 In Hamburg he tried with others to set up the German National Theatre.Today his own works appear as prototypes of the later developed bourgeois German drama.Scholars see "Miss Sara Sampson" and "Emilia Galotti" as amongst the first bourgeois tragedies, "Minna von Barnhelm" (Minna of Barnhelm) as the model for many classic German comedies, "Nathan the Wise" ("Nathan der Weise") as the first German drama of ideas ("Ideendrama").