diff --git a/.DS_Store b/.DS_Store
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..785d531e9
Binary files /dev/null and b/.DS_Store differ
diff --git a/backend/.DS_Store b/backend/.DS_Store
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c6a73cabf
Binary files /dev/null and b/backend/.DS_Store differ
diff --git a/backend/HELP.md b/backend/HELP.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..fe7dc0066
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/HELP.md
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+# Getting Started
+
+### Reference Documentation
+For further reference, please consider the following sections:
+
+* [Official Gradle documentation](https://docs.gradle.org)
+* [Spring Boot Gradle Plugin Reference Guide](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.1.1/gradle-plugin/reference/html/)
+* [Create an OCI image](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.1.1/gradle-plugin/reference/html/#build-image)
+* [Spring Web](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.1.1/reference/htmlsingle/#web)
+* [Spring Data JPA](https://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/3.1.1/reference/htmlsingle/#data.sql.jpa-and-spring-data)
+
+### Guides
+The following guides illustrate how to use some features concretely:
+
+* [Building a RESTful Web Service](https://spring.io/guides/gs/rest-service/)
+* [Serving Web Content with Spring MVC](https://spring.io/guides/gs/serving-web-content/)
+* [Building REST services with Spring](https://spring.io/guides/tutorials/rest/)
+* [Accessing Data with JPA](https://spring.io/guides/gs/accessing-data-jpa/)
+
+### Additional Links
+These additional references should also help you:
+
+* [Gradle Build Scans – insights for your project's build](https://scans.gradle.com#gradle)
+
diff --git a/backend/src/main/resources/application.properties b/backend/src/main/resources/application.properties
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..faa2ace7c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/backend/src/main/resources/application.properties
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+spring.h2.console.enabled=true
+spring.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:mem:testdb;MODE=MySQL
+
+spring.datasource.username=sa
+spring.jpa.properties.hibernate.format_sql=true
+spring.jpa.show-sql=true
+spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=create
+logging.level.org.hibernate.type.descriptor.sql.BasicBinder=TRACE