Franz Müller was a sergeant and began writing his notes as a sober chronicler at the end of August 1939, when his battery was mobilized. This was the beginning of a collection of factual descriptions, observations and impressions of wartime events that eventually led the high school graduate from the Grimmelshausen Gymnasium in Offenburg (Germany) to deployment in the High Caucasus. After being transferred home in 1943 as an instructor at a mountain artillery school, Müller was again deployed to the front in 1944, where he still believed in "the great turning point" in the war until his capture in March 1945. After almost five years of captivity - with sparse contacts back home - Müller embarked on a civilian career as a tax official, accompanied by various forms of public recognition.
