Wilhelm Scholz served as the director of the Deutsche Werft 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, handling this highly modern technology for 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 know to understand ship diesel engines, starting from the history of their development, through fuel science and mixture formation, to the structural design, control, and maneuvering.