Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

Repository | Series | Book | Chapter

199486

Teleology against the grain

rereading from Caligari to Hitler

Johannes von Moltke

pp. 307-326

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.

Publication details

Published in:

Ahrens Jörn, Fleming Paul, Martin Susanne, Vedder Ulrike (2017) "Doch ist das wirkliche auch vergessen, so ist es darum nicht getilgt": Beiträge zum werk Siegfried Kracauers. Dordrecht, Springer.

Pages: 307-326

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-13239-2_16

Full citation:

von Moltke Johannes (2017) „Teleology against the grain: rereading from Caligari to Hitler“, In: J. Ahrens, Fleming, S. Martin & U. Vedder (eds.), "Doch ist das wirkliche auch vergessen, so ist es darum nicht getilgt", Dordrecht, Springer, 307–326.