomas Edison, and the Nobel family.
But with Diesel's disappearance, traces of his exploits also disappeared.
Even though it is still used in the engines of countless cars, trains and ships, it has had a huge impact on modern internal combustion engines.

Diesel wanted his technology to improve the lives of workers and change society for the better.
However, the world on the eve of World War I was unstable, and that instability led to a desire to use the latest technology for war.
In particular, two powerful men of the time, German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II and oil magnate John D.
Rockefeller was paying attention to diesel for his own reasons.
Diesel's technology entangled him with the world's most powerful figures, and his sudden disappearance gave rise to various conspiracy theories.
The Rudolph Diesel Mystery traces Diesel's life, his amazing inventions, and the secrets of the night he disappeared.
A mystery that remained unsolved for 100 years is finally brought to the surface.

On October 11, 1913, something was floating in the water.
The Dutch harbor pilot steamer Körzen approached an object that caught the crew's attention.
The crew of this small ship realized what they had seen in the surging black waters of the Scheldt Estuary at the eastern end of the English Channel.
It was a corpse.
Although horribly decomposed, the sailors recognized the body as being dressed in luxurious attire.
They pulled the body overboard, took four items from the deceased's pockets, and then threw the rotting body back into the sea.
The items included a coin purse, a small pocket knife, a glasses case, and an enamel medicine bottle.

---From the "Prologue"

A somewhat eccentric, lonely, and dreamy boy, he had a talent for engineering but was not trained in it.
He loved art, thanks mainly to his mother's tender care.
There is no definitive information about how Rudolf lived in London, but he was fortunate compared to the unfortunate children who were forced into the factories at the time.
Rudolph, a naive and optimistic boy, spent his time sketching mechanical devices he saw at fairs or imagined.
At that moment, he was determined to create a better machine.
As Rudolph stood on the bridge, he began to harbor a vague ambition to create something that would change the working conditions of working-class people like himself and his family.

---From "Chapter 2 A Short Stay in London"

Wilhelm II, who became the Kaiser of the German Empire, was born with a physical disability.
His left arm was 15 centimeters shorter than his right.
In Prussian culture, which was overwhelmingly male-dominated, this physical weakness was a great shame.
It was a sad thing for young Wilhelm, but his underdeveloped left arm was also a source of shame for his mother.
My mother wrote to Queen Victoria of England:
“Wilhelm would have been a very pretty boy if it weren’t for that pathetic arm, the source of his misery. But the more I look at it, the more distorted his face becomes.
(…) Because of my arms, every time I move, my actions, my gait, and even my figure all look awkward (…) I can’t do anything by myself (…) It’s a sadness that I can’t express in words.”
---From "Chapter 3: Europe's New Empire"

Now sixteen years old, Rudolph came home with a mixture of anger and despair.
The ivory tower of the university was within reach.
The escapist daydreams I had as a child in the technical museums of Paris became a daily experience in Augsburg.
However, the parents, who still did not recognize their son's extraordinary talent, did not understand what it meant to ask him to give up.
An excited Rudolph raised his voice at his mother and protested that it was absurd that his parents, who had always been against math and science, were not supporting their son's education because of immediate financial concerns.
Rudolph told his parents that he was confident that he would receive a scholarship to college and that he would do great things there.

---From Chapter 4, “Is There Really Someone Who Has Succeeded on Their Own?”

The former refugee boy who once traveled alone from Paris to Augsburg in just one shirt is now a well-established 34-year-old engineer who prides himself on having the best ideas about how to power the industrial age.
He worked with some of the most brilliant engineers in Germany and had been working on this idea for over a decade.
Diesel wasn't one to give up because he was rejected.
Diesel knew that the engineering community was struggling with whether to accept him or see him as a threat, and he knew how to force Booz to make a clear choice.
In some ways, the message sent to Booz was similar to the message Rockefeller sent to his rival refineries.
“If you don’t join me, you will be destroyed.”
---From Chapter 9, The Birth of Diesel Power

Many in the engineering community recognized that the diesel engine had the potential to fundamentally change modern power generation.
All advanced countries' companies are actively seeking to sign licensing agreements with diesel.
Diesel followed the same distribution model as Linde and rapidly spread diesel technology.
In just over a year, Diesel has signed more than 20 licensing agreements across Europe and North America.


The successive licensing agreements represented a shift in the direction of diesel engines, a change that Diesel himself must have perceived as a rather subtle one.
He was now dealing with large corporations, as only large corporations could afford to pay the expensive licensing fees.
These big companies were neither thinkers nor dreamers who wanted to find a way to produce small institutions for artisans like dentists, jewelers, and Theodore Diesel.
These companies had already entered the organ manufacturing business in large numbers.
The massive machines they built were used in the centralized economic system of the modern industrial era, and in the era of hyper-nationalism, they were also used for military purposes.

---From Chapter 10, Sir Calvin Makes the First Move

Diesel wrote to his beloved wife Martha about his pioneering sociological treatise, Solidarity.
“Engineers are entering a new era.
In this era, engineers will increasingly wrest decisive influence from lawyers in the nation.”
---From Chapter 12, “Holding on to Success”

Diesel expands the discussion to include alternative fuels, explaining that diesel engines can burn coal tar, vegetable oils, and nut oils in addition to petroleum-derived fuels.
“The use of vegetable oils as fuel may not seem that important now, but over time, these oils will become as important as petroleum and coal tar derivatives are today,” he said.


Because diesel can flexibly burn a variety of fuels, diesel technology can break fuel monopolies and bring political stability to all countries regardless of the supply and demand of natural fuels, he argued.
“Some (countries) produce only coal, some only oil.
And there are countries like the United States that produce both coal and oil.
It is difficult to predict how a particular country will develop.” With diesel engines, this was not a problem.
Oil was available in every country.
He pointed out that the adoption of diesel engines in the United States has been delayed because of the abundance of diesel fuel.

---From "Chapter 21: The Great Light that Illuminated the West"

Rumors of murder began to circulate.
Diesel was assassinated by German intelligence agents before he could deliver his revolutionary submarine engine designs to the Royal Navy.
As Admiral Fisher already knew, the German General Staff, upon learning that the British had designed a new diesel engine, may have shot Diesel “like a dog,” as Fischer had assumed.


There are other theories that are equally credible.
The oil trust hired assassins to eliminate threats to its monopoly.
W., Britain's most famous journalist.
T. Steed had argued that the diesel engine, fueled by coal tar, would be the engine of the future.

---From Chapter 25: The World's Reaction