Introducton. The article is devoted to the analysis of German Romanticism through a social philosophical examination of its origin, features and methodological foundations in the historical and cultural context. Theoretical analysis. It is proposed to consider the analysis and methodology of German Romanticism using the philosophical method of genealogy. The genealogical procedure is heterogeneous in its essence, since it involves the identification of the duality of the beginning, the source of sociality. In the romantic worldview, this is the fusion of aesthetic perception and conceptual thinking. It is established that the philosophical methodological foundations of German Romanticism are laid by the German idealistic transcendental philosophy (Kant and Schelling) in the unity of epistemological, aesthetic and anthropological aspects. Empirical analysis. Genealogical understanding of the specific social conditions in Germany at the end of the XVIII-early XIX centuries allowed us to identify the primary concept of the German romantic worldview as the source of sociality – free sociability – and to defi ne its multidimensional nature as understanding and recognition of the Other (rules of conduct and communication, creation of programs of eternal peace, interest in history and folk language). The foundation of the University of Berlin becomes the academic realization of the concept of free sociability. Conclusion. It is concluded that the goal of early German Romanticism – free sociability as a new form of human solidarity – long determined the humanistic orientation of the romantic worldview.