Highlights on the beginnings of one of the most important stages of German-speaking theater. When Elector Karl-Theodor moved his court from Mannheim to Munich in 1778, he compensated the rejected residence city with a stage - the National Theater. With protagonists such as Schiller, Iffland, Dalberg, and von Kotzebue, it developed into one of the most significant stages in Germany. To this day, the Mannheim National Theater is an essential part of the cultural life of the city and the Rhine-Neckar metropolitan region. The contributions in this volume focus on the founding years of the National Theater, starting from the late 1740s up to the nationally significant assassination of the playwright August von Kotzebue in the Mannheim squares in 1819.