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Germany – 200th anniversary of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Death
1981 Proof Copper-Nickel 5 Marks 28mm (11.08 grams)
Reference: KM# 155
BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND 1981 J 5 DEUTSCHE MARK, Eagle.
· GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING · 1729 – 1781, Bust facing left.
Edge Lettering:
SIEH ÜBERALL MIT DEINEN EIGENEN AUGEN
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 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and an outstanding representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the development of German literature. He is widely considered by theatre historians to be the first dramaturg in his role at Abel Seyler’s Hamburg National Theatre.
Early in his life, Lessing showed interest in the theatre. In his theoretical and critical writings on the subject-as in his own plays-he tried to contribute to the development of a new type of theatre in Germany. With this he especially turned against the then predominant literary theory of Gottsched and his followers. Lessing’s Hamburgische Dramaturgie ran critiques of plays that were performed in the Hamburg Theatre, but after dealing with dissatisfied actors and actresses, Lessing redirected his writings to more of an analysis on the proper uses of drama. Lessing advocated the outline of drama in Aristotle’s Poetics. He believed the French Academy had devalued the uses of drama through their neoclassical rules of form and separation of genres. His repeated opinions on this issue influenced theatre practitioners who began the movement of rejecting theatre rules known as Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”. He also supported serious reception of Shakespeare’s works. He worked with many theatre groups (e.g. the one of the Neuberin).
- Der junge Gelehrte (The Young Scholar) (1748)
- Der Freigeist (The Freethinker) (1749)
- Die Juden (The Jews) (1749)
- Miss Sara Sampson (1755)
- Philotas (1759)
- Fabeln (Fables) (1759)
- Laokoön oder Über die Grenzen der Malerei und Poesie (Laocoön) (1767)
- Minna von Barnhelm (Minna of Barnhelm) (1767)
- Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1767-69)
- Emilia Galotti (1772)
- Anti-Goeze (1778) (written against Johann Melchior Goeze, pastor in Hamburg)
- Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise) (1779)
- Ernst und Falk – Gespräche für Freymäurer (1776-1778)
- Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts (The Education of the Human Race) (1780)
English translations
- Fables and epigrams. London, Printed for J.& H.L. Hunt, 1825.
- Laocoon: or, The limits of Poetry and Painting, translated by William Ross. London, Ridgeway, 1836.
- Nathan the Wise: a dramatic poem in five acts, translated by Adolph Reich. London, A. W. Bennett, 1860.
- Nathan, the Wise. A dramatic poem of five acts, translated by Dr. Isidor Kalisch. New York, Waldheimer & Zenn, 1869.
- The Education of the Human Race, translated by Fred W. Robertson, M.A.. London, C.K. Paul & Co., 1881.
- Plays of Lessing: Nathan the Wise and Minna von Barnhelm, translated by Ernest Bell. London, G. Bell, 1888.
- Selected prose works of G. E. Lessing, translated by E. C. Beasley, B. A., and Helen Zimmern. London, G. Bell and sons, 1890.
- Lessing’s Emilia Galotti, with footnotes and vocabulary; New York, Hinds & Noble, 1899.
- Lessing’s Nathan der Weise, with footnotes and vocabulary. New York, Hinds & Noble, 1899.
- Laocoon. An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry: With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art, translated by Ellen Frothingham. Boston, Little, Brown, 1904.
- Laocoon, translated by Sir Robert Phillimore, London, G. Routledge & sons, 1905.
- Minna von Barnhelm, edited with an introduction, German questions, notes and vocabulary, by Philip Schuyler Allen. New York, Charles E. Merrill Co., 1907.
- Minna von Barnhelm; or, Soldier’s fortune translated by Otto Heller. New York, H. Holt and company, 1917.
- Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts, translated and edited by Leo Markun. Girard, Kan., Haldeman-Julius Co., 1926.
- Laocoon, Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, translated by William A. Steel. London, J. M. Dent & sons, ltd.; New York, E. P. Dutton & co., inc., 1930.
- Nathan the Wise, translated by Berthold August Eisenlohr. Ann Arbor, Mich., Lithoprinted by Edwards Brothers, inc., 1942.
- Nathan the Wise, translated by Guenther Reinhardt. Brooklyn, Barron’s Educational Series, inc., 1950.
- Nathan the Wise; a dramatic poem in five acts, translated into English verse by Bayard Quincy Morgan. New York, Ungar, 1955.
- Theological Writings; Selections in Translation with an Introductory Essay, by Henry Chadwick. London, A. & C. Black, 1956.
- Lessing’s Theological Writings. Selections in Translation, edited by Henry Chadwick. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1957.
- Emilia Galotti: a tragedy in five acts, translated by Anna Johanna Gode von Aesch. Great Neck, N.Y., Barron’s Educational Series, inc., 1959.
- Emilia Galotti, a tragedy in five acts, translated by Edward Dvoretzky. New York, Ungar, 1962, reprinted German Book Center, 2003.
- Hamburg dramaturgy, translated by Victor Lange. New York, Dover Publications, 1962. Reprint of Helen Zimmern’s 1890 translation.
- Laocoon: an essay on the limits of painting and poetry, translated by Edward Allen McCormick. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1962.
- Minna von Barnhelm: a comedy in five acts, translated by Kenneth J. Northcott. Chicago, University of Chicago Press [1972]
- Nathan the Wise, Minna von Barnhelm, and Other Plays and Writings, edited by Peter Demetz with a Foreword by Hannah Arendt. New York: Continuum, 1991.
- Nathan the Wise, with Related Documents, translated, edited, and with an introduction by Ronald Schechter. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004.
- Philosophical and Theological Writings, edited by H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic in western-central Europe. It includes 16 constituent states and covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres (137,847 sq mi) with a largely temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Berlin. With 81 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state in the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular migration destination in the world.
Various Germanic tribes have occupied northern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before 100 CE. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation.
The rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states in 1871 into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918-1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The establishment of the Third Reich in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After 1945, Germany split into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990, the country was reunified.
 In the 21st century, Germany is a great power and has the world’s fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP, as well as the fifth-largest by PPP. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world’s third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a developed country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled and productive society. It upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection and a tuition free university education.
Germany was a founding member of the European Union in 1993. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential artists, philosophers, musicians, sportsmen, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
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