SOURCE: "Caligari," in From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film, Princeton University Press, 1947, pp. 61-76.

A German philosopher as well as a social and arts critic, Kracauer emigrated to the United States when the Nazis came to power. In the following excerpt, he examines the production history, themes, and techniques of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, arguing that this film best exemplifies his thesis that German popular culture provided evidence of a "mass psychological predisposition" in the German people to accept and embrace Adolf Hitler's fascism.

[The original story of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is located in a fictitious North German town near the Dutch border, significantly called Holstenwall. One day a fair moves into the town, with merry-go-rounds and side-shows—among the latter that of Dr. Caligari, a weird, bespectacled man advertising the somnambulist Cesare. To procure a license, Caligari goes to...