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A German essayist; born at Ulm, 1738; died 1766. Fired with admiration for Frederick the Great and his generals, he wrote his best-known work, "On Death for One's Fatherland" (1761). In 1762 he became associated in Berlin with Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn in the publication of the "Literary Letters", from which Lessing had just retired. After a tour through Southern Germany, Switzerland, and France, he wrote the work which securely established his fame, "Of Merit" (1765).