Siegfried Kracauer

Siegfried Kracauer ( February 8 1889 - November 26 1966 ) was a German writer , journalist , sociologist , cultural critic and film theorist.

[Biography edit ]
Kracauer was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt . From 1907 to 1913 he studied architecture and obtained a doctorate in engineering in 1914. At that time he worked as an architect in Osnabruck , Munich and Berlin, until 1920.

From 1922 to 1933 Kracauer active as a film and literary editor of the new newspaper Frankfurter Zeitung . Kracauer criticized, reviewed and analyzed in many areas such as circuses, photography, movies, advertising, tourism, the layout of towns and dance. Known essays of Kracauer were Der Detektiv-Roman and Ornament der Masse. In 1930 published Kracauer Die Angestellten. The article gave a critical look at the new class of employees that arose at the time. The group he had criticized the office and administration jobs and sales departments. According Kracauer they were spiritually poor, and took them away from habits and traditions . They looked as if their "refuge" in the "distraction industry ', for relaxation and entertainment.

Kracauer after Karl Marx 's work had read he was a strict critic against the capitalism and took finally resigned at Frankfurter Zeitung. Around the same time (1930) he married Lili Ehrenreich. Kracauer was also very critical of the Stalinism and the totalitarian and terrorist policy of the Soviet Union [1] .

With the rise of National Socialism in 1933, Kracauer migrated to Paris in 1941 and fled to the United States . From 1941 to 1943 he worked at the Museum of Modern Art(Museum of Modern Art) in New York City . In 1947, Kracauer From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German film) off.

In 1960 Kracauer Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (Theory of the film: the redemption of physical reality). Here Kracauer made ​​the assertion thatreality has the main function of the film. In his last years was active as Kracauer sociologist for various institutions, including New York City, at the Columbia University . His latest book History, The Last Things Before the Last (History, the last things for the last time) was in 1969 - after his death - spent.

Siegfried Kracauer died in 1966 in New York City to a pneumonia .