Imperial German WWI 1915 Pocket Reference Book Krieg Heer und Flotte Dietmar Dated

Original Imperial German pocket reference book of 1915, the Auskunftsbuch über Krieg, Heer und Flotte ("Reference Book on War, Army and Navy"), a wartime handbook compiled by a serving Prussian officer to explain the terminology of the war to soldiers and civilians alike, here in a complete copy bearing a period owner's inscription dated 1916. The book measures 4.25 by 2.75 inches (approximately 10.8 by 7 cm), a true pocket format of 256 pages in printed wrappers.

The front wrapper carries a striking color design of a bursting shell in red, black, and cream against a khaki ground, over the Fraktur title Auskunftsbuch über Krieg, Heer und Flotte. The title page gives the fuller subtitle Was jedermann über Krieg, Heer und Flotte wissen muss ("What everyone must know about war, army and navy"), and records that the volume appeared with the approval of the Oberkommando in den Marken, the military district command of Brandenburg and Berlin, and was compiled by Gustav Dietmar, Hauptmann im Füsilier-Regiment von Steinmetz (Westpreußisches) Nr. 37 (Captain in the West Prussian Fusilier Regiment "von Steinmetz" No. 37). It was published in Berlin in 1915 by the Deutsche Volksbuchhandlung, priced at one Mark, and printed by Selmar Bayer of Berlin. The rear wrapper bears a printed Iron Cross of 1914 within a red oval seal.

The body of the book is an alphabetically arranged dictionary of military, naval, and war-economy terms, running from entries such as Abblenden (the blacking-out of airships or warships against observation), Abprotzen, Abteilung, Abzeichen, Adjutant, Admiral, and Admiralität onward through the vocabulary of the army and fleet, rank structures, weapons, formations, and the economic questions of the home front. A foreword explains the purpose plainly: with the outbreak of war the whole nation, learned and unlearned, men and women, had become absorbed in matters of war, army, and navy, yet the layman often could not account for the technical, tactical, economic, and geographical terms that filled the newspapers; the little book was created to make the great events intelligible, and was commended as a Liebesgabe, a comfort-gift, to be sent to soldiers in the field and as a reference to those at home. An appendix, Die wichtigsten Ereignisse im ersten Kriegsjahre ("The Most Important Events of the First Year of War"), gives a month-by-month chronology of the war from the German perspective, its entries including the sinking of the Lusitania, the great breakthrough at Tarnów-Gorlice on the Eastern Front, the recapture of Przemyśl and the taking of Lemberg, the repeated Italian failures on the Isonzo before Görz, and the enemy air raid on Karlsruhe, among many others.

The book is a characteristic product of the German home front's effort to explain and justify the war to itself. Handbooks, dictionaries, and pocket guides of this kind proliferated after 1914, sold cheaply and often carried to the front, and this example is distinguished by its official sanction and by its authorship by a named line officer of a specific West Prussian regiment. Its foreword frames the conflict in the terms of 1915 as a defensive struggle forced upon Germany by the encirclement of its enemies, and its chronology is a compact record of the events the German public was taught to regard as the milestones of the first year, a mixture of genuine victories in the East and the naval and aerial episodes that loomed large in wartime opinion. As such it is both a reference and a document of wartime mentality.

This copy carries an added mark of its period life: a contemporary ink ownership inscription on the title page, dated 12.7.16 (12 July 1916) and accompanied by a price notation, showing that the book passed into a soldier's or civilian's hands a year after publication and was valued enough to be named and kept.

Condition is good and complete for a fragile pocket paperback of the war years. The text block is entire at 256 pages, with the dictionary and the appendix chronology present and legible throughout. The wrappers are worn, creased, and edge-chipped, with rubbing to the front-cover shell design and spine, some staining and old damp-marking to the paper, and the toning expected of acidic wartime stock; there is minor loss at the wrapper corners and along the spine, and the period ink inscription on the title page. The binding is sound and the book handles as a solid, readable copy.

For the collector, the appeal lies in the combination of a complete, officially sanctioned wartime handbook, a named Prussian regimental author, a graphically bold exploding-shell cover and Iron Cross rear seal, and a dated period ownership inscription that ties the copy to a specific moment in 1916. Wartime soldier reference books survive far less often intact than the medals and insignia of the same period, and a complete, dated example with its striking wrappers is an appealing piece of Imperial German home-front and soldier material, suited equally to First World War, printed-ephemera, and regimental collectors.