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A war diary is a regularly updated official record kept by military units of their activities during wartime. The purpose of these diaries is to both record information which can later be used by the military to improve its training and tactics as well as to generate a detailed record of units' activities for future use by historians. War diaries are focused on the administration and operations of the unit they cover, but may also contain information about individual personnel.
War diaries (german: Kriegstagebuch, plural ) were invented by the
A war diary is a regularly updated official record kept by military units of their activities during wartime. The purpose of these diaries is to both record information which can later be used by the military to improve its training and tactics as well as to generate a detailed record of units' activities for future use by historians. War diaries are focused on the administration and operations of the unit they cover, but may also contain information about individual personnel.
War diaries (german: Kriegstagebuch, plural ) were invented by the Prussian Army
The Royal Prussian Army (1701–1919, german: Königlich Preußische Armee) served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power.
The Prussian Army had its roots in the co ...
. On 22 April 1850, the Prussian Minister of War, August von Stockhausen
__NOTOC__
August Wilhelm Ernst von Stockhausen (19 February 1791, in Thüringen – 31 March 1861, in Berlin) was a Prussian officer and minister of war 1850-51.
Stockhausen came from Thüringen. In 1805 he joined the ''Feldjägerregiment'' of t ...
, ordered that all commanders of major units should keep war diaries. All significant military actions, relocations, important messages and orders, casualties, material losses, reinforcements etc. were to be recorded. Subsequent regulations of 1870 in Prussia, of 1895 and 1916 in the German Empire
The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...
, and of 1940 in Nazi Germany were largely identical to the Prussian 1850 regulations.
The British Army first required that its units keep war diaries in 1907 as a means of preventing its mistakes of the Second Boer War from being repeated, and units operating in war zones continue to maintain such diaries. The war diaries kept by Australian military units are normally maintained by the unit's adjutant or intelligence officer and contain a regularly updated narrative of its activities as well as copies of reports, messages received and maps.Stanley (2008), pp. 50–51
World War II ''War Diaries'' from units of the US Navy (including all ships) and Marine Corps were declassified on December 31, 2012 by the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (OCNO) and made available to the public through the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). These war diaries are part of a larger collection of records from the OCNO at NARA, currently spanning 1875 to 2006.
See also
*Logbook
A logbook (or log book) is a record used to record states, events, or conditions applicable to complex machines or the personnel who operate them. Logbooks are commonly associated with the operation of aircraft, nuclear plants, particle accelera ...
(also known as a "captain's log")
* Service record (a less detailed equivalent of a war diary for an individual soldier)
* List of Australian diarists of World War I
*Joseph Bédier
Joseph Bédier (28 January 1864 – 29 August 1938) was a French writer and scholar and historian of medieval France.
Biography
Bédier was born in Paris, France, to Adolphe Bédier, a lawyer of Breton origin, and spent his childhood in Réunion. ...
(1864–1938), French writer and scholar who made use of German World War I ''Kriegstagebücher''
References
;Notes ;Bibliography * *External links
* {{Authority control Military historiography Government documents Works about history