While the practice of direct translations from English into German progressively evolved after the mid-eighteenth century in established or newly established genres such as poetry, drama or the novel, a different trend can be observed as far as non-fictional works are concerned. On the basis of texts mainly originating in the second half of the eighteenth century, an attempt is made to account for the persistence of ‘Übersetzung aus zweiter Hand’, a term coined by Blassneck, in the sphere of non-fiction. First, it is shown that, compared with the treatment of the novel where indirect translation virtually ceased after 1770, there are certain generic particularities in non-fictional literature rendering French mediation still acceptable after this point in time. Secondly, emphasis is placed upon the fact that precisely in these texts well-established intellectual traditions survived, and that this peculiar form of reception results from Germany’s strong cultural dependency on France.