Johann Erich Biester

Biester attended the Katharineum in Lübeck[citation needed] and studied law and English literature at the University of Göttingen from 1767 to 1771, where he befriended the poet Gottfried August Bürger.

[citation needed] In 1777, Biester moved to Berlin to serve as state secretary to Karl Abraham Freiherr von Zedlitz, the Prussian Minister of Culture.

Biester became a prominent figure in Enlightenment circles, advocating against the spread of occultism and irrational sentimentalism, and vehemently opposed the proselytizing efforts of Catholic and Jesuit groups.

Biester's advocacy for Enlightenment thought is evident in his controversial essay Proposal that the clergy should no longer be involved in performing marriages (de: "Vorschlag, die Geistlichen nicht mehr bei Vollziehung der Ehen zu bemühen“), published in the Berlinische Monatsschrift in 1784.

When Kant’s essays on religion were censored, Biester submitted a direct petition (Immediatgesuch) to the king, advocating for intellectual freedom and opposing censorship which had been tightened.

However, his efforts were thwarted by the Prussian minister Johann Christoph von Wöllner (1732-1800), who aimed to suppress Enlightenment ideas and even sought to exile Biester and his colleague Friedrich Gedike.

In the broader European intellectual context, Biester sided with the Enlightenment thinker Thomas Paine in the debate against conservative Edmund Burke, as represented in Germany by Friedrich von Gentz.

Biester criticized Fichte’s radical reinterpretation of Enlightenment thought, which emphasized striving for absolute knowledge rather than challenging existing prejudices.