This diary is an extraordinary testimony of the "Great War" that, few years after the conclusion, everyone started calling First World War. These notes begin from December 30, 1914 with the 19 years old author's departure towards the front, and end in early September of 1918. There is no war diary that documents the First World War from the perspective of an official on the first line covering such a wide time span and presenting such an assiduousness of recordings.

These author's annotations have become the basis of the most famous and important war diary of German literature: "Storm of Steel".