ABSTRACT
In 1768 the project for a Hamburg National Theatre failed. It had arisen when a travelling company typical of eighteenth-century theatrical life set up a permanent theatre in Hamburg in 1765, fell into financial difficulties and was rescued by a group of Hamburg citizens. They began with high intentions, but internal disagreement and poor public support foiled them. In the final article of his Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Lessing put this failure down to the lack of a German nation: ‘Über den gutherzigen Einfall, den Deutschen ein Nationaltheater zu verschaffen, da wir Deutsche noch keine Nation sind!’ For German national character seemed to consist in having no character at all.
