The aim of this essay is to analyse the theoretical and ideological framework underlying Werner Jaeger's historiography from the 1920s onwards. The neo-humanistic model proposed by Jaeger is deconstructed in its methodological components and is analysed in its relationships to the contemporary isolating approaches to universal history of Spengler and Troeltsch. Finally, the author demonstrates that Jaeger’s ‘Humanismus’ turns into a contradiction between a concept of humanistic culture as community praxis und as inescapable historical destiny.