Sebastian Leitner

Sebastian Leitner (1919 in Salzburg – 1989) was a German commentator and science popularizer.

As a student in Vienna, he was briefly kept in custody by the Nazis in 1938 because of his opposition against the annexation of Austria into Greater Germany. Later he moved to Frankfurt to study law, but he was recruited by the Wehrmacht in 1942. After spending several years in a Soviet POW camp, he returned to Germany in 1949 and started a career as a commentator. His wife was the Austrian journalist and author Thea Leitner.

At first, he focused on legal and sociological topics, but later he took medical and psychology-related subjects as his theme. His book So lernt man lernen (How to learn to learn), a practical manual on the psychology of learning, became a bestseller. In this often-cited book he described his Leitner System for learning by spaced repetition.

Books

• So lernt man lernen. Der Weg zum Erfolg (How to learn to learn), Freiburg i. Br. 1972/2003, ISBN 3-451-05060-9
• So lernt man leben (How to learn to live), München 1974, Droemer Knaur, ISBN 3-426-04571-0

See also

• Cecil Alec Mace
• Hermann Ebbinghaus

External links

• Sebastian Leitner in the German National Library catalogue

Spaced repetition Concepts Spaced repetition Spacing effect Testing effect Forgetting curve Flashcard Memory Leitner system Study Software List of Flashcard software Anki Cerego Cobocards Course Hero Cram Cram.com Duolingo eSpindle Learning Memrise Mnemosyne OpenCards Quizlet Skritter SuperMemo Synap Practitioners Paul Pimsleur Sebastian Leitner Piotr Woźniak Researchers Hermann Ebbinghaus Thomas Landauer and Robert A. Bjork Cecil Alec Mace