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

Rudolf Diesel (1850-1913) was a German engineer and the inventor of the diesel internal combustion engine. Diesel grew up in a family of Bavarian immigrants to France; a sensitive and quiet child, he was deeply affected by the family’s forced flight to London during the Franco-Prussian War. As a young man, Diesel decided to use his aptitude for math and science to better the lives of the working-class people suffering during the Industrial Revolution. 

Spurred to create an invention to revolutionize the world, Diesel was encouraged by his mentor, Carl von Linde, to create his engine—an improvement on the steam engine technology then in use because it could run on many different types of fuel, and was more energy efficient and smaller. The diesel engine was quickly adopted worldwide; however, Diesel’s initial intention to use his engine to curtail manual factory labor and thus uplift the lower classes gave way to the engine’s primary use in heavy industry and the military. Diesel engines allowed Germany to catch up to Britain in naval power, setting off an arms race that partially caused World War I. 

Diesel’s work changed the world on a fundamental level, yet, history has forgotten him. Brunt aims to bring Rudolf Diesel’s legacy back into the historical narrative, partly by explaining his 1913 disappearance as a complex defection to the side of the Allied powers.

John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) was a preeminent industrialist who founded and ran Standard Oil, a US firm that monopolized the oil market.

Born to a hedonistic con artist father who eventually abandoned the family, Rockefeller was driven to achieve and amass wealth from a young age. He had a keen business sense, which he parlayed into many business partnerships and ventures, each one more successful than the last.

In the 1850s, Rockefeller met Henry Flagler, with whom he founded Standard Oil, where he made most of his wealth. Rockefeller was known for his vicious business tactics to undercut any competition. He forced many companies to fold, took part in insider trading, hired men to infiltrate and break unions—sometimes through violence—and allegedly was involved in destroying Thomas Edison’s electric car battery workshop to ensure his fuel’s market domination.

In Brunt’s book, Rockefeller is a foil to Diesel. For example, unlike the idealistic Diesel, who dreamed of uplifting the working class, Rockefeller exploited people to amass wealth. While some conjectured that Rockefeller had the motive and pattern of behavior to murder Diesel, Brunt dismisses this theory.