Teleology against the grain

rereading from Caligari to Hitler

Johannes von Moltke

pp. 307-326

in: Jörn Ahrens, Paul Fleming, Susanne Martin, Ulrike Vedder (eds), "Doch ist das wirkliche auch vergessen, so ist es darum nicht getilgt", Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Conceived from the start as a history of German cinema, Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler is devoted to the years between 1918 and 1933. The book covers this period chronologically to mount its now famous argument about the Weimar Republic, its films, and their political implications. From its beginnings onward, that argument holds, Weimar cinema reflects the Germans' mental dispositions, the authoritarian fixations that led to the rise of Hitler — if it didn't in fact help prepare that rise, as the title suggests: more than just chronology, From Caligari to Hitler strongly implies causality.

Cited authors

Kracauer Siegfried