This exploratory paper responds to demands for the use of more diverse sources in history of education research with an introduction to an underused and probably underestimated class of sources: the German "Klassenbuch." Printed as templates, but filled in by hand, such "class books" from the coalface of state schooling customarily include student details, attendance registers, grade sheets and extensive diary sections with notes on lesson content, homework, and individual or collective student behaviour. As a result, historians could access immediate records of day-to-day schooling that complement more prominently used sources ranging from the (auto)biographical to the deliberately public. This paper uses a few select pages from wartime Klassenbücher at one Hamburg school for illustration. The snapshot view includes weeks of ostensible normality in late 1944, the collapse of even makeshift schooling in March 1945, and the return to school in October 1945. One finding is that Klassenbücher are useful precisely for the dullness of their entries: life in Germany was gradually falling apart, but schooling and school routines continued regardless. The conclusion here is that Klassenbücher deserve more attention by the research community, especially since there is as yet no systematic culture of their preservation. Since archives and archivists are quite dismissive of their value, historians of education should take note and act urgently, lest promising sources disappear before their discovery.