Friedrich Nicolai is one of the most well-known representatives of the German Enlightenment, who fought against superstition and intolerance, enthusiasm and Pietism, and offered sharp criticism of social conditions, religious intolerance, and ecclesiastical abuses. However, he had no understanding of the new literary and philosophical developments of the emerging Sturm und Drang movement. He considered them to be individual enthusiasm and a departure from established rational Enlightenment views. In this context, his literary conflicts with Goethe and Schiller became famous. Martin Sommerfeld, a German literary historian who was banned from his profession by the National Socialists in 1933, sheds light on Nicolai's worldview and artistic perspective, as well as his confrontations with leading figures of the Sturm und Drang movement in this work. This is a reprint of the original edition from 1921.