The school was founded in 1870 and is named after the 19th-century romantic poet Nikolaus Lenau who was born in the nearby village of Lenauheim.

Physicist Stefan Hell, who shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, attended ninth grade there before emigrating to West Germany.

[4] In 1962, guitarist Béla Kamocsa, who was a student at Lenau and a drummer for the local orchestra, met fellow musician Nicu Covaci, who had been hired by one of the band leaders to produce and perform a school concert, founding Transsylvania Phoenix during the production process.

[8] The "waltz king" Johann Strauss II often made guest appearances here,[7] and in 1796 the first performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's The Magic Flute took place there.

On 23 April 1870, it was decided, based on a contract concluded between the Ministry of Cults and Public Instruction in Budapest and the Timișoara City Hall, to establish the Staatsoberrealschule ("Real State High School").

[8] In the Oberrealschule, special emphasis was placed on analytical geometry, physics, chemistry, natural sciences and drawing.

[10] In the autumn of 1968, the then principal of the Nikolaus Lenau High School, Erich Pfaff [de], founded the German adult education center in Timișoara.

The Nikolaus Lenau High School and the adult education center were important meeting places for the German population in and around Timișoara.