of the extent of one's allegiance to those who hold power would be a recurring subject in Ritter's works. First World War Ritter fought as an infantryman in the First World War. Ritter was strongly committed to a German victory. He criticised the ideology of Pan-German League as chauvinistic nationalism, but he found it difficult to come to terms with the German defeat. He regarded the German defeat of 1918 as a great disaster. Ritter believed that the monarchy had been the best form of government for Germany and that the Weimar Republic was a grave mistake since Germany did not have a tradition of republicanism. Ritter subscribed to the 19th-century view of history as a form of political education for the elite, and contemporary politics were always a pressing concern for him. Marriage and family In 1919, he married Gertrud Reichardt with whom he had three children. Weimar Republic Ritter worked as a professor at Heidelberg University (1918–1923), Hamburg University (1923–1925) and Freiburg University (1925–1956). During his time at Heidelberg, he began an official history of the university from the Middle Ages to the present, but only one volume was ever published. Biography of Luther In 1925, Ritter published a sympathetic biography of Martin Luther that made his reputation as a historian. Ritter treated his subject as an excellent example of the "eternal German". Ritter argued against the view of Luther as an opportunist, which was promoted by Ernst Troeltsch and Max Weber, and instead contended that Luther was a man of faith, who possessed the ability to expose what Ritter regarded as grave flaws in the Catholic Church. Ritter argued that Luther had inspired his followers to have the self-confidence to improve the world. Ritter's Luther biography was written in large part under the impact of the defeat of 1918 and so Ritter went to great lengths to defend what he regarded as the unique German spirit against what Ritter saw as the corrupt materialist spiritual outlook of the West. Throughout his life, Lutheranism was a major influence on Ritter's writings. In particular, Ritter agreed with Luther's argument that the moral values of Christianity were relevant to only the individual, not the state. Citing Luther, Ritter argued that the state had to hold power and that as part of the messy business of politics, it could be guided only by the Christian values of its leaders. Taking up