
A distribution of nationalities from the Cattell 1000 (1894), showing Germany, with 104 thinkers, being the third-most predominate nation, in respect to name citation and use dominance.

Eminent people by nation (Cattell 1000) (1894)

A distribution of nationalities from the Cattell 1000 (1894), showing Germany, with 104 thinkers, being the third-most predominate nation, in respect to name citation and use dominance.

In genius studies, German genius refers to the genius epoch, from about 1750 to 1930, in Germany, that, owing to a prolific cultural state, produce a large number of leading geniuses.

Overview

Early notable German geniuses include: Martin Luther (1483-1543), Johann Faust (c.1485-c.1540), Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680), Johann Bach (1685-1685).

The 1669 terra pinguis theory of heat of Johann Becher, followed by 1703 phlogiston theory of heat, by his student Georg Stahl, mark a peak of German genius in the domain of chemistry; these theories eventually gave way to the start of French genius, in the work of Antoine Lavoisier.

In 1755, Immanuel Kant published his Universal Natural History and the Theory of the Heavens: Essay on the Constitution and the Mechanical Origin of the Whole Universe according to Newtonian; this can be said to mark an early rise or start of German genius, as a collective.

In 1803, German genius, centered in Weimar, Germany, was at its so-called first great intellectual peak; the following being a retrospect reconstruction drawn by German painter Otto Knille (1884):

The illustration gives a well-imaged viewing of Goethe's erudite intellectual circle: Johann Schlosser, Georg Hegel, Johann Fichte, Jean Paul, Ludwig Tieck, Wilhelm Humboldt, Alexander Humboldt, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Carl Gauss, who knew all of Goethe's poetry works, August Schlegel, Friedrich Klinger (KUnger), Peter Cornelius, Heinrich Kleist, Johann Pestalozzi seated left red jacket hunched over, who affixed Goethe with the title "prince of the mind", Barthold Niebuhr, Johann Herder, in whom in 1784 Goethe first confided his discovery of evidence for human evolution from lower animals, Johann Gleim, Lorenz Oken, Johann Voss, Johann Blumenbach, Friedrich Klopstock — and Goethe —the big dog, standing at the center of attention—followed by Christoph Wieland, seated right front, who in 1810 called Goethe's self-defined greatest theory "childish nonsense and fooling around", August Iffland—and last but not least Friedrich Schiller — Goethe’s closest intellectual friend — in whom, in 1796, he first confided his newly-forming human elective affinities theory.

In 1865, Rudolf Clausius published The Mechanical Theory of Heat; this was another apex of German intellectual achievement.

In 1882, Hermann Helmholtz published “The Thermodynamics of Chemical Processes”, thereafter becoming known as the "last of the last universal geniuses" (Liddell, 1922); this was another apex of German intellect.
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In 1927, Albert Einstein was at the center of the confluence of geniuses at the Solvay conference, as shown below:

This can be said to mark the last apex of German genius.

Quotes
The following are related quotes:

“To find a true and positive, not negative, solution of the problem of the philosophy of history may be said to have formed, and to continue to form, consciously and unconsciously, the ultimate object of that great effort of the ‘German mind’ which has produced Goethe and Schiller in literature; Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel in philosophy; Lessing, Schlegel, and Niebuhr in criticism and historical research.”
— Christian Bunsen (1854), Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History [1]

“From the end of the Baroque age and the death of Bach in 1750 to the rise of Hitler in 1933, Germany was transformed from a poor relation among western nations into a dominant intellectual and cultural force more influential than France, Britain, Italy, Holland, and the United States. In the early decades of the 20th century, German artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, and engineers were leading their freshly-unified country to new and undreamed of heights, and by 1933, they had won more Nobel prizes than anyone else and more than the British and Americans combined.”
— Peter Watson (2010), The German Genius [1]

References
1. (a) Bunsen, Christian. (1854). Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History, as Applied to Language and Religion, Volume One (pg. 28). Publisher.
(b) Glennie, John. (1878). Isis and Osiris: the Origin of Christianity as a Verification of an Ultimate Law of History (pg. 48). Publisher.
2. Watson, Peter. (2010). The German Genius: Europe’s Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution, and the Twentieth Century (Clausius, pgs. 234, 345-48, 479, 819, 854). Harper Perennial.