Although Diesel was born in Paris, his parents were German. His
father was a leather craftsman, and his mother a governess and
language tutor. Rudolf was a good student in primary school and
was admitted at the age of 12 to the Ecole Primaire Superieure,
then regarded as the best in Paris. On the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War, however, he and his parents were considered
enemy aliens, and were deported to neutral asylum in London. A
cousin helped him to return to his father's home town, Augsburg,
where he entered the Royal County Trade School. From there he
won a scholarship to the Technische Hochschule of Munich, where
he was an outstanding student. He became a protegé of Carl von
Linde, the pioneer of refrigeration. He was a devout Lutheran.
After graduation, he was employed for two years as a machinist
and designer in Winterthur, Switzerland. After this, he returned
to Paris, where he was employed as a refrigeration engineer at
Linde Refrigeration Enterprises. In Paris he became a
connoisseur of the f