Strategie & Taktik: Des Spiels mit Bleisoldaten

Here's a period curiosity, an old book about playing wargames with toy soldiers. Kindly offered as a free download from Zinnhobby.de, located here.
http://www.zinnhobby.de/zinn.php?PHPSESSID=f9f6082869b33db3e2c52bde12ffcc97

Unfortunately, I can't read much of the German text in the old script and apparently neither can the translation program cope with the pdf format.  Perhaps that's no great loss as according to the forward by Ralf Wlaka, the author's rambling ode to playing wargames with toy soldiers doesn't really live up to what seems to be promised by the cover. In other words, Dr. Floericke's musings don't hit the mark for anyone looking for a useable set of wargaming rules.

Still, from what I can superficially glean from the text and the attractive drawings of flats or home cast figures of the day, combined with some formation diagrams, battle maps and OOB's, it's the sort of  book I'd like to read regardless of how dated.

Oddly enough, Strategie und Taktik dates to 1917.  I have to share Mr. Wloka's puzzlement about the timing, publishing a book about playing wargames with tin soldiers in a Germany suffering from blockade and beaten down by three years of horrendous casualty lists. He puts it rather well, "Perhaps this work is also just a good indication of how little real war - contrary to the opinions of the war-game opponents - has actually to do with the Zinnsoldatenspiel."