Martin Luther is one of the most famous figures of the Reformation in Germany, he studied at the University of Erfurt and received his master's degree. Abandoning a secular career, Luther vows as a monk and in 1512. received a doctorate in biblical studies at the University of Wittenberg. In 1517, in protest against the sale of indulgences in Germany, Luther sent the archbishop of Mainz, and then promulgated the "95 theses", which laid the foundation for the Reformation. Luther rejected the accusations of Rome in heresy and in 1520 publicly burned the papal bull, excommunicated him from the church. Gradually, Luther developed the foundations of Protestantism, translated the Bible into German.

The years immediately preceding Luther's speech and the election to the throne of Charles V were a time of great excitement, expressed in the development of the literature of pamphlets and volatile leaflets. Particularly strong was the movement that took place among the imperial chivalry and peasantry. Both estates converged in the desire to eliminate princely arbitrariness and to unification of all lands under the rule of a single sovereign. In a word, at the same time as the princes were against the emperor, the imperial chivalry was ready to rebel against them, the cities were at odds with them, and the peasants began to rebel against their masters. The end of the XV and the beginning of the XVI centuries. were for Germany a time of intellectual blossoming, the time of the greatest prosperity of humanism, exhibiting such figures as Reichlin, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Ulrich von Gutten: these were the years when, next to the old religious ferment taking a mystical hue, the new the humanistic movement, which, in its younger representatives, took a secular character. Judging by what happened in the intellectual life of Germany, one could think that the social movement was to be accomplished under the ideological influence of humanism. The so-called "Reichlin controversy", which received wide public significance and excited not only the academic circles, but also the generally educated society in Germany, is the best evidence of what excitement prevailed in Germany in the second decade of the 16th century. If we wanted to point out an individual who could be called the spokesman of all the movements in Germany at that time, then without hesitation we should have stopped at the name of the humanist of the imperial knights, Ulrich von Hutten, who was rushing headlong into the struggle. But he was not destined to become the protagonist of the Reformation.

The appearance of numerous printing houses caused the appearance of real mass media - prototypes of modern newspapers. During the peasant wars in Germany, volatile leaflets were widely distributed. They were written about battles, epidemics, witch trials and unprecedented freaks. The sheets were called differently. In Germany, "Zeitung" is "news". For the first time this word was used in a leaflet on December 4, 1501, "Neue Zeitung fom." In the middle of the 16th century. leaflets with the name "Neue Zeitung" became common. To attract the attention of the public, the epithets "truthful", "true", and sometimes "terrible" before the name denoting the genre - Zeitung, were added to the title. Then came the subtitle. "On the new islands discovered in the ocean," "On the terrible battle between the Polish king and the Muscovites."