This book presents, for the first time, extensive excerpts from Flitner’s unpublished diaries and analyses newly discovered archival material. Wilhelm Flitner (1889–1990) is one of the most influential German educational theorists. From 1929 to 1957, he taught at the University of Hamburg. Here, Flitner organised teacher training with great success. In 1933, he published his "Systematic Pedagogy". Not least, he was actively involved in university self-governance. Threatened by the Jewish heritage of his wife Elisabeth and effectively sidelined by the Nazis, the years under Hitler increasingly became a ‘period of hiding’ for Flitner. In his academic work, he was forced to concentrate on the traditions of Christian humanism and on Goethe’s late works. Meanwhile, members of the Hamburg White Rose met in his seminars. After 1945, Flitner’s return to the European Christian community of values was marked by his involvement in the reconstruction of the University of Hamburg and his advisory role in the education policy of the young Federal Republic.