His family was of German Bohemian descent, his great-grandfather Johann Gottfried Dieterichs moved from Wolfenbüttel, in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg, to Waiwara in Estonia during the 18th century.

By November 3, 1917, Diterikhs was promoted to the chief of staff of the Russian army's headquarters, but managed to escape arrest during the Bolshevik revolution.

Diterikhs escaped to Kiev, then made his way to Siberia where the Czechoslovak Legions asked him to become their chief of staff and the commander of the fives T. G. Masaryk's rifle regiment too.

After a few days on November 26, 1918, he finally agreed to obey to Kolchak's order and simultaneously resigned from the Czech Legion after a period of tense relations.

He assisted in creation of various paramilitary militias in support of the White movement and the Russian Orthodox Church against the Bolsheviks.

Based in the Amur Krai, Diterikhs proceeded to reorganize the army and civil government, much in the way General Pyotr Wrangel had done in the Crimea two years earlier.

Taking a hands-on approach, Diterikhs made efforts to enlist the support of the local population for his cause, calling his battle a religious crusade against Bolshevism.

It also named Diterikhs as the ruler of the Provisional Priamur Government and its armed forces, called in archaic terms the Zemskaya Rat.

On October 25, 1922, the Bolsheviks defeated Diterikhs's army, forcing an evacuation from Vladivostok to China and Korea via Japanese ships.