08/15 is a 1954–55 West German film trilogy directed by Paul May and based on the novel "08/15" by Hans Hellmut Kirst who also served as the film's screenwriter (published in English as "The Revolt of Gunner Asch").
 The term "08/15" (nill-eight/fifteen, German: "Null-Acht/Fünfzehn" ) refers to the German Army's standard machine gun, the 08/15 (or MG 08 model 15), by far, the most common German machine gun deployed in World War I.
 It was manufactured in such large quantities that it became the German Army slang for anything that was standard issue.
A mitrailleuse (] ; from French "mitraille", "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with multiple barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either multiple rounds at once or several rounds in rapid succession.
 The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army Captain Fafschamps, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun.
 It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863.
 Then the French 25 barrel ""Canon à Balles"", better known as the Reffye "mitrailleuse", was adopted in great secrecy in 1866.
 It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major conflict when it was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.
 A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre) centre-fire cartridges was locked against the breech before firing.
 With the rotation of a crank, the 25 rounds were discharged in rapid succession.
 The sustainable firing rate of the Reffye mitrailleuse was 100 rounds per minute.
 The maximum effective range of the Reffye "mitrailleuse" was about 2000 yards; a distance which placed their batteries beyond the reach of Prussian Dreyse needle rifle fire.
 Reffye mitrailleuses were deployed in six gun batteries and were manned by artillery personnel.
 They were not infantry support weapons but rather a form of special artillery.
Captain Willy Schultz is a fictional comic-book soldier, a German-American U.S. Army captain during World War II, who after being falsely accused and convicted of murder, escapes and blends into the German Army while seeking a way to clear his name and retain his Allied allegiance.
 Created by writer Will Franz and artist Sam Glanzman, the character starred in the feature "The Lonely War of Willy Schultz", which debuted in Charlton Comics' "Fightin' Army" #76 (cover-dated Oct. 1967).
The Pianist is a memoir by the Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman in which he describes his life in Warsaw in occupied Poland during World War II.
 After being forced with his family to live in the Warsaw ghetto, Szpilman manages to avoid deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp, and from his hiding places around the city witnesses the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 and the Warsaw uprising (the rebellion by the Polish resistance) the following year.
 He survives in the ruined city with the help of friends and strangers, including Wilm Hosenfeld, a German army captain who admires his piano playing.
08/15 is a 1954 West German film directed by Paul May and based on the novel "08/15" by Hans Hellmut Kirst who also served as the film's screenwriter.
 The term "08/15" (nill-eight/fifteen, German: "Null-Acht/Fünfzehn" ) refers to the German Army's standard machine gun, the 08/15 (or MG 08 model 15), by far, the most common German machine gun deployed in World War I.
 It was manufactured in such large quantities that it became the German Army slang for anything that was standard issue.
 08/15 is also the first part of the 08/15 film trilogy, hence it is also named "Teil 1: In der Kaserne" ("Part 1: In the Barracks").
Maj. Gen. Wilfred Charles Menard, Jr. (November 10, 1918 – February 20, 2012) (ARNG) was the twenty-sixth Adjutant General of New Jersey.
 Commissioned a US Army 2nd lieutenant in 1942, he served actively with the Army during the Second World War rising to the rank of US Army captain.
 He continued to serve thereafter as a reserve officer in the New Jersey Army National Guard, which he commanded from 1974-1982.
 A graduate of the United States Army Field Artillery School, the United States Army Tank Destroyer School, and the United States Army War College, Menard was an experienced artillery officer.
 During his service with the Guard, he was briefly reactivated at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel for the Berlin Crisis of 1961.
 Born in Trenton, NJ, Maj. Gen. Menard was a lifelong resident of central New Jersey.
 His many military awards and decorations include the Distinguished Service Medal (US Army) and the Legion of Merit.
Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen (10 October 1895 – 12 July 1945) was a German field marshal of the "Luftwaffe" (German Air Force) during the World War II.
 Born in 1895 into a family of the Prussian nobility, Richthofen grew up in prosperous surroundings.
 At the age of eighteen, after leaving school, he opted to join the German Army rather than choose an academic career, and joined the army's cavalry arm in 1913.
Jimmy Magill (December 31, 1894 – February 8, 1942) was an amateur boxer and Royal Ulster Constabulary officer from Carncastle, near Larne in Northern Ireland.
 He was the Amateur Boxing Association of England's Middleweight Champion in 1934 and 1935 and Light Heavyweight Champion in 1936; he won fights in Boston and New York in an Irish tour of the US in 1935; he was European Police champion from 1931 to 1936; and he won a bronze medal representing Northern Ireland at the 1934 British Empire Games.
 As the Irish Amateur Boxing Association governed the sport in Northern Ireland, he was considered ineligible to compete for both Great Britain at the Olympics and Ireland at the Olympics.
 In 1936, Magill defeated German Richard Vogt, who as a German Army Captain in 1940 saved the life of an Irish Guardsman wounded in the Dunkirk evacuation because the knew Magill.
Steven Lungu (Captain Steven Lungu aka Captain Solo) (Born 6 January 1962 at Mansa General Hospital in Mansa, Zambia; died 11 August 2012) was a former Zambia Army Captain who in 1997 together with the late captain Jack Chiti attempted a coup d’état during the rule of the then-President, Dr Frederick Chiluba.
Wilhelm Adalbert Hosenfeld (] ; 2 May 1895 – 13 August 1952), originally a school teacher, was a German Army officer who by the end of the Second World War had risen to the rank of "Hauptmann" (Captain).
 He helped to hide or rescue several Polish people, including Jews, in Nazi-occupied Poland, and helped Polish-Jewish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman to survive, hidden, in the ruins of Warsaw during the last months of 1944, an act which was portrayed in the 2002 film The Pianist.
 He was taken prisoner by the Red Army and died in Soviet captivity seven years later.

Question: What type of novel was the piece of literature that featured a German Army Captain born in 1895 and inspired the film The Pianist? 
Answer: memoir