Johann Adam Hiller was a German composer, conductor and writer on music, regarded as the creator of the Singspiel, an early form of German opera. In many of these operas he collaborated with the poet Christian Felix Weiße.
Johann Anton Leisewitz was a German lawyer and dramatic poet, and a central figure of the Sturm und Drang era. He is best known for his play Julius of Taranto (1776), that inspired Friedrich Schiller and is considered the forerunner of Schiller's quintessential Sturm und Drang work The Robbers (1781).
Johann Arnold Kanne was a German philologist and linguist. In his writings, he used the pseudonyms Johannes Author, Walther Bergius and Anton von Preußen.
Johann August Ernesti was a German Rationalist theologian and philologist. Ernesti was the first who formally separated the hermeneutics of the Old Testament from those of the New.
Johann August Starck also Stark was a prolific author and controversial Königsberg theologian, as well as a widely read political writer now best remembered for arguing that an Illuminati-led conspiracy brought about the French revolution. Immanuel Kant and Johann Georg Hamann were among his acquaintances in Königsberg. His broadly deistic approach emphasized natural religion and smoothed over doctrinal differences among the various faiths.
