A fierce and sardonic critique of war, and equally of the role that the one-sided interpretation of images — reinforced by titles and captions — plays in the perception of war itself, Bertolt Brecht's project, first published in 1955, juxtaposes documentary photographs cut from newspapers, with their original captions alongside, with four-line poems written by the artist himself, which provocatively subvert the meaning of the image by offering an alternative interpretation. A foundational work by virtue of the revolutionary modernity of its concept, the book inspired the artistic duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, who in 2011 published "War Primer 2", in which images depicting events such as the September 11 attacks and the wars in the Middle East are superimposed on the original photographs, leaving Brecht's rhyming captions visible. The influence of the 1955 project can be found in various recently published books, most notably "Attention Servicemember" by Ben Brody, published by Mass Books, in which the photographer places alongside images taken in Afghanistan and Iraq — initially on assignment for the US Army and later as a freelance photojournalist — short texts containing behind-the-scenes accounts with his own version of events, unmasking and piercing the veil of propaganda.

The German edition of "Kriegsfibel" in an identical 1968 reprint is accompanied by the first Italian edition of 1972 (Einaudi) which, though small in format, provides an excellent translation of the texts.