Scherer, Wilhelm. “Martin Luther.” In A History of German Literature, translated by F. C. Conybeare, edited by F. Max Müller, vol. 1, pp. 272-82. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903.

In the following excerpt from an English translation of his 1885 survey of German literature, Scherer identifies Martin Luther's translation of the Bible as the foundation of modern German prose, remarking that the earliest German grammarians based their observations on Luther's idiom.

It was Martin Luther who created the Reformation in Germany; his mind and his will determined the character of the whole movement. The numerous remarkable men whom the New Learning had formed, and who afterwards entered the service of the Reformation, had either to attach themselves to Luther or to sink into insignificance beside him. Even Zwingli could only succeed in gaining a local influence; in his mind the New Learning and the Reformation were not opposing interests...