ABSTRACT
German cultural theorist Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966) is known principally for his later writings on film theory, such as Theory of Film and From Caligari to Hitler. Recent attention to his earlier work, however, has revealed him as wide-ranging cultural theorist, prominent within intellectual circles of Weimar Germany. Educated under Georg Simmel, Kracauer himself taught Theodor Adorno, and was a close acquaintance of various associates of the Frankfurt School, notably Walter Benjamin. Kracauer abandoned a career in architecture to become a journalist with the Frankfurter Zeitung. Forced out in 1933 under the growing anti-semitism, he subsequently fled to America where he made a name for himself as a film theorist.
