The (Geheime) Berliner Mittwochsgesellschaft (" ecretBerlin Wednesday Society") was a small group of German liberal thinkers in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. As early as 1783 (with Johann Erich Biester as secretary), intellectuals associated with the Late Enlightenment had gathered in a ''Gesellschaft der Freunde der Aufklärung'', or Society of Friends of the Enlightenment. It was established by

Wilhelm Abraham Teller Wilhelm Abraham Teller (9 January 17349 December 1804) was a German Protestant theologian who championed a rational approach to Christianity. Life and career Teller was born in Leipzig. His father, Romanus Teller (1703–1750), was a pastor at Lei ...

. Members included the Prussian finance minister Carl August von Struensee, the finance councillor Johann Heinrich Wloemer (1726–1797), the poet Leopold Friedrich Günther von Goeckingk, Christian Konrad Wilhelm von Dohm, the theatre director and writer Johann Jacob Engel, the Supreme Court councillor Friedrich Wilhelm von Beneke, Friedrich Gedike, Karl Franz von Irwing, the jurist

Ernst Ferdinand Klein Ernst Ferdinand Klein (3 September 1744 in Wrocław, Breslau – 18 March 1810 in Berlin) was a German jurist and prominent representative of the Berlin Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. Career Klein studied law at University of Halle-Wittenber ...

, Franz Michael Leuchsenring, the physician Johann Carl Wilhelm Moehsen und Christian Gottlieb Selle, the preachers

Johann Joachim Spalding Johann Joachim Spalding (1 November 1714 – 25 May 1804) was a German Protestant theologian and philosopher of Scottish ancestry who was a native of Tribsees, Swedish Pomerania. He was the father of Georg Ludwig Spalding, a professor at Grauen ...

and Johann Friedrich Zöllner, and Karl Gottlieb Suarez.

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'J ...

was an honorary member. It was through this scholarly semi-secret society, as well as through the longer-lived Montagsclub, which had a more social character, that the Berlin Enlightenment spread its ideas, using the ''

Berlinische Monatsschrift The ''Berlinische Monatsschrift'' was a monthly magazine published by Johann Erich Biester and Friedrich Gedike (though the latter resigned his editorship in 1791). It served primarily as the mouthpiece for the Berliner Mittwochsgesellschaft ...

'' as an outlet. Nearly every member wrote in this paper, and

Werner Krauss Werner Johannes Krauss (''Krauß'' in German; 23 June 1884 – 20 October 1959) was a German stage and film actor. Krauss dominated the German stage of the early 20th century. However, his participation in the antisemitic propaganda film '' Jud ...

, in his studies of the period, called it the movement's most important forum. In 1798,

Frederick William III of Prussia Frederick William III (; 3 August 1770 – 7 June 1840) was King of Prussia from 16 November 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until 6 August 1806, when the empire was dissolved ...

closed down the society as a threat to public order. With the short-lived ''Berliner Blätter'' and ''Neue Berlinische Monatsschrift'' (which lasted until 1811), Biester continued to promote their ideas, the enthusiasm for which philosophical Idealism had threatened to quench; but the standards of previous years (when Kant had made contributions) were never quite matched, and Biester died in 1816, with no-one left to replace him.

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by Sebastian Panwitz {{authority control Defunct clubs and societies Liberalism in Germany Philosophical societies in Germany Secret societies in Germany 18th century in Berlin Organizations established in 1783 Organizations disestablished in 1798 18th-century German philosophers