The portrait of a fascinating personality: In 1798, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi establishes a home for war orphans in Stans in the Swiss Canton of Nidwalden which has been laid waste by the French Revolutionary Army. In a dilapidated wing of the Capuchin convent, he cares for up to eighty children at times – a never-ending fight against cold, hunger and neglect. Then he has to vacate the convent: It is transformed into a military hospital, and Pestalozzi is accused of being incapable as an educator. He breaks down. Lukas Hartmann depicts the great educator as a passionate and contradictory man. The book has been awarded the ›Book Prize of the City of Berne‹ and the ›Book Prize of the Schiller Foundation‹.