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

by Douglas Brunt

Because of Germany’s limited coastal access, the enormous size of the Dreadnought gave the Admiralty an additional advantage in shipyard construction over Germany: time. The fast, big-gun battleship, commissioned December 1906, was 527 feet in length and weighed more than twenty thousand tons. Critically, the draft (depth of water required) of this new castle-at-sea was nearly thirty feet. As Tirpitz knew, this was too deep for the Kiel Canal, the route used by the German fleet to travel between the North Sea and the Baltic. Germany faced a near-paralyzing decision. Many of the German admirals didn’t value the big ships enough to alter existing construction plans. But Tirpitz understood the significant role the bigger ships would play, and that Germany needed to acquire ships to match Britain’s new seaborne monster. He halted construction at the German yards, and at the expense of millions of marks and more than a year of effort, he dredged the Kiel Canal to fit dreadnought-class ships of his own. While advances in naval technology were a factor in Germany’s budget and policy decisions, so was Wilhelm’s behavior. Starting in 1906, Wilhelm ran a gauntlet of personal and diplomatic troubles that reflected his aggressive and unpredictable nature, weakening his standing even within his own government. With diminished influence, Wilhelm was unable to continue to win the Reichstag support needed to keep up with Great Britain in the dreadnought race. This change in strategic dire...

The United States, in this last war, built thousands of ships and 90 per cent of them were diesel powered, and there was no ship that was not equipped with diesel power of some kind… The whole landing craft program was diesel powered, and these ships worked under the most strenuous conditions…. Diesel engines saved the day. Not a single one failed us in a critical operation. Though Adolphus Busch died in Germany in 1913 only days after Rudolf’s disappearance, the Busch-Sulzer operation continued and built many of the marine Diesels used by the US Navy in World War II. In the years after the war, Diesel powered global commerce. By 1960, nearly all new commercial ships had Diesel installations. Today, close to 100 percent of the goods traveling the oceans—approximately 11 billion tons annually as of 2021—do so under Diesel power. And when cargo arrives in port, it is loaded onto trucks that are almost exclusively Diesel. The trucks drive the cargo to train depots where the trains, since about 1960, are all running on Diesel power. Nothing seems to move at all today without the aid of Rudolf’s wonder technology.I While the engine has gotten its due, now, I hope, so does the man. Rudolf created the world’s dominant power source. He then ensured the technology was not confined to the service of those inside German borders, but this required a great sacrifice. In a sense, Rockefeller and Kaiser Wilhelm II did cause Diesel’s “death.” Because of the threat he posed to them, he had...