Die Soldaten
In Germany, where the new genre was called "Bürgerliches Trauerspiel", it was especially successful. Usually, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's play "Miss Sara Sampson", which was first produced in 1755, is said to be the earliest "Bürgerliches Trauerspiel" in Germany. However, Christian Leberecht Martini's drama "Rhynsolt und Sapphira" is slightly older. Lessing's "Emilia Galotti" of 1771 is a classic example of the German Bürgerliches Trauerspiel. Lessing also offered a thorough theoretic justification for his disregard of the old rules in his "Hamburgische Dramaturgie". Other important examples of German Bürgerliche Trauerspiele are "Die Soldaten" by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1776) and Friedrich Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe" (1784).