Wilhelm Scholz served as the director of the German Shipyard in Finkenwerder during the 1920s, which successfully transitioned to the construction of commercial and specialized ships, and later submarines, after World War I. During this time, the fast-running diesel or oil engine, which was powerful but cumbersome and expensive, began to increasingly compete with the steam turbine. However, the handling of this highly modern technology, by the standards of the time, was still unpracticed. This primarily affected the crews on commercial ships, especially the engineers and machinists, but also the navigators. The book contains everything that crews needed to understand ship diesel engines, from the history of their development to fuel knowledge and mixture formation, as well as the structural design, control, and re-control.