From Caligari To Hitler: A Psychological History of The German Film

From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film is a book by film critic and writer Siegfried Kracauer, published in 1947. The book is considered one of the first major studies of German film between World War I and World War II. Among other things, the book is known for proposing a link between the apolitical and escapist orientation of Weimar-era cinema and the totalitarianism which followed in German society.

The book was a survey covering four major periods: The Archaic Period (1895–1918), The Postwar Period (1918–1924), The Stabilized Period (1924–1929) and The Pre-Hitler Period (1930–1933). The book also includes Propaganda and the Nazi War Film, a critical and psychological analysis of Nazi propaganda film. That particular section was a reprint of a pamphlet of the same name released by the Museum of Modern Art in 1942. As Kracauer was a film critic at the time many of the films he discusses were first released, he melds his theory of trends in the film market with political tendencies within the German social politics.

Funded by Museum of Modern Art as well as a Rockefeller Foundation grant, From Caligari to Hitler was considered by many to be one of the most important works on the subject of German cinema, standing with Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960) as classic scholarship.