Siegfried Kracauer’s Followers (64)

Siegfried Kracauer

Born

in Frankfurt am Main, Germany

February 08, 1889

Died

November 26, 1966

Genre

Nonfiction, Art

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Born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, Kracauer studied architecture from 1907 to 1913, eventually obtaining a doctorate in engineering in 1914 and working as an architect in Osnabrück, Munich, and Berlin until 1920.

Near the end of the First World War, he befriended the young Theodor W. Adorno, to whom he became an early philosophical mentor.

From 1922 to 1933 he worked as the leading film and literature editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung (a leading Frankfurt newspaper) as its correspondent in Berlin, where he worked alongside Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, among others. Between 1923 and 1925, he wrote an essay entitled Der Detektiv-Roman (The Detective Novel), in which he concerned himself with phenomena from everyday life in modern Born to a Jewish family in Frankfurt am Main, Kracauer studied architecture from 1907 to 1913, eventually obtaining a doctorate in engineering in 1914 and working as an architect in Osnabrück, Munich, and Berlin until 1920.

Near the end of the First World War, he befriended the young Theodor W. Adorno, to whom he became an early philosophical mentor.

From 1922 to 1933 he worked as the leading film and literature editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung (a leading Frankfurt newspaper) as its correspondent in Berlin, where he worked alongside Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, among others. Between 1923 and 1925, he wrote an essay entitled Der Detektiv-Roman (The Detective Novel), in which he concerned himself with phenomena from everyday life in modern society.

Kracauer continued this trend over the next few years, building up theoretical methods of analyzing circuses, photography, films, advertising, tourism, city layout, and dance, which he published in 1927 with the work Ornament der Masse (published in English as The Mass Ornament).

In 1930, Kracauer published Die Angestellten (The Salaried Masses), a critical look at the lifestyle and culture of the new class of white-collar employees. Spiritually homeless, and divorced from custom and tradition, these employees sought refuge in the new "distraction industries" of entertainment. Observers note that many of these lower-middle class employees were quick to adopt Nazism, three years later.

Kracauer became increasingly critical of capitalism (having read the works of Karl Marx) and eventually broke away from the Frankfurter Zeitung. About this same time (1930), he married Lili Ehrenreich. He was also very critical of Stalinism and the "terrorist totalitarianism" of the Soviet government.

With the rise of the Nazis in Germany in 1933, Kracauer migrated to Paris, and then in 1941 emigrated to the United States.

From 1941 to 1943 he worked in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, supported by Guggenheim and Rockefeller scholarships for his work in German film. Eventually, he published From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), which traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the Weimar Republic as well as helping lay the foundation of modern film criticism.

In 1960, he released Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality, which argued that realism is the most important function of cinema.

In the last years of his life Kracauer worked as a sociologist for different institutes, amongst them in New York as a director of research for applied social sciences at Columbia University. He died there, in 1966, from the consequences of pneumonia.

His last book is the posthumously published History, the Last Things Before the Last. ...more

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Siegfried Kracauer’s books

Average rating: 3.89 · 2,008 ratings · 164 reviews · 82 distinct works • Similar authors

	From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film by Siegfried Kracauer, Leonardo Quaresima (Editor) 3.92 avg rating — 835 ratings — published 1947 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality by Siegfried Kracauer, Miriam Bratu Hansen (Introduction) 3.92 avg rating — 292 ratings — published 1960 — 31 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays 4.15 avg rating — 262 ratings — published 1977 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany by Siegfried Kracauer, Quintin Hoare (Translator) 3.91 avg rating — 227 ratings — published 1930 — 17 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Η γραφομηχανούλα - Nietzsche ex Machina by Siegfried Kracauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Νικήτας Σινιόσογλου (Goodreads Author) (Translator) 3.74 avg rating — 74 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ginster 3.74 avg rating — 53 ratings — published 1928 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	History-The Last Things Before the Last by Siegfried Kracauer, Paul Oskar Kristeller 4.05 avg rating — 37 ratings — published 1969 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Georg 3.91 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 2013 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	La novela policial. Un tratado filosófico 3.38 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 1971 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Orpheus in Paris: Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time 4.33 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 1937 — 21 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Siegfried Kracauer…

Quotes by Siegfried Kracauer (?)

“No one could honestly say that a musical makes sense.”
― Siegfried Kracauer

tags: film, humorous

9 likes

“We must rid ourselves of the delusion that it is the major events which have the most decisive influence on us. We are much more deeply and continuously influenced by the tiny catastrophes that make up daily life.”
― Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays

tags: life

4 likes

“...[G]enuine fairy tales are not stories about miracles, but rather announcements of the miraculous advent of justice.”
― Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays

tags: inspirational

2 likes

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