Selected

Writings
on
Media,
Propaganda,
and
Political
Communication

Siegfried Kracauer
Edited by Jaeho Kang,
Graeme Gilloch, and John Abromeit
 Selected Writings on
Media, Propaganda, and
Political Communication

NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL THEORY

 New Directions in Critical Theory

Amy Allen, General Editor

New Directions in Critical Theory presents outstanding classic and contempo-

rary texts in the tradition of critical social theory, broadly construed. The series
aims to renew and advance the program of critical social theory, with a particular
focus on theorizing contemporary struggles around gender, race, sexuality, class,
and globalization and their complex interconnections.

For a complete list of titles, see page 453

Selected Writings
on Media,
Propaganda,
and Political
Communication
Siegfried Kracauer
Edited by Jaeho Kang, Graeme Gilloch,
and John Abromeit

Columbia University Press

New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889–1966, author. | Kang, Jaeho, 1969– editor. |
Gilloch, Graeme, editor. | Abromeit, John, 1970– editor.
Title: Selected writings on media, propaganda, and political communication /
Siegfried Kracauer ; edited by Jaeho Kang, Graeme Gilloch, and John Abromeit.
Description: New York : Columbia University Press, [2022] | Series: New directions
in critical theory | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021036436 (print) | LCCN 2021036437 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780231158961 (hardback) | ISBN 9780231158978 (trade paperback) |
ISBN 9780231555661 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mass media—Political aspects. | Mass media and propaganda. |
Communication in politics.
Classification: LCC P95.8 .K73 2022 (print) | LCC P95.8 (ebook) |
DDC 320.01/4—dc23/eng/20211102
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036436
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021036437

Columbia University Press books are printed

on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America

Cover design: Noah Arlow

Cover image: Henrik Hjort, Siegfried Kracauer
For Ulrich Oevermann
 Contents

Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv

General Introduction 1

Part 1
Studies of Totalitarianism, Propaganda,
and the Masses (1936–1940) 37

1. Exposé. Mass and Propaganda.

An Inquiry Into Fascist Propaganda 49

2. Totalitarian Propaganda 56

3. Abridged Restricted Schema 107

4. Schemata 109

5. Disposition 113
vi i i l Con t en ts

Part 2
The Caligari Complex (1943–1947) 127

6. The Conquest of Europe on the Screen:

The Nazi Newsreel, 1939–40 135

7. The Hitler Image 152

8. Below the Surface: Project of a Test Film 155

Part 3
Postwar Publics (1948–1950) 211

9. Re-education Program for the Reich 217

10. How and Why the Public Responds

to the Propagandist 220

11. Popular Advertisements 223

12. A Duck Crosses Main Street 233

13. National Types as Hollywood Presents Them 238

14. Deluge of Pictures 263

Part 4
Cold War Tensions (1952–1958) 267

15. Appeals to the Near and Middle East:

Implications of the Communications Studies
Along the Soviet Periphery 275
 Con t en ts m ix

16. Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types

in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia 309

17. Proposal for a Research Project Designed to

Promote the Use of Qualitative Analysis
in the Social Sciences 316

18. The Challenge of Qualitative Content Analysis 322

19. On the Relation of Analysis to the Situational

Factors in Case Studies 333

20. The Social Research Center on the Campus:

Its Significance for the Social Sciences and Its Relations
to the University and Society at Large 350

Appendix 1: T. W. Adorno, “Report on the Work

‘Totalitarian Propaganda in Germany and Italy’
by Siegfried Kracauer, pp. 1–106” 391
Appendix 2: John Abromeit, “Siegfried Kracauer
and the Early Frankfurt School’s Analysis of
Fascism as Right-Wing Populism” 395
Bibliography 423
Sources 431
Index 435
 Preface

T
his anthology is intended as a contribution to the wider dissemi-
nation of the work of the German social, cultural and film theo-
rist Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966), a highly original and critical
thinker, whose manifold and varied writings are gaining an ever wider and
increasingly appreciative readership across the humanities and social sciences. In
presenting a selection of his numerous works examining propaganda, political
communication, and media research, we address themes, concepts, and motifs
that, while clearly corresponding to many of Kracauer’s other works, have never-
theless not hitherto been prominent in its anglophone reception. Many of his
concerns in these writings are all too relevant for us today. The “prophets of
deceit”—as Leo Lowenthal and Norbert Gutermann so memorably described
them back in 1949—are not only still among us, but they prosper now in new
guises and have at their disposal unprecedented technological means of mass
propagation and circulation, modes of ideological transmission and forms of
interaction unimaginable in Kracauer’s own lifetime—satellite channels, digi-
tal platforms, the internet and social media. The mediascape of the mid-
twentieth century was very different from that of today—there are probably
very few still living who can recall watching newsreels at the cinema. So if the
medium is indeed the message, then the message now would bear little rela-
tion to that even of the recent past. But reading Kracauer’s explorations of, for
example, fascist propaganda, one is struck repeatedly by the pertinence and
perspicacity of his work, and by its relevance. Time and again, his pioneering
insights into the promulgation of deceptions and duplicities by “charismatic”
leaders—charlatans invoking the “people” while stereotyping and stigmatiz-
ing “others”; promoting prejudice and pandering to racism, xenophobia, and
xii l Preface

anti-Semitism; mythologizing the “nation” and its “history”—reveal the author-

itarian fulminations of our post-truth world as the nothing-new of rancid rheto-
ric, the poisonous regurgitations of lies and hand-me-down hate. We are cer-
tainly not the first generations to encounter political leaders and pretenders
asserting “alternative facts,” decrying the “fake news” of critical alternative
voices, and peddling conspiracy theories to listeners all too willing to conspire.
It seems some messages—shrill, verbose, toxic—have changed less than the
media which configure and carry them. Reading Kracauer the question arises:
how different are digital demagogues from analogue ones?
The texts in this anthology explore themes beyond the hucksters of authori-
tarian propaganda, be they twentieth or twenty-first century specimens. In the
1950s, Cold War politics also looked to strategies of ideological persuasion tar-
geting national populations, what now goes under the rubric of “soft power.”
Kracauer was commissioned to report on the efficacy of media operating trans-
nationally and interculturally in the propagation of pro-Western, pro-liberal-
democratic, pro-capitalist values, sentiments, and sensibilities. He was also to
attend to and assess the “satellite mentalities” of Soviet-controlled Eastern
Europe and the influence and reach of American radio broadcasts on popular
perceptions in the “peripheral” countries around the Mediterranean. In short,
he was tasked by American government agencies and others with investigating
and evaluating the potentialities of, and challenges to, American ideological and
cultural global hegemony, the universalization of the American “way of life” as
an ideal, the dream of the “American dream.” At the same time, Kracauer’s criti-
cal eye was also turned to matters closer at hand, to what this American “life-
style” comprised, how it was configured and, in particular, how it was insistently
promoted. Indeed, the formation and inculcation of a particular habitus, of
everyday ways of living and seeing, the adoption of certain attitudes and valida-
tion of tastes claimed as one’s own, were the mundane, routine work of the
American advertising and marketing industries. Envisioning and celebrating
youthfulness, vitality and “clean-living,” advertising does much more than pro-
mote this or that individual product. Rather, it works normatively, enforcing
and policing the normativity of the “normal,” disciplining, domesticating, and
fashioning our all-too-docile bodies. Even the most banal advertising plays its
part in the creation of predictability, homogeneity, and conformity—the pro-
duction of the mass for the profits of mass production and, concomitantly, for
the contemporary prophets of deceit too. For it is precisely this, the dissolution
of the individual, the subject, the distinctive, the idiosyncratic, the other, the
heretical, into the compliant complacent mass that is central to Kracauer’s cri-
tique of capitalist modernity and the work of contemporary media. The mass
 Preface m xiii

media produce the mass. And the mass is the very stuff of fascism. This is the
“message” of these media. And so, this might beg the question today: what kind
of “social” is produced by social media is the question we confront today.

We were rather naïve. When we first embarked upon this anthology we had lit-
tle sense of how long and how complex the process of its completion and publi-
cation would prove to be. To begin with: how do you solve a problem like
NYANA? Following Kracauer’s death in 1966, the rights for his works passed to
the New York Association for New Americans (NYANA), a charitable organi-
zation set up in 1949 to help immigrants establish themselves in the United
States in the wake of the Second World War. The association was, however, dis-
solved in 2008, leaving the issues of copyright and permissions completely
opaque. Thanks to the kind support, good-will and industry of the Deutsche
Literatur Archiv (DLA) in Marbach am Neckar, the holders of Kracauer’s
archive, of Suhrkamp Verlag, the University of California Press and our own
publishers at Columbia University Press, the copyright issue was fortunately
resolved. Then there was the selection of materials. The inclusion of some mate-
rials was straightforward; but what to do with the 150-page Totalitäre Propa-
ganda work which, painstakingly transcribed from manuscripts held in the
DLA, was simply too extensive to include in its entirety in an anthology of this
kind? If we were to translate and include a selection of this study, what should
we choose and on what basis? And, moreover, what should be done with The-
odor W. Adorno’s substantially abridged, revised and edited version of this text,
a rewrite repudiated by Kracauer himself and one which is, after all, technically
a piece by Adorno? We have chosen here to honour Kracauer’s own preferences
in translating and including sections E (on the masses) and G (his conclusion)
and excluding Adorno’s version altogether. And this is just Part I! Moving on …
there are three extant versions of the ‘Below the Surface’ script: which one
should we include?

We have had plenty of causes and pauses for thought during this project. And
this is as it should be: for interruptions and impediments, obstacles and quanda-
ries, are very much in accord with the spirit of Kracauer’s writings, work which,
eschewing shortcuts, leads into the snagging “thicket of things.” And indeed, as
the scope and intricacies of the anthology increased, as this thicket became
xiv l Preface

thicker, so too has both our own appreciation of the texts we have selected here
and our confidence in their intellectual value and contemporary relevance. We
hope that we have made justifiable decisions, wise choices.
We hope, above all, that this anthology will invite new readers of his work,
stimulate new interest, provoke new engagement, encourage new scholarship,
prompt new practices. For of this we are certain: we have much to learn from
Kracauer and his Critical Theory colleagues for the struggles of the present.
This anthology is for all those who refuse, refute, repudiate, and resist the
prophets of deceit then and now.
 Acknowledgments

C
entral to Kracauer’s understanding of film is the recognition that
movies are never the product of any one single individual – the
fallacy of the director-as-auteur – but rather collaborative prod-
uct of numerous different specialists: script and screenplay writers, set and cos-
tume designers and makers, casting directors, camera and lighting crews, make-
up specialists, sound and soundtrack engineers, musical directors and composers,
production assistants and technicians of all kinds, editors and many many oth-
ers. The seemingly endless credits that roll after each and every film today attests
to this collective effort. The same is true of the book, of this book. Without the
author of these texts, Kracauer, there would be no anthology. But he is only one
of many contributors to the publication and production of this volume. And so
we, the editors, without shirking any responsibility for this book, would like to
thank all those who have collaborated on this project.
This anthology would not have been possible without the kind and continu-
ous support of the staff of the DLA. Our sincere thanks to you all for your help.
And special thanks are due to Janet Dilger for her kind assistance in locating
and reproducing manuscripts that would not have been included here other-
wise. The archivist Herr Jochen Stollberg at the Literaturhaus in Frankfurt was
extremely helpful with the manuscript for “Below the Surface.” We thank you
and wish you a long and happy retirement. Preparatory archive work was under-
taken with the generous support of the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung and
the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst).
We are deeply grateful too to Suhrkamp Verlag and in particular Dr. Petra
Hardt and Nora Mercurio for their wholehearted support of this anthology. We
would like to thank and express our deep appreciation for the editorial team who
x vi l Ack n owled g m en ts

worked on the Suhrkamp publications of Kracauer’s “Totalitäre Propaganda” in

both the paperback edition (2013) and the Werke 2.2 (2012): Christian Fleck,
Bernd Stiegler, Joachim Heck, and Maren Neumann. We are particularly indebted
to them not only for the text itself but also for the accompanying “Notes”
(Anmerkungen) which provide remarkable detail on so many of the figures and
events mentioned in Kracauer’s texts, materials that we précis here in our own
endnotes for part 1. We would also like to extend our thanks to the editors of the
Kracauer Werke, Inka Mülder-Bach and Ingrid Belke, for their work, support,
and encouragement. We are grateful to Clare Wellnitz of the University of Cali-
fornia Press for her help in clarifying the issue of copyright.
Our thanks also go to the Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme in
Paris for giving us permission to republish John Abromeit’s essay, “Siegfried
Kracauer and the Early Frankfurt School’s Analysis of Fascism as Right-Wing
Populism.” The essay first appeared in 2020 in their volume Theorie Critique de
la Propagande, edited by Pierre-François Noppen and Gérard Raulet. Henrik
Hjört kindly allowed us to use his striking painting of Kracauer for our book
cover. Thank you, Henrik! We love your artwork!
We would like to thank Nicholas Baer for kindly allowing us to include his
translation of the Exposé; Bernadette Boyle for her meticulous and attentive
work as translator of several texts in part 1; and Doh-Yeon Kim for her scrupu-
lous archival and bibliographical research and careful transcription work.
We are also very grateful to Amy Allen, Stefano Brenna, Vinayak Chaturvedi,
Gerd Gemünden, Noah Isenberg, Hans Lind, Johannes von Moltke, and Marcos
Nobre. Your kind interest in and support for our project throughout has been
most welcome. Thank you!
We are indebted to a number of scholars who were inspirational for us in
this project: Nancy Fraser, the late David Frisby, Jeffrey Goldfarb, the late Miriam
Hansen, Axel Honneth, Andreas Huyssen, Anton Kaes, Elihu Katz, Ruth Katz,
Martin Jay, Thomas Levin, and John B. Thompson.
Finally, we would to thank the editorial, production, and marketing teams at
Columbia University Press for all their amazing work and enduring support:
Emily Shelton, Lowell Frye, Susan Pensak, Zachary Friedman, and Noah Arlow.
Above all, we would like to thank our editor from the start, Wendy K. Lochner,
whose unwavering support and endless patience have been amazing. Wendy, you
have been wonderful!
The editors of this anthology first met in Frankfurt many years ago while
each was working on a different project. Ulrich Oevermann acted as host and
“supervisor” (Gastgeber und Betreuer) for Graeme’s Humboldt Research Fellow-
ship in the Fachbereich Soziologie at the Goethe Universität. Without his kind
 Ack n owled g m en ts m xvii

and generous support, we three may never have met, and this book would not
exist. Professor Oevermann (28.02.1940–11.10.2021) was a unique and inspira-
tional scholar; he was also a dear friend who will be greatly missed. This book is
dedicated to him.
 Selected Writings on
Media, Propaganda, and
Political Communication
 General Introduction

SCOPE AND PURPOSE

This anthology brings together for the first time a specific selection of the writ-
ings by the German Jewish social and critical theorist Siegfried Kracauer (1889–
1966), a figure who is now widely regarded as one of the most original and
insightful cultural theorists of the twentieth century and, in particular, a genu-
ine pioneer in the critical analysis of modern popular culture and film. Its publi-
cation just as the third decade of the twenty-first century begins is especially
timely—for the best of reasons, and for the worst.
For the best: our anthology appears in the context of an increasing recogni-
tion of Kracauer’s writings by a new generation of contemporary scholars work-
ing in a variety of interdisciplinary fields across the social sciences, arts, and
humanities—a renewal of interest attested to by a wealth of recent publications,
including new volumes of his Werke by Suhrkamp Verlag.1 The last few years
have seen the appearance of new Anglophone collections2 and other translations
of his key texts3 and correspondence.4 These new and newly available primary
sources have been accompanied by the welcome proliferation of scholarly books
and journal articles exploring his studies, themes, and concepts,5 including a
major biography.6 Moving beyond earlier misreadings and misunderstandings
of Kracauer as primarily a “realist” film theorist, there is now a significant and
ever-increasing appreciation of, for example, his carefully differentiated and
highly nuanced accounts of mass cultural forms during the Weimar years, stud-
ies that, while taking due account of the popular appeal and the pleasures of
distraction afforded by these everyday entertainments, nevertheless remain reso-
lutely critical of their ideological role. To be sure, popular movies were indeed
2 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

part and parcel of the profit-driven capitalist “culture industry,” but, for Kra-
cauer, the medium of film was at the same time something much more. It could
be a symptomatic expression of prevailing unconscious predispositions among
audiences and hence a diagnostic or interpretive tool for cultural analysis; it
could serve as an innovative and privileged research instrument for the social-
psychological study of prejudices and anti-Semitism; and it could constitute an
aesthetic medium that promised through its envisioning of the world around us
a revitalized, rejuvenated sensitivity to physical reality, an enrichment of human
experiences, and a new sense of our everyday urban environment as “home.”
This continuing renewal of interest is certainly pleasing to see and bodes well,
but it is also long overdue, and there is much still to be done. Kracauer’s diverse
and provocative writings generally have attracted considerably less scholarly
attention and critical acclaim than the works of his friends and colleagues asso-
ciated with the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research (Institut für Sozialforsc-
hung), the so-called Frankfurt School, such as, most notably, Walter Benjamin
and Theodor W. Adorno. The relative neglect of Kracauer’s work is a condition
of neglect nonetheless.
In bringing together here a selection of Kracauer’s diverse materials on propa-
ganda and political communication—texts hitherto unavailable in English or
strewn among different (sometimes now obsolete or obscure) journals, periodi-
cals, and magazines—we hope that his numerous and varied analyses of the
manifold and complex relationships between power, mass culture, spectacle,
and different media (film, newsreels, radio) in modern society will stimulate
further academic interest and provoke fresh scholarly debate. Our anthology is
therefore intended as a contribution to the development and diversity of the
Anglophone reception, perception, and appreciation of the intellectual scope
and critical insights of Kracauer’s work.
Our collection is also timely for the worst of reasons: the prevailing social,
economic, and political circumstances in so many countries today mean that
the critical interrogation of authoritarian and totalitarian propaganda and the
refutation of forms of prejudice and intolerance are more urgent tasks than at
any time in the last half-century. We see today populist support for chauvinist,
misogynist “strongmen” as leaders, even within long-standing liberal demo-
cratic societies; established legal frameworks and systems of safeguards increas-
ingly challenged or circumvented by regimes invoking “states of exception” and
the need to “get things done”; the incitement of prejudice and xenophobia in
numerous pernicious guises (misogyny, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism,
Islamophobia) and the vicious stigmatization of vulnerable minorities as
political expediency and petty nationalist rhetoric; the proliferation of a new
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 3

generation of “prophets of deceit” peddling pernicious lies, mythologizing the

past (“Make America Great Again”), spewing forth vacuous and tautological
slogans (“Brexit means Brexit”), vilifying their opponents (“traitors,” “enemies
of the people”); the posturing of media-savvy, digitally adept demagogues who
accuse their accusers of “fake news” and “project fear” as they decry expert anal-
ysis, scorn scientific research, disdain reasoned argument, and either contemptu-
ously consign universities and intellectuals to the role of paid lackeys, or scorn
them as parts of “liberal metropolitan elites,” or both. These and many more
aspects of twenty-first-century global neoliberalism are evidence that the “dialec-
tic of Enlightenment” thesis formulated back in the 1940s by Theodor W. Adorno
and Max Horkheimer (and heavily indebted to Kracauer) was not so very wide of
the mark as to the catastrophic trajectory of the West when “instrumental rea-
son” in the service of capital and hegemonic elites reigns triumphant. When we
first published our work on Kracauer’s long-forgotten “test film” project back in
2007, we noted how a particular set of themes once central to Critical Theory—
namely, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, anti-Semitism, prejudice, fascist agita-
tors and personality structures—had become sidelined in the reception of the
Frankfurt School, albeit unintentionally. Perhaps these numerous studies, pri-
marily written in the 1940s and 1950s, were viewed with some discomfort and as
writings very much of their time—as exercises, expedients, and experiments now
only of interest to a few intellectual historians. This is no longer the case, if
indeed it ever was. These writings—a small selection of which appear in this
anthology—are all too relevant, actual, pertinent, and prescient. They speak to
us today in a way that is clear, critical, and compelling. They illuminate our world
here and now; not just their world there and then. That they do so is no cause for
celebration.

INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND:
KRACAUER’S MAJOR WRITINGS

Overview

Siegfried Kracauer was part of a generation of European intellectuals that lived

through one of the most catastrophic periods of human history: from the mech-
anized carnage of World War I; through the chaos of revolution, civil war, and
the descent into brutal totalitarianism and Stalinist terror; through the cata-
strophic rise and fall of Fascism and Nazism and the horrors of total war,
4 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

genocide, and the Holocaust; and through the paranoid machinations of the
Cold War, the perverse logic of mutually assured destruction, and the atrocities
of saturation bombing, napalm, and Agent Orange. Accordingly, it should be no
surprise that, as one of the most original and astute critics of Western modernity,
Kracauer should write extensively and repeatedly on the themes of propaganda,
ideology, and political communication. It is rather puzzling that this central
aspect of his work has been so neglected by scholars and commentators. These
particular writings can be understood not simply as attempts to understand and
learn from some of these calamitous moments in recent Western civilization,
but also as elements of an intense interrogation and a thoroughgoing critique
of modernity itself. As such, they may be interpreted within the constellation
formed by—or, indeed, at the very convergence point of—three principal themes
which might be seen as leitmotifs of his entire oeuvre.
Firstly, at the very heart of Kracauer’s work is an enduring preoccupation,
indebted to the works of his erstwhile tutor Georg Simmel, with the fate of the
modern individual as s/he seeks to give meaning and expression to the inclina-
tions and yearnings of their “inner life” amid the constraints and impositions of
the wider society, outer or “objective culture.” Kracauer largely shared Simmel’s
pessimistic vision, encapsulated in his famous 1903 essay “The Metropolis and
Mental Life,” of the modern large-scale urban environment as the preeminent
site of abstraction—of value (money) and of time (the clock)—wherein the indi-
vidual is compelled to be ever on guard against, and feigning indifference
toward, the multiplicity of fleeting sensations and stimuli that otherwise
threaten to overwhelm her/him. Even the adoption or cultivation of a character-
istically metropolitan, blasé personality may prove insufficient, however, to stave
off the neurasthenia and other pathological psychological conditions induced by
the intense and relentless demands of living at such an accelerated tempo and
among so many equally indifferent strangers. Atomized and alienated, the once
autonomous individual is increasingly subject to the rationalizing and homoge-
nizing tendencies of the modern city, such that s/he is eventually engulfed by
the multitude itself, absorbed into the anonymous masses. Simultaneously, and
paradoxically, just as the individual is threatened with such eradication, the very
notion of “individuality” itself, of being a distinctive and unique individual sub-
ject, is lauded as the defining principle and ultimate good of such a society. The
individual is thus celebrated in theory in the very same moment as it is abolished
in practice. Individualism thereby serves as the very ideology of a deindividual-
ized mass existence.
Secondly, and much to his credit, Kracauer was the Critical Theorist who
took mundane popular culture and the mass media seriously as objects of
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 5

scrutiny and interrogation. Popular culture was not merely to be dismissed as

the domain of ideology and the pacification of the masses, as all those banal
and commodified products spawned by the “culture industry” (Kulturindus-
trie), identified by Horkheimer and Adorno in their 1947 Dialectic of Enlight-
enment, that served to stultify and stifle the critical imagination. For Kra-
cauer, as journalist and sociologist, even the seemingly most trivial aspects of
mass culture could provide invaluable insight into those conditions of modern
metropolitan existence already described. In his 1930 essay “The Biography as
an Art Form of the New Bourgeoisie,” for example, he astutely interprets the
growing popular interest in life histories as forms of compensation and conso-
lation.7 The tedium and routine of ordinary lives stimulate an escapist demand
for narratives of extraordinary ones. In a world in which the individual has
actually been reduced to a minimum of significance, the biographical form
serves to propagate the mythological potency of the exceptional individual.
Politicians, sovereigns, generals, artists, scholars—these appear as inspired and
inspiring figures who fashion history, who change the course of world events.
In their celebration of supposed genius, heroism, and charisma, such hagiogra-
phies of national figures, along with self-serving autobiographies, all played
their part in encouraging authoritarian dispositions and inducing the cultic
adoration of demagogues as extraordinary personalities, as we will see in due
course.
Importantly, Kracauer’s work demonstrates a lasting preoccupation with
the proliferation and prevalence of new forms and technologies of cultural pro-
duction—in particular, of course, the rise of the mass media themselves as corol-
laries of this emergent mass society. His interest is a complex and multifaceted
one. Visual media in general, and the significance and promise of the camera in
particular, prove of enduring fascination for him. The technological capacity of
camera—both photographic or cinematic—to capture and record everything
that stands before the lens at a given moment leads him in contrasting direc-
tions: writing in 1927, he laments photography as the banal inventorying of the
world of appearances, a superficial stock-taking that, unlike the images borne in
human memory, have no particular significance or meaning. Photography
makes for banal indifferent pictures for banal indifferent times. By 1960, in The-
ory of Film, it is precisely this same ability to record what was present but per-
haps went unnoticed at the time that promises a revitalization of an otherwise
ever-more-impoverished human perception, counteracting and perhaps even
overcoming Simmelian indifference. Kracauer, then, is not only at pains to iden-
tify the inherent logics, tendencies, and possibilities of these new media for rep-
resenting and reshaping this modern world, but also, as we will see, comes to
6 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

consider how film itself may provide a distinctive research instrument for the
disclosure of collective social-psychological states and predispositions.
Thirdly, one finds in Kracauer’s work an ongoing concern with dialectical
analysis and forms of critique which, while antithetical to the instrumental,
scientized, quantifying technocratic systems of our contemporary world, never-
theless resolutely reject any reactionary relapse into irrationalism, prejudice,
religious mysticism, or political fanaticism. As Kracauer points out as early as
1927 in his key “The Mass Ornament” essay, it is not that capitalist modernity
has rationalized society too much, but that it has done so too little. Indeed, this
essay is in many ways the fundamental point of intersection of Kracauer’s three
overarching concerns set out here: the masses, popular culture, and the practice
of dialectical critique. It opens with an insistence upon a depth hermeneutic,
one in which what might be dismissed as merely superficial phenomena of an
epoch are not simply privileged as the best mode of reading a prevailing social
formation, but are deemed the only truly dialectical way of doing so. Kracauer
writes:

The position that an epoch occupies in the historical process can be deter-
mined more strikingly from an analysis of its inconspicuous surface-level
expressions than from that epoch’s judgements about itself. Since these judge-
ments are expressions of the tendencies of a particular era, they do not offer
conclusive testimony about its overall constitution. The surface-level expres-
sions, however, by virtue of their unconscious nature, provide unmediated
access to the fundamental substance of the state of things. Conversely, knowl-
edge of this state of things depends on the interpretation of these surface-level
expressions. The fundamental substance of an epoch and its unheeded impulses
illuminate each other reciprocally.8

The specific “surface-level expression” Kracauer identifies and explores in his

essay is the Tiller Girls, the internationally popular English “kick and tap”
dance troupe famous for their tightly choreographed routines in which up to
thirty-two dancers combined to form complex geometrical figures and patterns
with precisely synchronized movements. Of similar build and appearance and
dressed identically to the others, the individual performer became one function-
ing part of a total mechanistic assemblage—not a distinctive dancer, but a subset
of “indissoluble girl clusters” (1995, 76) composed of heads, arms, and legs set in
perpetual motion. As for these endlessly evolving and dissolving patterns and
configurations themselves, they were devoid of any actual meaning as such,
existing instead simply as ends in and of themselves. This is ornament for its own
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 7

sake, as pure spectacle by the masses, for the masses, a spectacle of the rationally
ordered and organized, of obedient and compliant de-eroticized, de-
individualized, dismembered bodies. This is the aestheticization of abstractness.
The Tiller Girls thus serve as a perfect expression of both the disappearance of
the autonomous subject and the triumph of the technocratic reason of the
machine age (or the Ratio, as Kracauer terms it).
The critical exploration of the struggles of various individual selves within
and against the disenchanted life-world of the metropolis and of modernity; the
consequences attending the advent of the masses and the mass media as defining
phenomena of social, cultural and political life in the twentieth century; and the
search for modes of dialectical critique—these, then, are the central and recur-
rent motifs of Kracauer’s work. Spanning more than forty years of intellectual
endeavor, these fundamental concerns inform and find expression in the many
and varied textual forms taken by his writings, including feuilleton fragments
and reviews, a couple of novels, some government reports, and several film treat-
ments and potential scripts. Above all, these abiding concerns run through the
four main books published by Kracauer in his lifetime: a pioneering urban eth-
nography of contemporary Berlin: The Salaried Masses (Die Angestellten, 1930);
Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of Time (1937), an equally original so-called
“societal biography” (Gesellschaftsbiographie) examining Paris in the Second
Empire; From Caligari to Hitler (1947), a social-psychological history of film and
cinematic audiences; and Theory of Film (1960), a critical exposition of the very
ontology of the film medium itself. It is in relation to these themes—the mass,
the mass media, dialectical critique—and against the backdrop of these four
major studies that Kracauer’s writings on propaganda and political communica-
tion took shape.

Berlin Calling

On February 28, 1933, the day following the infamous Reichstag Fire, Kracauer,
then feuilleton editor for the Berlin edition of the relatively liberal daily Frank-
furter Zeitung (FZ), together with his wife, Elizabeth (Lili), former librarian at
the Institute for Social Research, hastily packed their belongings and quit the
city—indeed, left the country altogether. At the behest of the newspaper’s pro-
prietors, they fled (via Frankfurt) to Paris, a city then becoming home to an
increasing number of exiles and refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, among them, of
course, Walter Benjamin, Kracauer’s acquaintance and colleague in Critical Theory.
8 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

Kracauer was at least able to find some consolation in the prospect of becoming
the paper’s designated correspondent in the French capital, though this was to
prove perhaps the most bitter disappointment of all: only a few weeks later, his
journalistic and editorial services were dispensed with altogether when the
newspaper finally deemed it too damaging to continue employing Jewish left-
wing intellectuals even as foreign correspondents abroad. Thus, Kracauer’s hith-
erto productive and prolific journalistic career, in which he penned some two
thousand pieces for publication in the course of a dozen years, came to an abrupt
and acrimonious end.
Kracauer had first started as a freelance local reporter with the FZ back in
January 1921 when, increasingly drawn to sociological, philosophical, and cul-
tural ideas and issues, he abandoned his chosen career as an architect, for which
he had trained in Darmstadt, Berlin, and Munich and been engaged profes-
sionally since before the Great War. The Berlin lectures of the sociologist and
philosopher Georg Simmel, and his weekly Frankfurt discussions of Kant
with the precocious Theodor W. Adorno, some fourteen years his junior, were
rather more inspiring than drawing up plans for housing estates in Osnabruck.
And so it was that while architecture remained one of Kracauer’s journalistic
specialisms—reviewing contemporary exhibitions and designs and reporting on
the construction and opening of new buildings in Frankfurt and elsewhere—
his writings took both a broader and deeper perspective, his subject matter the
whole sweep of everyday cultural life in the modern city. These texts met with
no little success: in November 1924, he became a full-time, permanent member
of the newspaper staff. In 1930, when he was invited to assume an editorship
position with the Berlin issue, he and his wife relocated to the capital of the
Weimar Republic.
Although Kracauer’s writings were many and varied during the 1920s (a full-
length philosophical treatise on the detective story, an epistemological and
theoretical consideration of sociology as science, a semiautobiographical novel
entitled Ginster), the pages of the FZ were without doubt the principal site for
the articulation and presentation of his preoccupations and predilections. The
exigencies of newspaper publishing were to be the tough schooling for the pre-
cise and concise expression of his ideas and insights. His fundamental concerns
were the contemporary cultural conditions he witnessed and came to describe as
“the newest Germany” during the fraught years and amid the fragile institutions
of the Republic. In particular, his attention was drawn to the expanding cosmo-
politan center that was Berlin in the jazz age with its radically transforming
class patterns, its rapidly emerging consumer culture, its pioneering and
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 9

proliferating entertainment industries, and its modern technologies, traffic,

crowds, edifices, and structures: opulent department stores, extravagant cine-
mas conceived as picture palaces, radio masts piercing the urban skyline, seedy
nightclubs, burlesque cabarets and theatrical revues, popular bestsellers, fashion
magazines, and, of course, the newspapers themselves.
Just prior to his final move to Berlin, in the guise of an intrepid metropolitan
ethnographer, Kracauer collected an eclectic array of material (interviews, anec-
dotes, newspaper and commercial reports, various statistics, conversations, and
other reflections) for a series of articles in which he hoped to document, or pro-
vide a panoramic vision of, the everyday lifestyle of what he regarded as the dis-
tinctive and increasingly dominant socioeconomic class of the city, that broad
stratum of petit bourgeois employees whose very ordinariness and obviousness
had made them seemingly invisible to social commentators and critics: the
white-collar workers, mundane office and clerical staff—in short, the salaried
masses. First published in twelve installments commencing in 1929 and then
collected in book form the following year, The Salaried Masses sought to map
the “terra incognita” of these employees, not only with respect to their experi-
ences of the occupational structure, but also in terms of their fundamental roles
as customers, consumers, and clientele; as shoppers and browsers; as spectators,
audiences, and readers.
It should come as no surprise that, in bearing witness to the incipient phases
of those structures and identities constituting bureaucratic, Fordist modernity,
The Salaried Masses is permeated with Kracauer’s bleak Simmelian vision of a
disenchanted, functionalized, mechanized life-world. Above all it brings the
two central paradoxes, the double double-binds, of the white-collar world of this
time into sharp focus. Firstly, since the bureaucratized apparatus itself is pre-
mised, as Max Weber famously recognized, upon impersonality, anonymity, and
objective criteria of formal, technical expertise, the whole principle undergird-
ing such rationalized systems is the dispensability and seamless substitution of
individual office holders. Posts are filled and refilled with more or less compe-
tent functionaries. At the same time, however, significance is attached in ever
greater measure to the distinctive personal attributes, morals, and virtues of the
individual employee. Secondly, aspiring vainly to haute bourgeois notions of
education (Bildung) and culture (Kultur), all the while disdaining the working
classes, these office employees find themselves situated in a comfortless interme-
diary socioeconomic position, one that leaves them bereft of any sense of social
solidarity. These salaried masses are, as Kracauer memorably puts it, “spiritually
shelterless [geistig obdachlos].”9 They are indebted for their very existence to this
10 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

rationalized, bureaucratized, impersonal, modern system and at the same time

the main bearers of its miseries and misfortunes: frustration, resentment, repres-
sion, boredom, fatalism.
As we will see, this is of the utmost importance for Kracauer’s writings on
propaganda and communication in the mid-to-late 1930s because these socio-
economic strata—obliging, and obsequious to those above them, haughty and
high-handed to those below—were the very ones most susceptible and predis-
posed to the promises and prejudices promulgated by National Socialist
propaganda.

Parisian Exile

Kracauer himself, like Benjamin, was to lead a precarious financial existence in

Paris as a freelance writer devoting his time and energy to three main projects:
a second novel, Georg, which was to remain unpublished at the time; his 1937
study of the French composer and impresario Jacques Offenbach, a book that
he styled as a “societal biography,” critically exploring the “dreamworld” of the
Second Empire through the satirical lens of one of its outstanding cultural fig-
ures, and a work Kracauer hoped would become, if not exactly a bestseller, then
at least popular enough to provide some much-needed income; and, most sig-
nificantly for us here, at the instigation in late 1936 of Max Horkheimer, then-
director of the Institute for Social Research while in exile in New York, an
extensive study of contemporary totalitarian propaganda in Fascist Italy and
National Socialist Germany, a work that, like the Offenbach book, was to
become the subject of a bitter and acrimonious exchange with Adorno.10
Kracauer’s “Totalitarian Propaganda” writings will be introduced in part 1.
Here, some words on his Offenbach book are needed by way of context, espe-
cially because this work—written in parallel with Benjamin’s ongoing study of
the same historical moment as manifested in the Parisian arcades and the poetry
of Charles Baudelaire—was intended as something other than a conventional
biography, the kind he himself had critically discussed just a few years earlier.
Exploring the Paris of his time as much as the life of the composer, it was an
attempt (perhaps a little too often implicit) to redeem what Kracauer identified
as the satirical energies and utopian intimations of Offenbach’s music for con-
temporary political interventions. The composer was no arbitrary choice: his
comic operettas and other musical theater enjoyed remarkable and sustained
success in a dreamworld that was itself, Kracauer claims, “operetta-like” in its
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 11

illusions and pretensions. Paris under Napoleon III was home to the spectacular
proliferation of commodities, fashions, and luxuries imported from around the
empire framed amid new urban consumption sites and spaces (arcades, boule-
vards, world exhibitions); to cycles of financial speculation and economic crisis
as new industries, grand public works, and colonial trade flourished and failed;
and to the accelerating tempo of modern metropolitan society and its burgeon-
ing distractions and entertainments. Kracauer thus posits a correspondence, or
an elective affinity, between the fanciful world of the operetta and the ostenta-
tious and outlandish world of the Second Empire. For a while, the realities of
dictatorship and class struggle were forgotten, sidelined, or ameliorated by
short-term prosperity. Theatricality, artifice, and pretense took center stage. The
operetta both expressed and was an essential part of the phantasmagoria of this
farcical (as Marx observed) regime. It was to be short lived: the Franco-Prussian
War saw the catastrophic defeat of the Second Empire in 1870–1871. It was the
end, too, for Offenbach’s operettas. Turning to gloomier themes, the composer
died in 1880 just prior to the first performance of his melancholic Tales of
Hoffmann.
Kracauer’s Offenbach book is of particular interest for us in this anthology
for both thematic and methodological reasons. Significantly, Kracauer sees
Offenbach’s music as providing the signature tune to the hegemony of a dictato-
rial regime combining brutality and repression with spectacular and superficial
“joy and glamour”; mobilizing mass populations for civic projects, urban and
infrastructural renewal, and military adventures; embarking on ruthless colo-
nial exploits to appease a people familiar with la gloire and avaricious for pomp
and pageantry; and destined to war and defeat at the hands of one of its neigh-
bors. All these features of the recent past would have been only too familiar to
those forced to flee Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Additionally, in taking the life of Offenbach as a kind of monadological
entity from which to unpack critically the wider society of which he was such an
integral part—that is to say, to see in, read through, and unfold from the life of
a single individual the fundamental features of her/his times—Kracauer recon-
figures the depth hermeneutic with which he opened his “Mass Ornament”
essay written ten years earlier. Jacques Offenbach’s popular operettas are not so
much surface-level expressions as the very musical embodiment of the Second
Empire. Indeed, Kracauer claims his study of the composer as nothing less than
a model of and for historical materialist cultural analysis: “By disclosing the con-
nections between the operetta and society, the book demonstrates through an
exemplary case the dependence of every genre of art on specific social condi-
tions.”11 In this sense, Kracauer offers up his Offenbach study as a case study—or,
12 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

more precisely, as a kind of test case of the historical materialist analysis of popu-
lar cultural phenomena and cultural production. The “societal biography” here
becomes for Kracauer an essential Marxist method for reading the relationship
between artist, artwork, and society.

Weimar in Retrospect

First published while in American exile in 1947, Kracauer’s From Caligari to

Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (arguably still the book for
which he is best known in the Anglophone academy) is Janus-faced. In many
ways it represents the culmination of his writings on Weimar culture and soci-
ety, the attempt to make some sense of a time, place, and people now seen in
retrospect through the horrors that were foreshadowed by them. At the same
time, the book constitutes his first major study of the cinematic medium that
had long fascinated him as a reviewer and feuilleton editor for the FZ. In the
Caligari book it is not just the “little shop girls” who “go to the movies” in search
of romance, solace, and escapism, but rather all those “spiritually shelterless”
white-collar workers whose workaday lives and commonplace tastes had earlier
been revealed by the intrepid ethnographer and author of Die Angestellten.12 It
was above all to the ever-changing but always conservative tastes and preferences
of these numerous “middle strata” (Mittelschichten) that the German film indus-
try pandered in its production of popular and predictable cinematic treats. For
Kracauer, popular films—not those technical and aesthetic experiments in the
medium created by the avant-garde—are the focus of his critical attention pre-
cisely because they provide a point of access into the deep-seated inclinations
and predispositions of their ordinary, everyday audiences.
The book is significant for us here for at least three reasons. Firstly, and most
important, is the fact that the Caligari book—or, more specifically, the archival
work and other research undertaken to write it—played a fundamental role in
saving the Kracauers’ lives. While Kracauer hoped that his commission from
Horkheimer and the Institute for the “Totalitarian Propaganda” study and its
subsequent publication in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung might be the first of
a series of collaborations eventually facilitating an American visa and passage
from Europe to the safe haven of New York, the debacle that ensued, leaving his
text unpublished and creating considerable rancor on both sides, put a sorry end
to any such aspirations. It was instead to be the offer from the Film Library at
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 13

the New York Museum of Modern Art for Kracauer to become a special research
assistant and undertake a project on the historical and sociological significance
of German cinema that proved decisive in securing Siegfried and Lili the neces-
sary financial guarantees and requisite transit documentation for their escape
from occupied France in February 1941. Others, Benjamin among them, were
not so fortunate.
Secondly, it is a key work thematically and methodologically. In the “Mass
Ornament” essay, Kracauer first expounded upon and then elaborated the cru-
cial critical insight that forms of modern metropolitan mass culture had a diag-
nostic or symptomatic significance as surface-level expressions of much deeper
processes and tendencies. The Offenbach book had reworked this notion into a
historical undertaking, the societal biography, in which the life of a particular
and carefully chosen individual could provide for a monadological reading of an
entire epoch and society: Paris in the “era of high capitalism,” as Benjamin
termed it. Such practices of unfolding and interpreting were decisive for the
Kracauer’s psychological history of German cinema that was to constitute the
Caligari book. The popular films of a particular time together formed a rich
collection or constellation of surface-level expressions for discerning and inter-
rogating what he saw as a historically specific though ever-changing collective,
national unconscious. Films are, he argued, especially important as expressions
of underlying psychological patterns and proclivities. This is because of how they
come into being; they are themselves collective cultural products, necessarily
involving the collaboration of numerous specialists and hence never, pace theo-
ries of the director as auteur, the work of a single individual. And for whom they
come into being: commercial pressures and the need to fill cinemas ensure that
most films look to appease widely shared tastes and to “satisfy existing mass
desires.”13 Films of a particular time and place—in this case, the Germany of the
recent past—will display certain recurrent themes and motifs, “visible hiero-
glyphs” (2019, 7), whose critical decipherment would reveal the shared sensibili-
ties and secret longings of mass audiences. The analysis of film was to proceed in
an analogous manner to the interpretation of dreams—not so much individual
dreams as collective ones.
Dividing the history of the German film industry into four main periods
based on fluctuating socioeconomic and political conditions instead of, for
example, technological innovations such as the advent of sound and new tech-
niques in cinematography, Kracauer discloses the “secret history” (2019, 11) of
the German unconscious prior to 1933 as manifested on the screens of Weimar
movie houses.14 It is a story of increasing irrationalism and psychological
14 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

retrogression in which the German psyche, marked by an absence of critical rea-

soning and an immature fear of genuine freedom, came to embrace, even to
crave, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
Taking the eponymous Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1919) as
his point of departure, Kracauer observes how by means of a framing device, “a
revolutionary film was turned into a conformist one” (2019, 67). In their “out-
spoken revolutionary story” (64), the pacifists Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer,
horrified by the carnage of the Great War, penned a critical vision of tyranny
and obedience as the fiendish Dr. Caligari uses his hypnotic powers to send the
strange figure of the somnambulist Cesare—an innocent instrument of evildo-
ing—on errands of murder and abduction.15 Bracketing this narrative such that
it is no more than the delusions of an asylum inmate, the film version transforms
Dr. Caligari from a showground charlatan and murderous manipulator into a
benign hospital director.
This was a first taste of things to come. Craven submissiveness to authority,
spurious reconciliations between classes (as in the final scenes of Fritz Lang’s
“pompous” Metropolis of 1927), and the all-too “timid heresies” of the street film
genre—with their youthful bourgeois rebels who dally with life on the edge
before finding comfort again back with their well-heeled and forgiving
families—were all to feature largely in the films that followed, indications for
Kracauer of the fundamental paralysis of critical faculties. True, he observes, the
economic crises of 1929 did lead to some politically progressive films,16 but these
were no match for the spate of “national epics” and war films in which visions of
heroism, duty and sacrifice, of national liberation and inspirational charismatic
leadership on the battlefield are played out in costumes borrowed from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.17 German films were forms of both gratifi-
cation and preparation for their audiences. Unquestioning loyalty and devotion
to the national leader-as-genius, patriotism and self-sacrifice, blind obedience
unto death: such sentiments repeatedly pervaded and provided the finale of
Weimar film.
Kracauer’s original psychological-sociological-historical thesis is certainly
not without its flaws, as numerous subsequent commentators have pointed
out—not just inconsistencies and questionable readings of particular films,
but the whole retrospective teleological thrust of the argument itself. But it is
still important for this anthology in a number of ways: it reiterates Kracauer’s
critique of mass metropolitan culture and, in particular, focuses attention on
the salaried masses; it reorients this critique toward film, for Kracauer the
mass medium par excellence; it makes the fundamental connection between
film audiences and prevailing psychological conditions and circumstances; it
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 15

designates the deciphering of films as the method of tracing these psychological

traits; and it recognizes film as an instrument or gauge for exploring underlying
states of mind.
Finally, it is important to recognize that Caligari occupies a key moment in
the trajectory of Kracauer’s work. In a sense, it bookends the “Totalitarian Pro-
paganda” study of 1936–1938 in that it takes as its historical focus the preced-
ing period (the Weimar years) but itself appears a full decade later. The the-
matic complexes of the masses, psychological regression, the role of popular
media, and forms of political power and domination are common to both.
What were to emerge as the book’s central principles concerning the psy-
chology of audiences were earlier being deployed and refined by Kracauer as
part of, for example, his social-psychological “test film” project (“The
Accident”/“Below the Surface”), whose script and other accompanying docu-
ments we include in this anthology. Designed specifically to reveal latent anti-
Semitism among American students, as indicative of wider populations and
prejudices, Kracauer proposed to use audience reactions to a film to explore their
deep-seated values, attitudes, and preconceptions; this is a kind of Caligari in
reverse. Also, research for Caligari developed in parallel with various other stud-
ies of propaganda and prejudice undertaken by the Institute during the 1940s,
many on behalf of the American Jewish Committee. These, like Caligari, were
conceived as a significant contribution to understanding the problem of authori-
tarianism in modern industrial societies, and—more urgently—to the Allied
psychological warfare research effort and the defeat of Nazi Germany. Several
former affiliates of the Institute worked directly for the U.S. government during
and after the war, conducting intelligence work on Nazi Germany.18 It was to
this end that Kracauer was employed as a special research assistant: his work had
a pertinent, practical, and political purpose.
In the light of this, the Caligari study may be understood as the very cen-
terpiece of Kracauer’s various writings on authoritarianism and propaganda.
Paradoxically, we do not present any material from the book itself here. Never-
theless, for us it is the sun around which the works in this anthology orbit, albeit
at different distances and, in some cases, eccentrically.

Film in Our Time

Kracauer’s Caligari study is a significant text in that, as will become clear, it

anticipates many concepts, techniques, and examples explored in Kracauer’s
16 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (1960), the fourth and last of
his books to be discussed here. For example, one reads in Caligari of the camera’s
ability “to scan the whole visible world” (2019, 6) and, importantly, of its pen-
chant for capturing the contingencies and happenstances of everyday urban
existence—the “flow of life,” as he terms it, as witnessed on the busy streets.
There are due references, too, to various techniques and practices of cinematic
montage and editing and to the increasing importance of sound and music as
forms of emotional intensification and the creation and accentuation of mood.
Such insights would later be extended and reconfigured in Kracauer’s ambitious
attempt to articulate the redemptive possibilities and restorative promise inher-
ent in the medium of film. And, like Caligari, film is here to be considered in the
context of a double catastrophe: the alienation and “spiritual shelterlessness” of
the subject in a disenchanted modern world are placed in a new light by the
unspeakable, perhaps unrepresentable, horrors of the Holocaust.19
Although Kracauer’s Theory of Film appeared after his Cold War studies
from the 1950s—studies that, much to his frustration, repeatedly delayed prog-
ress on the book manuscript—it is still highly relevant as the backdrop to the
propaganda writings collected in this anthology. This is the case not least
because, as Miriam Hansen points out in her lucid introduction to Theory of
Film as well as elsewhere, the book was originally conceived before the Caligari
study as an analysis of film aesthetics sketched in a series of notebooks in Mar-
seilles in 1940 while the Kracauers were still trapped in Occupied France.20 In
fact, the origins of the project go much further back. The search for the genuine
subject matter of the new film medium was one of the principal concerns of
Kracauer’s very earliest writings on cinema and imbue his numerous film reviews
for the FZ in the 1920s.
In seeking to identify and establish both the essential qualities of the film
medium and its inherent possibilities, Kracauer’s Theory of Film takes as its
point of departure the not unreasonable view that the so-called “moving” images
of film and the “still” images of photography fundamentally share the same logic
and capacity for revealing and recording the visible world—what he variously
terms “physical,” “material,” or “camera” reality. Film finds itself in accord with
this inherent “realistic tendency” when it attends to and captures the serendipi-
tous and spontaneous movements and patterns of life that ceaselessly unfurl and
unfold before the lens of the camera.21 The hurry-scurry of pedestrians; the stop-
start of traffic; the happenstances of chance encounters; things in transit; life in
passing and passing away; the ephemeral, marginal, and improvised—all are
among the true subject of the film medium which is dedicated to perceiving and
preserving this ‘real’ world as it is manifested in the moment. This realistic
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 17

tendency—or “cinematic approach” (1997, 35), as Kracauer terms it—contrasts

with the “formative tendency,” with the work of the filmmaker to give structure,
shape, and sequence to these images, cutting, splicing, and editing them, fash-
ioning them through montage and relay into a narrative, rendering them as
works of art. These two opposing tendencies are not, of course, mutually exclu-
sive; on the contrary, all films involve a compromise between realistic and for-
mative tendencies for their content and form, for their very existence.
Foregrounding and privileging the realistic tendency of the film medium,
Theory of Film continues with the exploration of cinematic techniques and the
use of, for example, diegetic and nondiegetic sound and music. In so doing, Kra-
cauer offers readings of numerous movies that accord with and exemplify his
principles and others that contravene or conflict with them. His argument,
then, is neither a dogmatic insistence upon realism in film nor a naïve advocacy
of, for example, Italian neorealist cinema. It is one that leads him nonetheless to
some idiosyncratic and, to his credit, highly unpretentious evaluations of par-
ticular films and film genres. While he celebrates the unpredictable world and
ad hoc methods of improvisation displayed in popular slapstick comedies, as
well as the interruption of narrative progression for the sake of singing and
dancing in Hollywood musicals, Kracauer is also not afraid to decry the lamen-
tably uncinematic qualities of much avant-garde, experimental “film art”—that
is, films more concerned with displaying the technical inventiveness and skills of
the filmmakers themselves than with depicting the life-world in which we are
immersed. Walter Ruttmann’s 1927 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City is a par-
ticular case in point. Kracauer’s attitude toward films like Ruttmann’s—not just
mild distaste for but outright rejection of—is highly instructive as to the prin-
ciples and precepts of Theory of Film and the significance of these for the propa-
ganda studies in our anthology.
In many ways, one might expect Kracauer to be appreciative of Ruttmann’s
“city symphony,” which was based on an original idea by Carl Mayer (none other
than the coauthor of Caligari) and shot by his close associate Karl Freund. The
film was supposed to depict the mundane sights and scenes of an ordinary day in
Berlin, with images set to an original musical score by the Austrian composer
Edmund Meisel. The visual and the acoustic were to combine in various ways to
capture the hither and thither, the hustle and bustle of quotidian metropolitan
existence: busy streets; criss-crossing pedestrians; traffic at speed; crowded
streetcars; the comings and goings of local trains laden with commuters; office
workers at their desks tap tapping away on typewriters; factories filled with
wheels spinning, machinery pumping, engines turning; thriving shops, cafés,
and bars; cinemas and theaters packed with appreciative audiences; even the
18 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

Tiller Girls themselves (or a dance troupe like them) make a brief appearance.
Walter Ruttmann was brought in as editor to give a very particular shape and
distinctive direction to Freund’s images while collaborating closely with Meisel.
All this activity and energy captured on film was edited according to the
demands of rhythmic montage to ensure the correct dynamic tempo and proper
sense of kaleidoscopic fragmentation. Mayer was appalled. And Kracauer
loathed the film. Why?
For one thing, Kracauer detested what he saw as the overly self-conscious
editing and stylization of the film: the emphasis time and again on the formative
tendency, which celebrated the contrivances and cleverness of the filmmaker at
the expense of the material depicted. Experimental aesthetics here equated to
cinematic self-indulgence and narcissism, style over substance. And it produced
what Kracauer detested most: abstractness. Here, the logic and speed of machines
and engines are not simply privileged over human life, but become the very mea-
sure and pace for the responses of the body; here, the citizens of Berlin appeared
either as aggregations, as masses, as otherwise meaningless constituent elements
of larger patterns, or as banal types, as representatives of roles and responsibili-
ties; Berliners never feature as distinctive individuals. Automation, atomization,
anonymity: these are the main features of the featureless world conjured up by
the Berlin symphony. For Kracauer, such things betray the radical promise of
the film medium. In his epilogue, “Film in Our Time,” he returns to his earlier
critical vision of the disenchanted Simmelian life-world, one beset by the onward
march of rationalization, calculation, and quantification. These processes, he
reiterates, have led to a diminution of the human senses and an indifference to
the unique qualities of things around us. It is precisely these tendencies, this
work of reification, that the film medium promises to counteract. In its very
ability to penetrate, record, and (re)present reality—revealing what was previ-
ously invisible, revitalizing perception by the use of unconventional camera
angles, defamiliarizing and questioning the everyday and taken-for-granted—
the film camera enhances our faculties, heightens our sensitivity and receptivity,
and restores our aesthetic appreciation of the world around us.22 Kracauer thus
sees film as promising a twofold redemption: of the physical reality it (re)discov-
ers, and of those who bear witness to this renewed world, an emancipated
humanity.
Images of choreographed anonymous masses moving in and out of step to the
relentless tempo of the machine and the rhythms of the Ratio were scrupulously
edited into a kind of posthuman city-as-cyborg Gesamtkunstwerk. Ruttmann’s
film, then, is a kind of cinematic “mass ornament” and, as such, constitutes the
very antithesis of Kracauer’s precepts in Theory of Film. Little wonder, then, that
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 19

Ruttmann later worked with Leni Riefenstahl on Triumph of the Will (1934).
He was to die of injuries sustained on the Russian front while shooting footage
as a cameraman making Nazi propaganda films extolling “total war.” Ulti-
mately, for Kracauer, film is not a neutral medium that can simply be put into the
service of any number of political persuasions and purposes. Rather, film is only
true to its own ontological imperatives when it serves the radical redemption of
human faculties and senses. Propaganda films are always and everywhere a
betrayal of the very medium of film itself, for they seek to blind us to very reality
they should, as films, reveal and redeem.
The leitmotifs of Kracauer’s main works are hopefully evident: modern met-
ropolitan mass society and the forms and possibilities of individual and collec-
tive experience this environment engenders and endangers; the significance of
cultural phenomena, and film in particular, as manifestations of the prevailing
social, cultural, political, and spiritual conditions of the masses; the complex
and subtle strategies and textual techniques by means of which the Critical The-
orist can undertake modern cultural analysis, reading the dialectical play
between surface and depth, individual and society, conscious and unconscious
states; and the possibilities of film, not only as a phenomenon through which
the contemporary collective psyche may be discerned and deciphered, but also as
the most important modern medium whose essence, for Kracauer, is to restore
human perception and appreciation of the physical world so as to reveal it anew
and thereby redeem it from a state of oblivion. The aesthetics of film were anti-
thetical to the anaesthetics, the amnesia and alienation, of existence under the
exigencies of modern capitalism.

CONTEXTUALIZATION OF MATERIALS

In bringing together this selection of Kracauer’s writings on media, propaganda,

and political communication for the first time in English, we hope that this
anthology will lead to a new appreciation of the scope of his interests and exper-
tise. Kracauer was a witness to the traumatic occurrences of the first half of the
twentieth century, events that imbue his writings even as they seek to explicate
and illuminate them. Not surprisingly, in Kracauer’s case, this chronological
time frame also corresponds to significant thematic reconfigurations and recon-
ceptualizations as the Marxist critique of (German) mass culture as ideology
develops into an increasingly sophisticated and detailed analysis of film as a
medium (including its techniques, practices, and potentialities) and of its
20 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

reception and interpretation by cinema audiences. Written over some twenty-

five years, the various chosen texts collected here are invaluable for any proper
understanding of the developments and trajectories of Kracauer’s thought.
The truly alarming political developments of recent years have prompted a
much-needed reassessment and long-overdue recognition of the Frankfurt
School’s many insightful writings on authority and authoritarianism, on Fascist
agitators and propaganda techniques, and on anti-Semitism and prejudice.23 For
too long there was perhaps a widespread perception of much of the Institute’s
empirical research agenda in American exile as mere exercises in financial expe-
diency (Brotarbeit) and institutional politicking both to win favor with influ-
ential organizations and, as Marxist German émigrés, to minimize unwelcome
scrutiny from the authorities. Such studies were perhaps overlooked because
they were seen at first to be characterized and compromised by precisely the
kind of naïve methodology, empirical simplifications, and pseudoscientific
experimental style characteristic of mainstream American social sciences—the
very forms of knowledge against which Critical Theory configured and indeed
defined itself. Overshadowed (or, perhaps more accurately, outshone) by the
sophisticated critical analyses of the triumph of instrumental reason and the
many essays in ideology-critique dissecting the culture industry, these texts are
being subject to renewed interest and investigation. Not only is their continuity
with and contribution to the more celebrated writings of Critical Theory
increasingly evident, but also the prescience of their insights, the relevance of
their conceptual armature, is newly and appreciable. They speak clearly, cogently,
and urgently to the politics of our twenty-first-century world today.
Kracauer’s writings on propaganda and political communication are exem-
plary in this regard. True, these analyses may seem to lack some of the philo-
sophical sophistication and richness that make his other writings so demanding
and provocative. However, we would argue that this does not diminish their
value and significance, both as historical documents and as sources of theoreti-
cal and critical insight. Indeed, for Kracauer, the propaganda studies constituted
essential and urgent intellectual contributions to the Allied war effort and the
desperate struggle of liberal democratic regimes against Fascism and National
Socialism.24 Spanning a quarter of a century, these writings constitute a pioneer-
ing attempt to examine the social-psychological and cultural dimensions of the
mobilization of the masses for “states of exception” that saw the accession to
power and the legitimation of ruthless dictatorship, the acquiescence to if not
actual willing participation in violence and terror, and the perpetration of total
war and genocide. As such, these studies were developments of, rather than
departures from, his long-standing intellectual trajectories. As we have already
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 21

sought to suggest in this introduction, they demonstrate a clear correspondence

with, and are primarily intelligible in terms of, those very cultural and aesthetic
studies that have since eclipsed them.
While not wishing to create discontinuities in Kracauer’s work, our anthol-
ogy groups his texts into four main constellations under rubrics that are both
chronological and thematic. In what follows, we provide a more specific and
detailed contextualization of the selected works.

Studies of Totalitarianism, Propaganda, and the Masses (1936–1940)

This first section focuses on Kracauer’s various writings—sketches, notes, sche-

matic plans, and two substantial extracts—involved in his ill-fated “Totalitarian
Propaganda” study, a project begun in 1936 at the behest of Max Horkheimer,
which was to remain unpublished in his lifetime. Kracauer’s initial outline or
exposé of the work, entitled “Mass and Propaganda” (chapter 1), identifies three
main questions: “How did the propaganda emerge? What is its underlying real-
ity? And what function does it fulfill?” To address and answer these questions,
he proposes a categorical framework for the project in four dimensions: 1) The
Crisis After the War and Its Consequences; 2) The Decisive Phase of the Crisis;
3) The Approach of the Fascist Sham Solution; and 4) The Role of Propaganda
in Fascism. The exposé highlights the potency and reach of emerging forms of
mass communication, mediation, and spectacle, and the concomitant demise of
individual identity and subjectivity as the distinctive individual personality is
atomized and incorporated into the undifferentiated mass. Importantly, the
exposé demonstrates that his propaganda project was conceived as a continuing
investigation of the transformation of the urban masses as pioneered in Die
Angestellten and adopting its pivotal conception of “spiritual shelterlessness.”
Thus, Fascist propaganda deceitfully promises to deliver the masses from the
fundamental existential crises and ideological vacuum of modernity. The exposé
also reveals how, in its critical disenchantment of the joy and glamour of the
Second Empire and the hollow spectacle of imperial dictatorship, Kracuaer’s
1937 study Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time takes on an acutely criti-
cal significance in the era of totalitarianism.
In the exposé, Kracauer emphatically links the unprecedented penetration of
the new media of the time into mundane lives and quotidian settings. For
instance, he argues that radio has transformed the home into a public space,
resulting in a “totalization of the inwardness of the individual” and a
22 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

“politicization of the everyday lives of the masses.” Fascist propaganda plays a

distinctive and destructive role in the transformation of both private and public
spheres and, importantly, of the borders and thresholds that have traditionally
separated them. Furthermore, Kracauer considers his propaganda project to be a
rigorous sociological investigation of the complex relationship between the
urban masses and totalitarian regimes in high capitalism, a relationship that is
inextricably interwoven with ideology and propaganda. Unlike communist pro-
paganda, fascist propaganda’s goal is not concerned with the disappearance or
transcendence of the masses since fascism itself cannot exist without their con-
stant mobilization. For Kracauer, this is an intrinsic dilemma that fascist
regimes face. Herein lie noteworthy affinities and subtle differences between
Benjamin’s famous yet still enigmatic characterization of fascism as the “aes-
theticization of politics” and Kracauer’s critical vision of mass spectacle and
ornament. Benjamin’s thesis constitutes an attempt to reflect upon the total cri-
sis and alienation of the human sensorium in conjunction with the high capital-
ist entertainment industry. In Kracauer’s conception, however, the masses
always present themselves in the “aesthetically seductive form of an ornament or
of an effective image.” This insight is less akin to the formation of false con-
sciousness than to the psychological reception of a mass mediated iconography
of power, one exploring Fascist strategies in terms of the very visibility of the
masses themselves (or “ornamentalization” of the masses, to use Kracauer’s own
terminology).
Developed from this exposé, Kracauer’s 150-page typescript was completed
two year later. It was duly sent to the Institute in New York, where it received
scathing criticisms from Adorno in his “evaluative report” (Gutachten) provided
to Horkheimer (see appendix 1). Dissatisfied with what he saw as a lack of theo-
retical insight and methodological rigor, Adorno took it upon himself to edit
and abridge the manuscript (or, in Kracauer’s view, “distort” it) under the title
“On the Theory of Authoritarian Propaganda” (Zur Theorie der autoritären
Propaganda).
After some heated correspondence and debates, Kracauer rejected Adorno’s
bowdlerized version and, when his own proposal of a compromise—the publi-
cation of two sections of the text—was declined, furiously withdrew his text
altogether.25 In accordance with Kracauer’s wishes, we include here in original
English translation the two key sections (E, exploring the formation of masses,
and G, the concluding section) that he himself argued should be published
(chapter 2). The original typescript for this was subsequently lost, and only a
handwritten manuscript has survived in the Kracauer Nachlass in Marbach-am-
Neckar. Painstakingly deciphered and transcribed, this was first published by
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 23

Suhrkamp Verlag in the second part of volume 2 of Kracauer’s Werke in 2012.

Moreover, again respecting Kracauer’s own view, we have decided, after careful
deliberation, not to include a translation of Adorno’s rewritten version in this
anthology. Whatever its own shortcomings and merits, this was and remains
Adorno’s text, not Kracauer’s.

The Caligari Complex (1943–1947)

Written both during and in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the
writings gathered in this section were inspired by two main factors: firstly, in
examining propaganda techniques and audience psychologies, they were genu-
inely seen as a contribution to the American war effort; and, secondly, in exper-
imenting on and examining American audiences, they were intended to iden-
tify, understand, and counteract fascist mentalities and anti-Semitism in the
United States itself—the enemy within, so to speak. Here we group these writ-
ings under the sign of his major historical-psychological study of German cin-
ema, From Caligari to Hitler, because it is in this book that so many of Kra-
cauer’s key ideas—especially the attempt to analyze the resonance of particular
images and motifs for the inner psychological states of audiences—come to full
fruition.
As we have already noted, Kracauer’s propaganda projects were conceived
against the background of his ongoing research on the Caligari book. Some of
these first materialized in America with the help of the faculty of the New
School for Social Research as well as the Museum of Modern Art Film Library.
Kracauer’s review article “Hollywood, the Movie Colony—The Movie Makers
by Leo C. Rosten” was published in Social Research in 1942, a journal edited
and published by the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research,
including Alvin Johnson and Hans Speier. The first tangible outcome was a
pamphlet, Propaganda and the Nazi War Film, issued in 1942 by the Museum
of Modern Art Film Library and later incorporated as a supplement to the
Caligari book. As Kracauer explicitly acknowledged, Speier and Ernst Kris,
another faculty member of the New School for Social Research, were deeply
engaged in the development of his study of Nazi war film. The second piece,
“The Conquest of Europe on the Screen: The Nazi Newsreel, 1939–1940” (chap-
ter 6), was originally produced for the Experimental Division for the Study of
War Time Communication in 1943. An abbreviated version was published in a
1943 issue of Social Research, one that included a major article by Hans Herm,
24 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

“Goebbels’ Conception of Propaganda,” and Speier’s “Nazi Propaganda and Its

Decline.”
In the field of cultural sociology and communication studies in America in
the 1940s, qualitative analysis of German cultural phenomena was not unfamil-
iar. Kris and Speier, among other émigré scholars, were undertaking extensive
qualitative analyses of the German media and political communications. Kris’s
work “German Radio Propaganda” (1944) was highly influential in the early
stages of media and propaganda research. It is little wonder to find close theo-
retical affinities between Kracauer’s and Speier’s views on the impact of Fascist
propaganda on the transformation of white-collar workers. Since the mid-1930s,
Speier had comprehensively researched the structural changes of salaried
employees in modern society and, specifically, the role of German white-collar
workers in the rise of Hitler. From the 1940s onward, Speier investigated how
the radio communication of war news in Germany played a key role in the trans-
formation of the masses.
As should be clear, for Kracauer film was not merely an ideological tool of the
powerful, but also a new and innovative research instrument for the study of
unconscious prejudices and a medium that promised a renewed sensitivity to
physical reality and an enrichment of human experience. In his analyses of Nazi
newsreels, Kracauer provides differentiated and nuanced accounts of Fascist
propaganda as a form of mass culture, recognizing its popular appeal and the
pleasure of distraction while retaining a resolute critical accent. In the essay
“The Conquest of Europe on the Screen,” he proceeds to analyze Nazi newsreels
by characterizing their main aspects as “the unification of the news as a whole”
and “the predominance of the visual element over commentary.” He also offers a
detailed examination of the role of the camera, of pictorial editing techniques,
and the calculated combination of images, commentary and music. In these pro-
paganda studies, we see Kracauer’s search for an adequate and appropriate criti-
cal method for the concrete application of Critical Theory, for an approach that
might combine European ideas and American methods into a sophisticated,
powerful, and empirically grounded historical critique of the mass media and
politics.
In exploring further the relatively sophisticated cinematography of Nazi
newsreels—how camera angles and lighting can be used to create particular
effects for example—Kracauer’s “The Hitler Image” (chapter 7) from 1944
foregrounds the two key motifs from his earlier “Totalitarian Propaganda”
study. An exemplary analysis of the aestheticization of politics, this essay con-
siders not just the idolatry of the Führer—Hitler portrayed as genius and
savior—but also the construction of his relationship with the masses, those
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 25

adoring crowds from whom he retained a distinctive and necessary distance.

Newsreels played their part in the fabrication of what one might term, follow-
ing Benjamin, the “aura” of the Führer: a vision of both singularity and of
remoteness.

Postwar Publics (1948–1950)

That the Kracauers decided to remain in America after the war and not to return
to live in Germany—perhaps to engage in some way with its socioeconomic, cul-
tural, and political reconstruction—or even elsewhere in Europe, should not be
passed over without comment. While some, Adorno in particular, were seem-
ingly only too keen to quit America and restore the Institute to its rightful
home, Frankfurt-am-Main, Kracauer was to become one of those “permanent
exiles”26 like Leo Löwenthal and Herbert Marcuse, who chose to remain on the
other side of the Atlantic.27 As one-time editor of the Zeitschrift and hence part
of the inner circle of the Institute, Löwenthal perhaps had more reason than
most to return to his native city, but he, like Marcuse, was able to establish an
academic career on the West Coast, first at Stanford and then at Berkeley. Much
to his delight, and partly as a result of his own prompting, he was to be joined in
California by Marcuse, who, after a spell at Brandeis University in Waltham,
Massachusetts, took up a post at the University of California, San Diego. Kra-
cauer, however, remained in New York. Despite close ties with Columbia Uni-
versity, he never held a proper full-time academic position. Their decision to stay
in America and become naturalized U.S. citizens (in September 1946) is perhaps
indicative of three things.
Firstly, it is undoubtedly indicative of Kracauer’s own underlying attitude to
Germany and the horrors of the Holocaust. Extraordinarily, the latter receives
scant explicit mention in his published postwar works, with a late and oblique
reference in Theory of Film to the role of cinema as a medium permitting audi-
ence to look upon and thereby overcome such atrocities, just as the hero of Greek
myth Perseus uses his shield to reflect the petrifying image of, and then decapi-
tate, the monstrous Medusa. Despite Kracauer’s best long-distance efforts, first
from Paris and then from New York, to enable his aging mother and aunt to
leave Germany, they were expelled sometime in November 1941 from the mod-
est Frankfurt apartment they shared and then deported to Theresienstadt in the
middle of August 1942. All contact with them was then lost. They were just two
of the many thousands who perished there. Reading Kracauer’s review in the
26 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

New York Times of January 4, 1948 (chapter 9), of Marshall Knappen’s And Call
It Peace, one is left in no doubt as to his own skepticism regarding the ease with
which Allied postwar reconstruction efforts would bring about denazification
and welcome Germany into the happy family of postwar liberal democratic
states. Knappen’s focus on economic factors in accounting for Hitler’s rise to
power, Kracauer notes, leads him to the optimistic but naïve conclusion that the
Marshall Plan—involving massive U.S. investment to stimulate and sustain eco-
nomic growth and jobs—would radically and rapidly transform German sensi-
bilities and attitudes, bringing a swift metamorphosis from authoritarian mili-
tarized masses to public-minded civilians. Kracauer’s conclusion is telling: “For
a historian, Mr. Knappen seems rather oblivious of Germany’s past. We can only
hope that a future Germany will not give lie to his rosy basic assumption.” His
skepticism was grounded, of course, in his own psychological-historical research,
the work that was to culminate in the Caligari book. Here, the triumph of total-
itarianism in Germany was not merely the result of particular economic crises
during the 1920s and 1930s, but also because of the fertile ground it found in the
prevailing national collective psyche, one whose predispositions to the rule of
tyrants had repeatedly found symbolic expression on the cinema screens of the
Weimar Republic since its very inception in 1919. For Kracauer, it would take
considerably more than a job at steady wages to bring about the genuine denazi-
fication of German society.
Secondly, the decision to stay in New York is suggestive of Kracauer’s confi-
dence in his facility and fluency in the English language. For a writer who of
necessity lives by means of the typewriter, especially a wordsmith praised even
by Adorno for his gift for ironic expression and seemingly effortless literary
style, this is no small matter.28 For Kracauer, the economics of this were simple:
insufficient English would mean no publications in America, which in turn
would mean no money. The Kracauers had little if any English as they first
stepped off the transatlantic steamship Nyassa in New York back in the spring of
1941. Nevertheless, at the age of fifty-two, Kracauer began writing in this alien
tongue almost from the start, with his first English-language publication appear-
ing just six months after their arrival.29 Kracauer’s resourcefulness and skills as a
journalist and editor honed with the FZ in the Weimar years were to serve him
well once again, this time in the very different context of postwar New York,
where as a freelancer and frequent contributor Kracauer managed to establish a
small network of outlets for his writings including such journals as the New
Republic, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Commentary, as well as the book review
section of the New York Times.
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 27

While Kracauer was never a full-time paid-up insider as such, he was never-
theless successful enough in integrating himself through the good offices of vari-
ous friends and colleagues into the institutional fabric of the American acad-
emy,30 of the various private research funding foundations, and even of several
governmental agencies.31 These did not make for a life of luxury, but they did
suffice for a living. In any case, the prospect of getting by by means of these
short-term fellowships, ad hoc journal pieces, and report-writing contracts was
clearly preferable to the alternative: returning to Germany.
Finally, the decision to stay in America is significant in that it tells us some-
thing about his continuing relationship with Adorno, Horkheimer, and the
Institute. Prior to his commission for the “Totalitarian Propaganda” essay in
1936, Kracauer had expressed his resolve not to have anything more to do with
the Institute, a stance that the ensuing debacle around the study could only reaf-
firm. It might be pushing things too far to suggest that Kracauer stayed in New
York precisely because Adorno and Horkheimer returned to Germany, but the
fact remains that they left for Frankfurt, and he did not. Perhaps one could for-
mulate it like this: their choice had, at best, little consequence for his decision.
Not that he was invited to join the Institute, of course; not that he would have
accepted such an invitation if it had been forthcoming. Neither the departures
of Adorno and Horkheimer for Frankfurt, nor those of Löwenthal and Marcuse
for the sunnier climes of California, were to persuade Kracauer to forsake his
new home in Manhattan.
The seemingly diverse texts included in this section attest to Kracauer’s
enduring concern with the contrasting character of the techniques, forms, and
contents of totalitarian propaganda, and those of other types of persuasive
communication prevalent in capitalist liberal democracies—namely, adver-
tising. This had originally been a part of this plan for the “Totalitarian Pro-
paganda” study itself but had been dropped so as to sharpen the focus of the
work. In his unpublished “Popular Advertisements” (chapter 11), dated Janu-
ary 15, 1949, Kracauer explores the recurrent motifs of American advertising,
ones that—in promoting images of youthfulness, of health and vitality, of
contentment and fitting in to the status quo—emphasize how correct fashion,
brand, and lifestyle choices ensure social esteem, personal popularity, and all
the other blessings of conformity. Two points are of particular interest here:
that selling the “American dream” is here not so very different perhaps from
promoting those “friendly face[s]” and “morally pink complexion[s]” (1998, 38)
Kracauer scathingly identified as the secrets to success in the white-collar
world of Berlin twenty years earlier; and that this incipient dreamworld of
28 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

affluent consumerism was precisely that to which the “satellite mentalities” of

those escaping the postwar Soviet bloc were drawn.
Not surprisingly, America’s cinema screens are also the focus of Kracauer’s
attention in this period. In his satirically titled article “A Duck Crosses Main
Street” (chapter 12), published in the New Republic in December 1948, Kra-
cauer critically examines the American newsreel as it vies for the attention of
audiences and struggles to fill screen time both in terms of economy and enter-
tainment. The loosely linked pieces, air of eclecticism, and excessive chatty
commentary of these newsreels are in stark contrast to those tightly crafted,
intensely focused, and highly coherent image-led Nazi propaganda newsreels
that Kracauer had critically explored earlier as part of the Caligari project, a
study included in the previous section. American newsreels may exhibit “slop-
piness, distortion and bias,” but these are, he suggests, “unintentional” conse-
quences of their being “indolent rather than totalitarian minded.”
Such newsreels might be seen as part of the “Deluge of Pictures” identified by
Kracauer in his January 1950 review of Lancelot Hogben’s From Cave Painting
to Comic Strip (chapter 14). Kracauer’s critical comments here on the modern
superfluity and superficiality of images recall themes articulated many years ear-
lier in his 1927 essay “Photography”: “The blizzard of photographs,” he noted
back then, “betrays an indifference toward what the things mean” (1995, 58), but
now the proliferation of images and the concomitant diminution of meaning is
given a new and rather different inflection. Now it is not so much the surfeit of
images per se that is the problem, but the ever-more-intrusive and directive role
of text and voice in steering interpretation and anchoring understanding. Cap-
tions, headlines, labels, slogans, and commentary increasingly tell viewers what
to think of the picture, as opposed to allowing them to look for and find mean-
ing in the pictures themselves. We are everywhere overwhelmed by the super-
abundance of pictures but simultaneously prevented from properly perceiving
and questioning them. We are told the story; we are not permitted to see and
make sense of it for ourselves. The “deluge,” then, is not just of images, but of
words—words that reduce pictures to mere illustrations.
Kracauer’s study of “National Types” as depicted in Hollywood films (chap-
ter 13) appeared in a number of different guises and was part of a 1949 UNESCO
project exploring, and seeking to alleviate, “International Tensions.”32 In mak-
ing linkages between recurrent cinematic motifs and unconscious attitudes of
national audiences, his approach here echoes that of the (contemporaneous)
Caligari study. Indeed, the essay partially fulfills Kracauer’s interest in redirect-
ing the critical interpretive approach developed in relation to Weimar cinema
toward popular Hollywood films. Such parallels are clear when, for example, he
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 29

notes, “The audiences also determine the way these films picture foreigners. The
subjective factor in any such image is more or less identical with the notions
American public opinion entertains of the people portrayed.” Kracauer then pro-
ceeds to contrast the relatively wide and diverse representations of British
characters—“American films offer a more complete cross-section of the English
than they do of any other people”—emphasizing “British imperturbability, dog-
gedness and, sportsmanship” with the much narrower portrayal of Russians,
which, after a hiatus during the war years when negative depictions of allies
would have been impolitic, revert to eccentric stereotypes of the “mad Russian” as
postwar temperatures drop and the Cold War takes hold. Film here is not only a
way of decoding popular sentiments and sensibilities, of deciphering latent public
opinion and political attitudes, but also of assessing and evaluating the state and
prevailing spirit of transcultural perceptions and international relations.

Marked Restricted: Cold War Tensions (1952–1958)

In this final section of our anthology we bring together a number of writings

stemming from Kracauer’s work with various American government agencies
and other organizations in the postwar period, most notably Columbia Univer-
sity’s Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASRA), where he served as a research
adviser on a part-time basis from 1951. Our selection of texts here, writings that
provided repeated and unwelcome distraction from progress on the Theory of
Film manuscript, focus on two main issues.
Firstly, this work was concerned with exploring the reach, efficacy, and pro-
liferation of both American democratic and Soviet propaganda, especially
along the newly established (indeed, still establishing) borders between West-
ern and Eastern territories and spheres of influence. This particular topic was
explored in two key ways. On the one hand, in relation to the success or other-
wise of radio broadcasts (by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe sta-
tions) in promulgating anti-Soviet messages in different countries and among
diverse communities, classes, and other constituencies within those nation-
states. In June 1952, for example, he completed a report entitled “The Voice
and the BBC: A Comparison,” based on broadcasts to Greece, of Septem-
ber 1951. In this anthology we include the more wide-ranging “Appeals to the
Near and Middle East: Implications of the Communications Studies Along
the Soviet Periphery,” a summative report prepared in May 1952 for the Inter-
national Information Administration (chapter 15).
30 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

On the other hand, Kracauer undertook research on the formation and

articulation of attitudes among populations within the Soviet bloc itself, and in
particular in Eastern Europe. Using interview data collected from some three
hundred refugees from Hungary, Poland Czechoslovakia detained on the bor-
der and held temporarily in screening centers in Austria and elsewhere in central
Europe (1951–1952), Kracauer and Paul L. Berkman’s 1956 “Satellite Mentality”
was a substantial report identifying not only the various grievances and sources
of hostility towards Soviet systems, conditions, and apparatchiks in these differ-
ent countries, but also the aspirations and expectations of those who had fled
them for a new life in the capitalist West. Published in Social Problems in 1955,
the essay included here, “Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types in Hun-
gary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia” (chapter 16), is a summation of this larger
report and investigates the attitudes of non-Communists to their country’s
Communist regime. It argues that the initial success of Communist propaganda
in drawing people to the party quickly dissipated as the various promises made
failed to materialize and the quality of daily life deteriorated. It also explores
how the broadcasts of Radio Free Europe helped shape the perspectives of non-
Communists toward their compatriots, toward the Soviet Union, and toward
Western Europe and the United States.
Secondly, while it might be tempting to see Kracauer’s Cold War reports as
responses to financial necessity, this would be to do them, and him, an injustice.
These writings were at the same time part of a much wider methodological
exploration under the auspices of the Bureau of Applied Research: the search to
devise appropriate methods for the empirical investigation and qualitative anal-
ysis of mass media texts, images, and other such data. Such epistemological and
methodological issues were concerns dating back to Kracauer’s early writings on
sociology as a science, his ethnography of Berlin’s white-collar workers, his
societal biography of the Second Empire, and his interpretive schemas for film
analysis underpinning Caligari. The three essays included in this section are par-
ticularly relevant here, for they demonstrate Kracauer’s repeated attempt
throughout the 1950s to elaborate a systematic qualitative communication
research method, one that insists upon the need to move beyond the coding and
counting techniques of conventional content analysis and recognize instead the
critical role of situation and context in the hermeneutical interpretation of mean-
ing. We include “Proposal for a Research Project Designed to Promote the Use of
Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences” (unpublished manuscript, 1950; chap-
ter 17); “The Challenge of Qualitative Content Analysis” (Public Opinion Quar-
terly, 1953; chapter 18); and “On the Relation of Analysis to the Situational Fac-
tors in Case Studies” (unpublished manuscript, ca. 1958; chapter 19). Defending
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 31

the virtues of qualitative techniques such as participant observation and in-

depth interviews, these writings together constitute a critical response to the
Columbia bureau’s tendency to focus on quantitative methods. It may indeed be
significant how often particular words and phrases occur in a text or transcript,
but for Kracauer any one-sided reliance or overemphasis on quantitative content
analysis leads to a neglect of how language is used and how meaning itself is
produced, reproduced, expressed, conveyed, understood, and subverted. For us
today this is perhaps a salutary and timely reminder of the role of intense and
critical reading and interpretation in an era fascinated by the potential of “big
data” and the ubiquity of computer-generated infographics.
The final text of our anthology, “The Social Research Center on the Campus:
Its Significance for the Social Sciences and Its Relations to the University and
Society at Large” (ca. 1954; chapter 20), draws heavily on his experiences work-
ing as a research adviser at the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia
University during the 1950s. This unpublished article was, as Kracauer writes,
“intended as an inclusive and systematic contribution to the running contro-
versy about the significance of organized social research in the university.”
Although the pursuit of such research at established, continuously functioning
university institutions was still a relatively recent phenomenon in the United
States, some reflection upon the problems and internal debates that had been
most persistent so far was warranted. But rather than carrying out an ambitious
comparative study of these institutions, Kracauer focuses on the history of
BASRA itself, which was a pioneer in the field of media and communications
research and became a model for similar institutions at other universities. He
looks, in particular, at three main areas of controversy: autonomous research,
commissioned research, and the training of aspiring social scientists at these
institutions. Although Kracauer clearly made an effort to adopt the scientific-
objective style of writing common among the positivist-dominated social sci-
ences in the United States, his own voice and his criticisms of such hegemonic
views are also apparent throughout the text.
We are also including as appendices two texts that were not written by Kra-
cauer, which will contribute to a better understanding of his substantial manu-
script on “Totalitarian Propaganda.” The first is the Gutachten—that is, the
brief assessment of Kracauer’s essay, which was written by Adorno in March 1938.
As mentioned earlier, Kracauer had hoped to publish his essay in the Institute’s
house journal, the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. The chief editor of the journal
and director of the Institute, Max Horkheimer, had asked Adorno to pen an
evaluation of Kracauer’s essay. Adorno’s harsh critique of it in his Gutachten
undoubtedly delivered the final blow to any possibility of publication in the
32 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

Zeitschrift. The second text we are including is an article by John Abromeit that
examines both Kracauer’s “Totalitarian Propaganda” study and Adorno’s eval-
uation of it. Abromeit’s article has several aims. It provides a section-by-section
overview of Kracauer’s manuscript that will make its main contours and argu-
ments familiar to a non-German-reading public; although we have translated
and included in this volume two of the seven sections of the manuscript, the
remaining five sections remain inaccessible to English speakers. Additionally,
Abromeit argues that not all of Adorno’s criticisms of Kracauer’s essay were
justified. In contrast to Adorno, who asserted a fundamental theoretical
incompatibility between the Institute’s and Kracauer’s own analyses of fas-
cism, Abromeit seeks to demonstrate how Kracauer’s essay complements and
supplements the Critical Theorists’ writings on fascism, especially the work of
Horkheimer and Erich Fromm from the 1930s, which Kracauer repeatedly cites
in his essay. Finally, Abromeit makes a case for the ongoing relevance of both
Kracauer’s and the early Frankfurt School’s sophisticated studies of fascism.
Drawing on these studies and more recently theoretical and historical scholar-
ship, he tries to show in particular why fascism should be seen as an extreme
form of authoritarian, right-wing populism, and thus also how a careful study
of historical fascism can still yield important insights into the less extreme—
yet still deeply menacing—versions of authoritarian populism that have prolif-
erated in Europe, the United States, and many other parts of the world in the
past few decades.
In this anthology we bring together a diverse range of Kracauer’s texts span-
ning more than twenty years. We hope that these writings will shed light on
how manifold forms, techniques, and roles of political propaganda and persua-
sive communication may be subject to critical scrutiny and intense interroga-
tion. We hope that the insightfulness and importance of Kracauer’s writings on
such themes will become evident and his contribution to Critical Theory as a
vital and continuing critique of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and irratio-
nality will be increasingly recognized. Above all, we hope that this anthology
will be an encouragement to all to read and engage with Kracauer’s work in a
critical and appreciative spirit, recognizing its enduring importance in the strug-
gles of the present.

Notes

1. Of particular significance for our work here is that the nine volumes of the German-
language Werke issued by Suhrkamp Verlag now include vols. 9.1 and 9.2, “Early
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 33

Writings from the Archive” (2004); and vol. 2.2, “Studies in Mass Media and Pro-
paganda” (2012).
2. Most notably, Sieg fried Kracauer’s American Writings, ed. Johannes von Moltke
and Kristy Rawson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).
3. See, for example, the publication by Suhrkamp in English of Kracauer’s second
novel, Georg (2016).
4. Including, most important, the publication of Kracauer’s correspondence with
Theodor W. Adorno, first by Suhrkamp in German (2008) and now by Polity in
English translation (2020).
5. See, for example, Gerd Gemünden and Johannes von Moltke, eds., Culture in the
Anteroom: The Legacies of Sieg fried Kracauer (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2012); Johannes von Moltke, The Curious Humanist: Sieg fried Kracauer
in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016), very much a compan-
ion study for his edited collection with Kirsty Rawson, Sieg fried Kracauer’s Amer-
ican Writings (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012); and Harry Carver,
Reluctant Skeptic: Sieg fried Kracauer and the Crises of Weimar Culture (New
York: Berghahn, 2017). See also Miriam Hansen, Cinema and Experience: Sieg-
fried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2017). Kracauer’s work is the focus of many of the essays in The
Detective of Modernity, ed. Georgia Giannakopoulou and Graeme Gilloch (Lon-
don: Routledge, 2020), a collection dedicated to the sociologist David Frisby, a
pioneering figure in the Anglophone reception of Kracauer’s Weimar studies. Gil-
loch’s Sieg fried Kracauer: Our Companion in Misfortune (Cambridge: Polity,
2012) provides an overview of his principal writings.
6. Jörg Später’s magisterial Sieg fried Kracauer: Eine Biographie was published by
Suhrkamp in 2016 and is now available in an English translation by Daniel Steuer
under the title Kracauer: A Biography (Cambridge: Polity, 2020).
7. As we will see, Kracauer’s friend and colleague Leo Löwenthal was also to write on
this theme in a 1944 essay proposing an interesting shift in focus away from so-
called “idols of production” to “idols of consumption”: Leo Löwenthal, “Biogra-
phies in Popular Magazines,” in Radio Research: 1942–1943, ed. Paul Lazarsfeld and
Frank Stanton (New York: Duell, Sloane & Pearce, 1944). See also Leo Löwenthal,
“German Popular Biographies: Culture’s Bargain Counter,” in The Critical Spirit:
Essays in Honor of Herbert Marcuse, ed. Kurt H. Wolff and Barrington Moore Jr.
(Boston: Beacon, 1967), 267–83.
8. Siegfried Kracauer, The Mass Ornament, trans. T. Y. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1995), 75. Hereafter cited parenthetically.
9. Siegfried Kracauer, The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany,
trans. Q. Hoare (New York: Verso, [1930] 1998), 88. Hereafter cited parenthetically.
10. Regarding the Offenbach book, see their exchange of letters during May 1937 in
Theodor W. Adorno and Sieg fried Kracauer: Correspondence, 1923–1966, ed. Wolf-
gang Schopf, trans. Susan Reynolds and Michael Winkler (Cambridge: Polity,
2020), 240–50.
11. Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time, trans. G. David
and E. Mosbacher (New York: Zone, [1937] 2002), 24.
34 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

12. “The Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies” was a series of eight pieces published in the
FZ in March 1927. See Kracauer, The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 291–304.
13. Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German
Film (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1947] 2019), 5. Hereafter cited
parenthetically.
14. These are: the “archaic” period (1895–1918); the immediate postwar era (1918–1924);
the “stabilized period” (1924–1929); and the pre-Hitler years (1930–1933).
15. In his combination of showmanship, charlatanism, ruthlessness, and hypnotism,
the figure of Dr. Caligari serves not only as the first in a series of onscreen tyrants,
but also, as will see, embodies key characteristics of the totalitarian dictator exam-
ined in the “Totalitarian Propaganda” study.
16. For example, pacifist and antimilitarism films like G. W. Pabst’s Westfront 1918
(1930); films critiquing authority like Leontine Sagan’s Mädchen in Uniform (1931);
and even some more radical films such as Slatan Dudow’s famous Kuhle Wampe
(1930).
17. Kracauer notes the popularity of Luis Trenker’s war films, the glut of Napoleonic
costume dramas, and a series of “Fridericus” films (homilies to Frederick the Great).
18. On the work of Institute affiliates for the U.S. government during World War II,
see Barry M. Kātz, Foreign Intelligence: Research and Analysis in the Office of Strate-
gic Services, 1942–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989); and
Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer, Secret Reports on Nazi
Germany: The Frankfurt School Contribution to the War Effort, ed. Raffaele Lau-
dani (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013).
19. In Theory of Film, Kracauer suggests that Allied footage shot to document the
extermination camps after their liberation may enable us to confront onscreen via
the medium of film such horrors which we otherwise could not face.
20. See Hansen, Cinema and Experience.
21. Siegfried Kracauer, Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, [1960] 1997), 33. Hereafter cited parenthetically.
22. What Benjamin would famously term the “optical unconscious” in his 1936 “Work
of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” essay.
23. These texts include, for example, Leo Löwenthal and Norbert Guterman, Prophets
of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator (Palo Alto, CA: Pacific,
[1949] 1970); Adorno’s own study of American Fascist agitators in the mid-1930s,
The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio Addresses (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, [1975] 2000); and, subsequently, The Authoritarian
Personality (London: Verso, [1950] 2019). For one recent assessment of the relevance
of these writings to contemporary forms of authoritarianism, see Critical Theory
and Authoritarian Populism, ed. Jeremiah Morelock (London: University of West-
minster Press, 2018).
24. In the addendum to his 1936 exposé, “Masse und Propaganda,” he particularly
emphasized that propaganda studies should also examine “the corresponding con-
ditions in the great democracies (especially in America).”
 Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n m 35

25. For Kracauer’s rejection of Adorno’s edited version of the text and counterproposal,
see their exchange of letters (August 20 and September 12, 1938) in Correspondence,
269–74.
26. Martin Jay, Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to
America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986).
27. This was perhaps more the case with Adorno than Horkheimer. The former was
eager to return because he saw his thought so inextricably bound up with the Ger-
man language, and he believed he could have a greater impact in Germany. Hork-
heimer was hesitant. For example, he got the U.S. government to preserve his U.S.
citizenship even after he returned to Germany. During his first visits to Frankfurt
after the war, Horkheimer stayed in a hotel close to the train station, so he could
leave very quickly if need be. Horkheimer was finally convinced only by the stu-
dents who were eager to learn from him. His time in Germany after the war was
often unpleasant, and he retired early in Switzerland after being subjected to anti-
Semitic attacks from other professors in Frankfurt.
28. Adorno acknowledges this, even in his otherwise hostile report on Kracauer’s “Total-
itarian Propaganda” study of 1938, and notes, “We are not overly blessed with contri-
butions of such writerly quality” (see paragraph 5 of the Gutachten). Adorno’s appre-
ciation of Kracauer’s power of expression were strictly limited to his German-language
publications. He lamented the shift to English and tried without success to persuade
Kracauer to write in German again. Writing in English was to rob oneself of one’s
most precious insights, observations, and expressions, Adorno insisted, but to no
avail. To his credit, Kracauer was unimpressed by such linguistic chauvinism.
29. See von Moltke and Rawson, eds., Sieg fried Kracauer’s American Writings, 2.
30. In 1952 he succeeded in becoming a staff member and then research director of
the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University. See Ingrid Belke
and Irina Renz, Sieg fried Kracauer, 1889–1966 (Marbach: Marbacher Magazin,
1988), 111.
31. He received funding from and became an adviser to both the Bollingen and Old
Dominion Foundations, for example. He also received monies from the Chapel-
brook Foundation.
32. Here, as published in Public Opinion Quarterly in 1949. Subsequently, a version
under the amended title “How U.S. Films Portray Foreign Types: A Psychological
View of British and Russians on Our Screens” appeared in Films in Review in
March 1950.

References

Adorno, Theodor W., Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt San-
ford. The Authoritarian Personality. London: Verso, [1950] 2019.
——. “The Curious Realist” [Der wunderliche Realist]. New German Critique, no. 54
(1991): 159–77.
36 l Gen er a l I n t ro d u c t i o n

——. The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio Addresses. Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Adorno, Theodor W., and Siegfried Kracauer. Correspondence, 1923–1966. Cambridge:
Polity, 2020.
Belke, Ingrid, and Irina Renz. Sieg fried Kracauer, 1889–1966. Marbach: Marbacher Maga-
zin, 1988.
Carver, Harry. Reluctant Skeptic: Sieg fried Kracauer and the Crises of Weimar Culture.
New York: Berghahn, 2017.
Gemünden, Gerd, and Johannes von Moltke, eds. Culture in the Anteroom: The Legacies of
Sieg fried Kracauer. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012.
Giannakopoulou, Georgia, and Graeme Gilloch, eds. The Detective of Modernity. London:
Routledge, 2020.
Gilloch, Graeme. Sieg fried Kracauer: Our Companion in Misfortune. Cambridge: Polity,
2015.
Hansen, Miriam. Cinema and Experience: Sieg fried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin, and The-
odor W. Adorno. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017.
Jay, Martin. Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to
America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
Jenemann, David. Adorno in America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1947] 2004.
——. Georg. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2016.
——. Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time. New York: Zone, [1937] 2002.
——. The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995.
——. The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany. London: Verso, 1998.
——. Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, [1960] 1997.
Kracauer, Siegfried, and Paul L. Berkman. Satellite Mentality: Political Attitudes and
Propaganda Susceptibilities of Non-Communists in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslova-
kia. New York: F. A. Praeger, 1956.
Löwenthal, Leo, and Norbert Guterman. Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of
the American Agitator. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific [1949] 1970.
Später, Jörg. Kracauer: A Biography. Cambridge: Polity, 2020.
von Moltke, Johannes. The Curious Humanist: Sieg fried Kracauer in America. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2016.
von Moltke, Johannes, and Kirsty Rawson, eds. Sieg fried Kracauer’s American Writings.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
 Part 1
Studies of
Totalitarianism,
Propaganda, and the
Masses (1936–1940)
INTRODUCTION

Notwithstanding his deep and longstanding attachment to Theodor W. Adorno

and his enduring friendship with Leo Löwenthal, Siegfried Kracauer’s personal,
intellectual, and professional relations with the Institute for Social Research
were, even at the best of times, complicated and tense. The period 1936–1938 was
not the best of times. The fact that Kracauer was keen to write an article for
inclusion in the Institute’s house journal, the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung—
given his earlier insistence that he would have nothing to do with the Insti-
tute—is indicative less of a mellowing of attitudes or some growing rapproche-
ment than of the acute predicament he found himself in at the time.1 Having
fled Germany in 1933 on the advice of his superiors at the Frankfurter Zeitung
who were then only too quick to sever any contractual obligations with him, the
life of an exile in Paris was a precarious one, eking out an existence by his writ-
ing, all the while reliant on publishers and publications abroad. The offer of an
honorarium to produce a critical examination of contemporary totalitarian pro-
paganda was an invitation Kracauer could scarcely refuse, despite whatever mis-
givings he might still have had about collaborating with the Institute. However
38 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

much he claimed that such a subject corresponded felicitously with his existing
plans and interests, he also needed the money (6000 French francs).
For his part, Max Horkheimer was far from enthusiastic about approaching
Kracauer. He was, nevertheless, on this particular occasion, prepared to put
aside his own strong personal antipathy toward Kracauer, appreciating that he
did possess, after all, at least in matters of mass culture and communication,
some expertise and insight. Kracauer would do what was asked of him so long as
Adorno was to make clear their overall expectations of the main themes and
approaches that were to inform the study. Kracauer was not to be left too much
to his own designs and devices. In short: Horkheimer grudgingly offered the
work; Kracauer grudgingly accepted. Hardly an auspicious beginning! But the
work of a few months expanded into a text that took him nearly two years to
complete. By the time Kracauer met with Friedrich Pollock on April 12, 1938,
and handed over the final installment of his study, the whole thing comprised
well in excess of 150 pages of typescript. It was no longer just a journal article at
all; rather, it had become a small book. Perhaps Horkheimer anticipated some-
thing of the sort. In any case, he had already been careful to point out to Kra-
cauer from the start that publication in the Zeitschrift was, of course, not a given,
and that there were other equally valid and valuable alternative arrangements
for texts that did not quite fit the bill: a place in the archive, with the possibility
of publication later in one of the Institute’s anthologies.2
Adorno had his own alternative. Deeming the first 106 pages sent by Kra-
cauer as being “neither of real theoretical value nor sufficiently grounded in the
empirical material” and without even waiting for the final instalment to arrive,
Adorno took it upon himself to edit the text, stripping away what he saw as rep-
etition and verbosity, cutting redundant quotation, and honing, as he saw it, the
actual argument.3 Adorno thought he knew best. He pared down the script to
between one-quarter and one-fifth of its original length and duly sent it for
approval to Kracauer on June 28, 1938. But Kracauer, notwithstanding the
difficulties that beset him, was having none of it. His text may have been cut
short, but he himself was not to be so easily belittled. In his response of
August 20, 1938, he refused point-blank to allow publication of Adorno’s abbre-
viated version, proposing instead a compromise that would see two key sections
of his original text printed in the journal—“ ‘the chapter on the masses, and if
possible also the concluding chapter’ ” (2013, 325). But the damage had been
done. Kracauer’s study was never to appear in the Zeitschrift, and his subsequent
attempts to find a suitable location for publication elsewhere proved to be in
vain. Somehow, somewhere, the typescript versions of the text were mislaid or
went astray. Only a barely legible handwritten copy with numerous corrections
 St udies of Totali tari an ism m 39

and amendments survived to become part of the Kracauer Nachlass in Marbach

am Neckar. Indeed, it was not until 2012 that a painstakingly transcribed ver-
sion of this manuscript was finally published by Suhrkamp Verlag as part of vol-
ume 2 of Kracauer’s Werke.
So far, so bad. The remarks above draw upon the Suhrkamp editors’ contex-
tualization in their afterword to the “Totalitarian Propaganda” study. True, the
fate of this study is indeed a testament to the poor relations between Kracauer
and the Institute. But the situation was actually worse than this, because what
the editors do not mention is that right in the middle of this fiasco, in spring
1937, Kracauer’s societal biography, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time,
was published—a book derided by Adorno as “idiotic and shameless.” Walter
Benjamin readily agreed with him.4 Leo Löwenthal argued that just reviewing
the book in the Zeitschrift—which he helped to edit—would be to bestow unde-
served honor upon it.5 Nonetheless, Adorno’s biting review did make it into the
Zeitschrift, albeit in an ameliorated form, and the incident sparked a heated
exchange of letters containing various accusations and counterarguments: Kra-
cauer had no technical appreciation of music and could only critique the libretti;
Adorno had no sense of the critical sensibility of Offenbach as a “mockingbird”
of his times.6 Adorno thought he knew best here, too. But a more sympathetic
reader of the Offenbach study might have appreciated how prescient and per-
tinent its themes were in regard to the “Totalitarian Propaganda” text: the
populist machinations and manipulations through which authoritarianism
triumphs; the myth of overcoming class and class conflicts; the creation of an
illusory “operetta-world,” a Scheinwelt or pseudoreality; the “joy and glamour”
of the Second Empire as a foretaste of “strength through joy” (Kraft durch
Freude) of the Third Reich; imperial pomp and spectacle including grandiose
architectural projects celebrating state power and cementing control (the Haus-
mannization of Paris as “strategic beautification”; Albert Speer’s plans for the
new capital of the Reich, Germania).7 But while these thematic continuities are
certainly of significance, it is principally Kracauer’s earlier writings, especially
those of the late 1920s, that influence and inform the “Totalitarian Propaganda”
study. It is to these that we now turn.
Although the prevailing conditions and practices of Italian Fascism do feature
in Kracauer’s text, and the analyses of Ignazio Silone are frequently cited, it is
nevertheless National Socialism in Germany that is Kracauer’s main focus. His
writings in the varied roles of journalist, cultural critic, and sociologist, which
aimed to capture the “newest Germany” of the turbulent Weimar years, provide
much of the contextual material, and theoretical and conceptual armature, of the
later propaganda study. For example, in section A of his text under the rubric
40 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

“Genesis of Totalitarian Propaganda,” Kracauer begins by noting the general

importance of the traumatic experiences of the Great War and its aftermath for
the creation of both a martial sensibility and an intense disaffection from civilian
government. In terms that echo his own wartime reflections from 1917 to 1918 on
the theme of friendship,8 he recognizes the formation of a profound and power-
ful sense of solidarity among the soldiers on the front line, a deep and lasting
“camaraderie of the trenches” (Schutzenkamaradschaft) that went far beyond
both individual concerns and class interests.9 He also observes that one has to
acknowledge the keen sense of betrayal that was felt by demobilized soldiers,
especially but not exclusively among the officer class, when Germany finally
capitulated in 1918.10 Protofascist psychological predispositions—such as an
absolute trust in one’s fellow soldiers; a contemptuous distrust of all things civil-
ian and liberal; and an acute desensitization to the use of violence—could be eas-
ily activated by propagandistic calls for mobilization, first as Freikorps in the city
streets and then as SA and SS at the mass rallies. A certain readiness and receptiv-
ity are essential if propaganda is not simply to fall on deaf ears.11
It should be no surprise to learn that Kracauer’s “Mass Ornament” essay
(1927) and The Salaried Masses (Die Angestellten) book (1930) are the two most
important works underpinning the “Totalitarian Propaganda” study. Both are
referred to explicitly in the text on a number of occasions. They capture some-
thing of both the preconditions for the success of National Socialist propaganda
and aspects of its actual practice. There are at least three deeply interwoven
aspects here: the masses, the leader, and the orchestration of power.
Firstly, there is the purposeful constitution of the mass itself. The fundamen-
tal point of departure for totalitarian propaganda is the production and propa-
gation of the mass as an entity, as the decisive social and political phenomenon
of the time. This involves a number of processes: the dissolution of the distinct
individual as an autonomous and idiosyncratic subject (i.e., the erasure of differ-
ence); the fragmentation and disintegration of all other social and civic bonds,
forms of solidarity, and common belonging, above all, the (illusory) overcoming
of class membership and class antagonism; and the reconfiguration of these now
isolated, atomistic selves into a new totality bearing such grandiose names as
“the nation,” “the people,” or the Volksgemeinschaft.12 The generation of the mass
as mass is the primary, and always inevitably ongoing, task of such propaganda,
for it is the very precondition for the success of all that follows. The mass is that
which is formed by, and that which then allows itself to be reformed according
to, totalitarian propaganda. In the case of German National Socialism, the vital
role of white-collar employees—the most rapidly expanding social group in
Weimar Germany—cannot be overstated. Lacking the Bildung and accomplish-
ments of the professional classes, elites, and haute bourgeoisie, but at the same
 St udies of Totali tari an ism m 41

time utterly disdainful of the working class and of proletarian collectivism, the
ranks of lower-middle-class office workers (clerks, secretaries, minor state function-
aries, administrators, pen-pushers of all kinds) were for Kracauer an in-between,
neither-nor socioeconomic strata. As the bearers of bureaucratic and Tayloristic
discipline, they were the subject-objects of modern instrumental reason—the
“Ratio,” as he terms it. On the basis of his 1929–1930 Berlin-based ethnographic
exploration of the terra incognita of this seemingly invisible, because actually
ubiquitous, class in Die Angestellten, Kracauer concludes that they are “spiritually
homeless” (1998, 88), a claim he reiterates in “Totalitarian Propaganda.”13 This
pathological condition of insecurity and meaninglessness predisposes them to
duplicitous notions of belonging and the appeal of an authentic life especially at
moments of economic crisis and uncertainty. The white-collar workers were
indeed the salaried masses and constituted something both quantitatively and
qualitatively new.14
Moreover, as Kracauer is at pains to point out, there are masses, and then
there are other masses. Communism, he claims, also produces the masses, calls
into being the proletariat as mass, the mass as proletariat, for the express pur-
pose of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the abolition of class
society. But here, crucially, the mass is only ever a temporary phenomenon, a
necessary and short-lived means to an end. The alienated worker becomes part
of the collective, the mass, in order thereby to overthrow the circumstances of
his/her alienation. The revolution is (only) complete when the mass abolishes
itself for the full realization of the liberated individual human subject.15
Kracauer counterpoises the revolutionary mass with the mass in Fascism and
National Socialism: here, the mass is not a transient stage on the way to genuine
liberation but, rather, a permanent condition. The mass is no longer the means
but the end point itself, the destination, the longed-for “homeland” (Heimat).16
The mass comes into being to remain as a mass. The fundamental task of propa-
ganda here is to convince the mass that class divisions and conflict have been
overcome as capitalist relations actually go unchanged. Fascist propaganda fos-
ters the illusion of classlessness. This has two important consequences for Kra-
cauer. Totalitarian propaganda is not just about winning power, after which it
has served its purpose and may then be dispensed with; it is necessary to sustain
power because Fascism is unable—in fact, never intends—to deliver on its vari-
ous promises of abolishing class inequalities and creating an egalitarian Volksge-
meinschaft. The people are, after all, never to be emancipated.17 Propaganda
then is always and inevitably ongoing; indeed, it must intensify as the contradic-
tions produced by the unchanged capitalist system themselves continue and
increase. And where propaganda fails to convince, there is always coercion, vio-
lence as threat or as actual punishment. Propaganda and terror go hand in hand.
42 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

Totalitarianism targets both the mind and body of its population as mass: pro-
paganda and terror co-configure the “psycho-physical structure” of the mass
human, the Massenmensch, as “regression” (a toxic mix of fear, sadism, cynicism,
frustration, and resentment).
Sustaining the illusion of class reconciliation is significant for Kracauer in
another way: it is part and parcel of a much wider set of deceptions and mis-
recognitions that totalitarianism presents as the real, as enlightenment. Under
Fascism, reality is a pseudoreality in which what appears to be becomes taken for
what actually is, and what is is merely what seems to be. Appearance (Schein)
displaces and becomes being (Sein). The masses live in a world of spurious
appearances (Scheinwelt). Misleading and misinforming, maintaining this con-
fusion of truth and lies, blending and blurring one with the other, insisting on
the fiction that these fictions are not in the least fictitious—all this again falls to
the work of the tireless propagandists.
This continual generation and regeneration of the masses finds it corollary,
its necessary counterpart, in the creation of the leader, the Führer, the unique
charismatic figure who remains distinctive and apart.18 He, the “agent of
power” (Machttyp), is the one true personality in a mass society in which all
other personalities have been relinquished or eradicated. Kracauer emphasizes
this symbiotic relationship between the mass and the leader which is, at the
same time, highly asymmetrical. While essential, they, the masses, are only ever
the interchangeable backdrop, so much stage scenery so to speak, before and
above which he, the dictator, stands out. They undoubtedly and unquestioningly
revere him; that is their role. But he, in return, regards them with nothing but
contempt and loathing. He is everything, they are nothing, though, paradoxi-
cally, he is nothing without them. The aim of fascist propaganda is to transform
individuals into masses—that is, to reduce them to naïve, credulous, gullible
targets of propaganda. The leader plays with their prejudices and panders to
their resentments, makes easy promises, lies and deceives, stirs the emotions,
points out their enemies both within and without, and directs their fervor and
fury. Kracauer describes the Fascist dictator as a “charlatan,” as a cheap trickster
and second-rate magician under whose spell the masses are docile and compli-
ant. Indeed, he repeatedly compares the Führer to a kind of hypnotist with the
masses as his entranced and obedient instrument. Although he goes unmen-
tioned here, precisely this combination of tyrannical personality, huckster, and
hypnotist is to be found in the fictional figure of Dr. Caligari, the eponymous
sideshow sorcerer who dispatches the sinister somnambulist Cesare to do his
murderous bidding in Robert Wiene’s 1919 film—the very film, of course, that
Kracauer came to see as indicative of incipient authoritarian predispositions
 St udies of Totali tari an ism m 43

among postwar German cinema audiences. The Führer as despotic deceiver is

the very embodiment of the Caligari complex. In this sense, the “Totalitarian
Propaganda” study is the first star in the later Caligari constellation.
The hypnotic power of the dictator, Kracauer continues, derives from the use
of the voice (as opposed to written texts). The form and temporality of writing
appeals more to reason and opens itself up to reflection: one can reread the text,
mull it over, return to it, question it, take exception to it, tear it up. But the
human voice has an immediate impact allowing no time for scrutiny, no oppor-
tunity for interrogation. There is no possibility of—or intention to enable—
dialogue, conversation, cross-examination. In this context, Kracauer notes the
key role played by radio broadcasting in mass propaganda.19 Not only does the
radio provide for the comprehensive one-to-many one-way communication so
suited to the dictator-mass relationship, but its reach and invasiveness ensure
that there is no escape from the words of the Führer. It is not a coincidence that,
shortly after coming to power, the Nazis began to mass produce an inexpensive
radio, the Volksempfänger, and that radio ownership in Germany increased rap-
idly during the first few years of their rule, especially in small towns and more
rural areas.20 Kracauer states, “German radio has indeed been systematically
developed as a vehicle for producing and vastly expanding the mass.”21 Further-
more, Kracauer stresses the significance of two long familiar but nevertheless
still highly effective rhetorical devices: repetition and rhythm. Key to the success
of totalitarian propaganda is the old adage that a lie repeated often enough even-
tually comes to be taken for the truth. This is how the Scheinwelt is produced
and reproduced. And repetition also plays a role in the creation of a compelling
rhythm: words insistently intoned and incessantly repeated become incanta-
tions. The leader is adept in such techniques of speech-making: sentences build
slowly but surely one upon the other, the voice rising to a crescendo and then a
momentary silence—that fleeting but decisive holding back for a few precious
seconds of what is to come, to create tension and suspense, to ensure that what
follows will not just be appreciated but ecstatically embraced—before at last the
answer, the solution, the resolution, the appeal, the promise, the vision. The lis-
tener is drawn in, the breath is drawn in, and then held, and then released in a
surge of euphoria.22 Rhythm, too, Kracauer astutely notes, has its disciplinary
aspect: hands clap in unison, voices chant slogans, drums beat together, martial
bodies march and drill in time. The masses participate in, fall in line and in time
to, the almost irresistible rhythm of the Ratio. As with the Tiller Girls, there are
no soloists here. The mass is everything: moving together, working together, act-
ing together, empowered together. All bar one. Of course, there is one and only
one exception who stands alone, above and beyond.
44 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

Finally, this brings bring us to the notion of spectacle and ornament. Here,
Kracauer not surprisingly refers to his own essay from 1927. The choreographed
routines of the Tiller Girls anticipate the key principles of the mass rally: deindi-
vidualization, fragmentation, and homogenization; geometrical formations,
abstraction, and machine-like function; synchronization and rhythmic repeti-
tion. Feathers were to be replaced by flags, costumes by uniforms, sequins by
swastikas. Machine rhythms become martial ones. This is the very orchestration
of power (via Latin from the Greek, orkhēstra, from orkheisthai “to dance”). The
mass admires not only the parade passing before its eyes like a film strip, but also
itself, its own image, its own sense of itself as mass, as the physical embodied
expression of the “we.” The mass becomes its own spectacle and all under the
benign gaze of the choreographer in chief, the leader. The mass is the subject-
object of ornamentation. Its decoration of power as “art of mass images” (Mas-
senbildkunst) is not trivial or secondary; rather, like the propaganda of which it
is an element, it is as necessary to the winning of power and the maintenance of
hegemony as violence and terror.23 Tellingly, at this point Kracauer refers to a
study that had only recently been published in the Zeitschrift: Walter Benja-
min’s 1936 “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility.”
At the end of Benjamin’s now-famous essay ones reads that Fascism involves the
“aestheticization of politics” to which Communism responds with the “politici-
zation of the aesthetic.” The mass ornament is or is at least fundamental to this
aestheticization of politics.24 Indeed, totalitarian propaganda and aestheticized
politics may be, in the final analysis, if not one and the same thing, then cer-
tainly two sides of the same coin.

Notes

As editors of this current volume we were, ironically, faced by not the same but certainly a
similar dilemma to that which confronted the editors of the Zeitschrift more than eighty
years ago: What is one to do with Kracauer’s text? It is far too long to include in its entirety
here, and yet to leave it out completely would be wholly inappropriate and run counter to
Kracauer’s own express wishes. The full 150 pages plus of the “Totalitarian Propaganda”
text can be neither fully included nor excluded. And so today, we, unlike Horkheimer
et al., have taken up Kracauer’s own suggestion. We present here translations of the two
sections he himself saw as most important and proposed for publication back in 1938:
chapter E, which foregrounds the concept of the masses, and the final chapter, G. We also
include, as an appendix, John Abromeit’s essay “Siegfried Kracauer and the Early Frank-
furt School’s Analysis of Fascism as Right-Wing Populism,” which provides an overview
and analysis of Kracauer’s entire text. In his essay, Abromeit places Kracauer’s study within
 St udies of Totali tari an ism m 45

the context of the Institute’s writings on fascism during the 1930s and 1940s, and he also
highlights the ongoing relevance of Kracauer’s (and the early Frankfurt School’s) analysis
of fascism as a form of right-wing, authoritarian populism. We hope that this is an accept-
able compromise and look forward to the future publication of an English translation of
the full text of Kracauer’s “Totalitarian Propaganda.”
In the translations of the various “Totalitarian Propaganda” texts presented here
we have, as far as possible, and despite inconsistencies in both the originals and in the
published Suhrkamp editions, sought to use brackets in the following manner
throughout:
(…) Kracauer’s own brackets;
[…] brackets used by the Suhrkamp editors to indicate their own additions;
{…} brackets we use to indicate our additions.
We have tried to use {sic} as little as possible and have either corrected or noted certain
errors (e.g., Kracauer’s misuse of dates; the Suhrkamp editors’ occasional lapses in page
references). For ease of comparison, we have retained the footnote numbering as given in
the 2013 Suhrkamp taschenbuch edition. We have only added endnotes where necessary
and, in particular, for the presentation of abbreviated versions of the Suhrkamp editors’
extensive and detailed comments and explanations (Anmerkungen) clarifying historical
figures, events, and organizations.

1. In his letter to Gertrud and Richard Krautheimer of May 16, 1936, Kracauer states
unequivocally: “The Institute is the only place in the world which we can have and
want nothing to do with.” Totalitäre Propaganda (TP), ed. Bernd Stiegler (Berlin:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013), 313. Hereafter cited parenthetically.
2. Horkheimer writes: “Should it turn out at the end of the four months that the
article, which will definitely be valuable to us, is not suitable for the purposes of
the journal, we will then add it our archive, like some other important work. We
hope to occasionally publish some of the pieces from this archive in an anthology”
(TP, 320).
3. T. W. Adorno, “Report on the Work ‘Totalitarian Propaganda in Germany and
Italy’ by Siegfried Kracauer, 1–106” (see appendix 1).
4. Adorno made this remark in a letter to Walter Benjamin on May 4, 1937. In his
response to Adorno on May 9, Benjamin wrote, “I cannot believe our judgments
about the book diverge in any way.” See Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin,
The Complete Correspondence, 1928–1940, ed. Henri Lonitz, trans. Nicholas Walker
(Cambridge: Polity, 1999), 183, 186.
5. Writing to Adorno on September 21, 1937, Löwenthal observes that “the review
does the book much credit simply by virtue of its being reviewed by us at all.”
Mappe A7: 205, Leo Löwenthal Archive, Frankfurt, Germany.
6. Siegfried Kracauer, Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time, trans. G. David
and E. Mosbacher (New York: Zone, [1937] 2002), 25. See also Theodor W. Adorno
and Sieg fried Kracauer: Correspondence, 1923–1966, ed. Wolfgang Schopf, trans.
Susan Reynolds and Michael Winkler (Cambridge: Polity, 2020), 240–50; and
Adorno’s review of Kracauer’s book on Offenbach in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung
6, no. 3 (1936): 697–98.
46 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

7. Adorno, by contrast, was keen to emphasize the discontinuity between the Offen-
bach book and the “Totalitarian Propaganda” study, noting in his report the “huge
effort” Kracauer had made to “work his way out of the sphere of commercial writ-
ing [Warenschriftstellerei]” (see appendix 1).
8. See Kracauer’s essays “On Friendship” [Über die Freundschaft] (1917–1918) and
“Thoughts on Friendship” [Gedanken über Freundschaft] (1921) in Gedanken über
die Freundschaft (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1971).
9. For one influential study of this camaraderie and its subsequent influence on the devel-
opment of National Socialism in Germany, see Klaus Theweleit, Male Fantasies, vol. 1,
Women, Floods, Bodies, History, and vol. 2, Male Bodies: Psychoanalyzing the White
Terror, trans. Stephen Conway (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987).
10. In the “Disposition” from July 1937 (under section A.II), Kracauer terms these
groupings “the excrescences of war” and notes the overall “sympathy of the army for
the Fascist type.”
11. Despite Kracauer and Horkheimer’s chilly personal relations, one can see here an
interesting theoretical affinity in their mutual interest in exploring the ways in
which shared life experiences among specific social groups create psychological
predispositions that can be mobilized by the leaders of both progressive and reac-
tionary social movements. Horkheimer outlines such a project of “differentiated
group psychology” in his 1932 essay “History and Psychology.” He developed this
project historically in his 1936 essay “Egoism and Freedom Movements: On the
Anthropology of the Bourgeois Epoch.” Through an analysis of the progressive
and reactionary elements of early modern European social movements, Hork-
heimer sought to gain insight into the triumph of fascism in his own time. Thus,
despite Horkheimer’s refusal to publish Kracauer’s essay—influenced no doubt
by Adorno’s negative assessment—in retrospect one can read it as complementing
and supplementing Horkheimer’s own theoretical project in the 1930s. In his
study of fascist propaganda, Kracauer also approvingly cites Erich Fromm’s intro-
ductory essay to the Institute’s large-scale empirical project on authority and
family, Studien über Autorität und Familie (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1936), which was
also designed to apply and test Horkheimer’s theory of differentiated group psy-
chology. Fromm had already directed an earlier empirical study of the social psy-
chology of blue- and white-collar workers in the Weimar Republic, The Working
Class in Weimar Germany: A Psychological and Sociological Study, trans. Barbara
Weininger (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984). Whereas Hork-
heimer had focused more on the sociohistorical roots of authoritarianism, in his
substantial theoretical introduction to the Studies on Authority and Family,
which has only recently been published in English translation, Fromm analyzes
the social-psychological mechanisms in such movements. : Erich Fromm, “Stud-
ies on Authority and Family: Sociopsychological Dimensions,” trans. Susan Kas-
souf, in Fromm Forum: Journal of the International Erich Fromm Society 24
(2020): 8–58. Kracauer draws on Fromm’s essay to explain the ideological func-
tion of sadism in fascist propaganda. In short, despite the acrimonious personal
relations between Kracauer and the Institute at this time, Kracauer’s essay on
fascist propaganda demonstrates important affinities with the early Critical
 St udies of Totali tari an ism m 47

Theory of the Institute and can be read profitably together with this work. For an
elaboration of this argument, see appendix 2.
12. In his initial “Exposé. Mass and Propaganda,” dated December 1936, Kracauer
notes, “The concepts of the ‘nation,’ the ‘people,’ the ‘honour’ are placed in the cen-
tre and their function are magnified in propagandistic manner in order to paralyze
the class struggle” (V.3c).
13. See, for example, the 1936 exposé, which foregrounds “the spiritual homelessness of
the masses” as part of his wider discussion of “The Crisis After the War and Its
Consequences” (II.2).
14. Kracauer draws most heavily on The Salaried Masses in section F of his essay
“Totalitarian Propaganda,” which we have not translated for this volume. But any-
one capable of reading the original German, who is interested in seeing how Kra-
cauer develops and fleshes out his analysis of the sociology and social psychology of
the salaried masses in light of subsequent terrifying historical developments in
Germany, should consult section F. See also the discussion of section F in John
Abromeit’s essay in appendix 2.
15. Here one sees clearly Kracauer engaging with arguments Horkheimer put forth in
“Egoism and Freedom Movements” about how the function of the mass and the
role of the leader is different in emancipatory movements than in reactionary social
movements. Whereas Kracauer agrees with Horkheimer that that aim of emanci-
patory movements is to abolish the existence of the mass as such, Kracauer is more
willing to accept the formation of the mass as a strategic means to accomplish the
desired end of abolishing capitalism. For his part, Horkheimer writes, “The mass
meeting is suitable for the purpose of exerting irrational influence; small groups of
individuals with common interests are appropriate for discussions of theory, the
analysis of a given historical situation, and the resulting considerations on the pol-
icy that should be followed. Movements striving to transcend the bourgeois order
can therefore not use the mass meeting with the same exclusiveness and the same
success.” Max Horkheimer, Between Philosophy and Social Science: Selected Early
Writings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993), 78.
16. See, for example, “Disposition,” C.II, in our volume, where a note in the left-hand
margin reads “mass as homeland [Heimat].”
17. In contrast to antidemocratic traditional European conservatives, who rejected
popular sovereignty, and protofascist theorists like Carl Schmitt, who purposefully
conflate the concepts of “the mass” and “the people,” in order to defend an authori-
tarian “concept of the political,” Kracauer carefully distinguishes the concept of
“the people” from the concept of “the masses” throughout his essay. In so doing
Kracauer holds out the hope for a true democracy, in which the people are no lon-
ger a homogenous mass manipulated from above, but are instead concrete individu-
als able to articulate, pursue and satisfy their diverse needs. In other words, rather
than rejecting the very notion of “the people,” Kracauer argues that its emancipa-
tion can come only through the abolition of “the mass.” Despite his sharp criticisms
of Kracauer at this time, Adorno seems to have agreed with most of his argu-
ments in regard to this concept. See Adorno’s discussion of the concept of “the
mass” in Institute für Sozialforschung, Soziologische Exkurse: Nach Vorträgen und
48 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

Diskussionen (Frankfurt: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1956), 70–82. In the “Totali-

tarian Propaganda” essay, Kracauer also argues that fascist propaganda relies heav-
ily on the “principle of the personality [Persönlichkeitsprinzip]” and “never misses
an opportunity to celebrate the “personality” at the expense of the mass.” See
beginning of section III in section E in our volume. This critique of the concept of
personality represented a break with Kracauer’s work from the 1920s, but one with
which Adorno fully agreed, and which he often reiterated in his postwar writings.
On these points, see Detlev Claussen, One Last Genius, trans. Rodney Livingstone
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 60–61; and Theodor Adorno,
“Gloss on Personality,” in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, trans.
Henry Pickford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 161–66. As we saw
in the case of Horkheimer, here again we can see with the case of Adorno that,
despite the personal and theoretical differences that certainly existed between him
and Kracauer, many important and perhaps unconscious affinities also existed,
which make it possible and profitable to reread Kracauer’s “Totalitarian Propa-
ganda” essay as part of a larger project carried out by the Institute and thinkers with
whom they were in dialogue, to understand the success, staying power and—in the
postwar period—ongoing threat of fascism. On this history of Adorno and Kra-
cauer’s relationship, see Martin Jay, “Adorno and Kracauer: Notes on a Troubled
Friendship,” in Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Ger-
many to America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 217–36.
18. Kracauer notes, “Postulating the ideal of the personality in no way refutes mass as
ideal” (“Disposition,” C.II.4).
19. Kracauer anticipates here Adorno’s verdict on the radio as the “mouthpiece of the
Führer” and sets up part of the rationale and agenda for the Institute’s radio
research on Fascist agitators undertaken by Adorno and Lazarsfeld and other
“prophets of deceit” explored by Löwenthal and Norbert Gutermann in the 1940s.
Theodor Adorno, The Psychological Technique of Martin Luther Thomas’ Radio
Addresses (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); Leo Löwenthal and
Norbert Gutermann, Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American
Agitator (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949).
20. Radio ownership in large German cities, such as Berlin, was already widespread
before the Nazis came to power. On the role of the Nazis’ attempts to expand radio
ownership as part of their larger propaganda program, see Zuhören und Gehört-
werden I. Radio im Nationalsozialismus: Zwischen Lenkung und Ablenkung, ed.
Inge Marßolek and Adelheid von Saldern (Tübingen: Editions Diskord, 1998).
21. See section III of section E.
22. Kracauer also notes “the long wait (to see Hitler)” (“Disposition,” C.II.3a) of the
masses at rallies for the arrival of the Führer and hence the creation of tension and
sense of expectation.
23. See “Disposition” (C.II.4).
24. In his summary of Kracauer’s essay, and in line with Kracauer’s comments on the hyp-
notic powers of the Führer, Adorno paraphrases the following formulation by Kra-
cauer: “The aestheticization of propaganda aims at the anaestheticization of the masses.”
Kracauer’s formulation and Adorno’s paraphrase can be found in TP, 64, 275.
 1
Exposé. Mass and
Propaganda. An Inquiry Into
Fascist Propaganda

Dr. S. Kracauer
Paris (17 e)
3, Avenue Mac-Mahon

PROBLEM
The methods of political propaganda developed in fascist countries
represent an innovation. Never before has there been this connection
between terror and mental manipulation—at least in the modern age—
nor, until now, has propaganda been not only a means of realizing
whatever political goals, but also politics itself to such an extent. To
compare: the propaganda practiced in earlier dictatorships with that of
today. An excursus on the role of propaganda in democratic countries
would show that it is structurally different from fascist propaganda.
Reference to advertising.
How did this propaganda emerge? What reality underlies it? What
function is it given?
To simplify matters, I will extrapolate here primarily with reference to
Germany, where fascist propaganda has been ingrained in a particularly
systematic manner; I would like to note immediately, however, that in the
planned project the most varied countries shall be considered. The
continuous juxtaposition of the European dictatorships with the Soviet
Union, on the one hand, and with the great democracies, on the other,
appears essential to me. Crucially important above all is the inclusion of
American efforts in the realm of advertising and propaganda.1
50 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

THE POST WAR CRISIS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The economic crisis in the postwar period. In the countries susceptible to
fascism, the economic crisis combines with the political one and assumes a
total character.
The social consequences of the crisis: In Germany the crisis leads to the
impoverishment of broad strata and to the emergence of new masses
around the proletariat.
1. On the situation of the proletariat itself.
2. The proletarianized middle class. Drawing from the findings of my
book on salaried employees, I demonstrate here how the German middle
classes were partly dispossessed and partly proletarianized after the war.2
The living conditions of salaried employees in the postwar economy
come closer and closer to those of workers.
3. The unemployed.
The Ideological consequences of the crisis
1. Dissolution of the bourgeois value-hierarchy. Among other things,
this means that the bourgeoisie loses its self-assurance, and that its lifestyle
becomes problematic. The capitalist interests become nakedly apparent.
2. The spiritual homelessness of the masses. By and large, it can be
said that, apart from those gripped by socialism, the masses that
emerged on account of the crisis live in an ideological vacuum.
a) The middle class: The precarious position of the middle class
results from the fact that its members are proletarianized, on the one
hand, and are completely entrenched in bourgeois traditions, on the
other. Precisely because of these traditions, they virulently resist
communism, but at the same time have to negate their place in the
capitalist production process. They are no longer readily situated
in the prevailing system. They therefore seek a change of this system,
but are unable to support a dictatorship of the proletariat.
b) The unemployed: They too are no longer able to be integrated
as a result of the crisis and technological developments. Because of
the length of the crisis, the army of millions of the unemployed is
placed in a state of belief in miracles {Wundergläubigkeit}, which
makes it susceptible to all extreme influences and promises. Typical
for the mass of unemployed people: their constant wavering between
National Socialism and communism.
Summary: Like the masses of workers, the newly emerging masses
around them also reject the capitalist economy in its existing form. They
 Exposé. M ass an d Propaga n da m 51

view themselves as left to ruin economically and socially, and they feel even
more lost on an ideological front when the bourgeoisie is hit with power-
lessness and bears little appeal anymore.

THE DECISIVE STAGE OF THE CRISIS

Through the weight of the masses and the inability of the classes represent-
ing capitalism to win back the masses, the antagonism between the left-wing
and right-wing parties, between communism and capitalism, intensifies in
such a way that it is no longer bridgeable through democratic means.
Since one cannot count on a return of economic prosperity through
which large parts of the masses could be absorbed after all, the situation is
ripe for revolution. The task posed by this situation can also be formulated
as follows:
How is it possible to reabsorb the masses?
The following is certain from the outset: the masses are no longer
capable of ready reintegration into the existing economic system under the
prevailing circumstances.
Communism offers itself as the only radical solution that would
eliminate, with the capitalist economic system, the causes that led to the
emergence of the masses characterized here. In a communist society,
according to the theory, unemployment would be definitively abolished
and the mass as mass would disappear.
The situation in Germany, however, is conditioned such that the
communist solution comes up against incredibly strong resistance—even
and especially among some of those who belong to the expatriated mass.
The dispossessed middle class is a crucial supporter of the resistance.
The dilemma thus emerges: the masses should be reintegrated while
maintaining the capitalist system, but are unable to be reintegrated. Only a
pseudo-solution {Scheinlösung} is possible. Fascism is a pseudo-solution.

ADVENT OF THE FASCIST PSEUDOSOLUTION

Thesis: With the pseudo-solution, fascism not only fails to eliminate the
mass (which would be impossible), but rather underlines its character as a
mass all the more and furthermore tries, through appropriate measures, to
create the impression that the mass is in fact reintegrated. To produce this
pseudo-solution, fascism uses two interlocking methods:
1. Terror, the necessity of which is explained by the facts
a) that within the prevailing system class antagonisms exist that
can only be violently stifled, and
52 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

b) that the acceptance of a pseudo-solution like the fascist one has

to be continually forced;
2. Propaganda. Two general statements about fascist propaganda
should be made straightaway:
a) Fascist propaganda is necessary if only because communist
propaganda has to be counteracted. It develops in constant
friction with the latter; in other words, it is fixated on communist
propaganda.
b) Unlike its communist counterpart, fascist propaganda does not
have the disappearance of the mass and therewith its own disappear-
ance as its goal. It has—and this is its peculiar feature—no goal
whatsoever after the realisation of which it can resign, but rather
resists its objective in every such instance, since it would have to be
guided to it ad absurdum. Its objective: producing the illusion of the
reintegration of the masses. This illusion would dissipate immediately,
however, if it were not maintained through constant propaganda.
Fascist propaganda thus does not lead to its own demise like every
other form of propaganda, but rather breeds itself anew time and
again. Fascism can just as little do without propaganda as it can
without terror. It subsists through propaganda.

V. THE ROLE OF PROPAGANDA IN FASCISM

1. To begin with, in order to avoid the dilemma identified above, fascist
propaganda is forced to let the non-reintegratable mass persist as a mass,
and indeed to exaggerate its mass character even more. Here would be the
place for a critical excursus on the various theories of the masses.
How is the hypostatization of the mass achieved through propaganda?
a) One forces the mass to see itself everywhere (mass gatherings, mass
marches, etc.). The mass is thus always present to itself, often in the
aesthetically seductive form of an ornament or striking image.
b) With the aid of radio, the sitting room is transformed into a
public space. (To the extent that men may still exist as individuals at all,
their emotions are totally diverted from politics. Fascist propaganda
confers to individuals only the sphere of “interiority” and otherwise
seeks to transform them into a part of the mass.)
c) All mythical powers that the mass is capable of developing are
exploited for the sake of underscoring the significance of the mass as a
mass. To many it can thus seem that they are elevated above themselves
in the mass.
 Exposé. M ass an d Propaga n da m 53

The cult of the mass produces two desired side effects:

a) It enables a cult of personality, which is useful because it weakens
the sense of reality.
b) It seems to legitimate terror.
2. By unleashing the cult of the mass, fascist propaganda succeeds in
creating the necessary preconditions for its agenda. The mass as mass meets
charlatanry halfway. Historical excursus on the charlatan. The relations
between fascist propaganda and charlatanry are to be demonstrated here.
(For example, the perpetual arousal of fantastic hopes, etc.)
3. The actual aim of fascist propaganda is the pseudo-reintegration of
masses that it has primed in a workmanlike manner. It already achieves this
aim by letting the masses march and generally occupying them nonstop,
such that the masses gain the conviction that they already serve whatever
functions as masses. More crucial, however, is the attempt of propaganda
aimed at reintegration to disavow communist doctrine, which is considered
to be the greatest danger. This attempt, which is undertaken with the help
of middle-class ideologies—it is characteristic of the middle class that it
lives on the periphery of the production process and can therefore preserve
bourgeois traditions in the most uncontested manner—this attempt, I
argue, culminates in the demonstrative refutation of the class struggle.
a) The masses are assembled such that they seem to belie the
assumption of class struggle.
b) One appeals primarily to youth, who are still least subjected to the
force of economic and social relations and are therefore seemingly classless.
c) One places the terms “nation,” “Volk,” and “honor” center stage
and exaggerates their reality and function in a propagandistic manner
in order to paralyze the class struggle. Excursus on the sociological
function of the term “race” and of anti-Semitic propaganda. Further
excursus on the propagandistic significance of fascist foreign policy.
d) Social laws are enacted that do not in fact change the relation of
employer and employee—legal fronts {Fassadengesetze} that amount to
the preservation of the capitalist economy, just like the establishment of
the Dopolavoro.3
4. Since fascist propaganda represents a fictitious solution to the social
problem that it faces, it quickly closes itself off. It displays its greatest
strength in statu nascendi, during the conquest of power. After the seizure
of power, it loses much of its original force. The actual relations shine
through; the illusion emerges as illusion. Ideologues serve themselves in the
realm of propaganda by aggressively working towards the realization of
54 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

propagandistic effects, in order to produce intense shocks. Otherwise,

where fascism has prevailed, leadership maintains itself by withdrawing
from sheer power—that is, from the army and authorities of terror—and
by placing the palpable hunger for power and the military-political
aspirations in place of the social ones, whereby the due solution of the social
problem is deferred once again. Propaganda adapts itself to this.
The end of this main section would be followed by an analysis of
communist propaganda, showing that hidden behind the formal similarity
between communist and fascist propaganda, there are, nonetheless,
differences in principle.
Postscript: This main section of the work is conceived as an inquiry that
would work through copious material in a constructive manner. For this
reason all the more, I had to restrict myself here to the briefest remarks.

SOME CONCLUSIONS
In this last section, I intend among other things to examine the extent to which
social reality is affected by the fascist pseudo-solution; whereby I proceed
from the assumption that the fascist pseudo-solution is a means of preserving
the imperiled capitalist economy. Furthermore, I will consider here what
importance is due to the traditions conserved by the middle class—traditions
that render the fascist pseudo-solution preferable to a socialist solution.
Postscript: Let me emphasise once more that the project can only obtain
its full worth when it is carried out on an international scale and also when
it analyses the corresponding relations in the great democracies (above all
in America).
S. Kracauer, December 1936.

Notes

The preceding translation is by Nicholas Baer and originally appeared in Film Studies 16
(Spring 2017): 6–15. We are grateful for permission to republish the translation in this
anthology.

1. Various letters were exchanged in November 1936 about whether Kracauer’s study
would focus on propaganda and/or advertising, with Adorno advancing the view
that the distinction between the two terms was itself a product of the capitalist
system and should be dissolved; see Christian Fleck and Bernd Stiegler, “Nachbe-
merkung und editorische Notiz,” in Siegfried Kracauer, Werke, vol. 2.2 (Frank-
furt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012), 838. Kracauer would also compose an unpublished
 Exposé. M ass an d Propaga n da m 55

essay, “Popular Advertisement,” in the late 1940s, which is included in this

anthology.—Trans.
2. See Kracauer, Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany, trans. Q.
Hoare (New York: Verso, [1930] 1998).—Trans.
3. Founded in 1925, the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) was an organization for
leisure and recreational activity in fascist Italy. The OND attracted a large percent-
age of the nation’s salaried workers.—Trans.
 2
Totalitarian Propaganda
Section E. Propaganda as Instrument of Power

I.

If totalitarian propaganda must change the psycho-physical structure of people

in order to lend some appeal to the facades it glorifies, in so doing it need not rely
exclusively on terror. The psycho-physical structure can already be found in a
changed form, which is suited to the needs of propaganda, wherever Germans
appear not as individuals but as a mass. Thus, the second means that totalitarian
propaganda uses to pursue its aims is the exploitation of the particular constitu-
tion of Germans who form a mass, and the ongoing production of masses for
this aim.
As sure as it is that all masses demonstrate certain common characteristics—
the concept of masses is used here to designate large gatherings of people—not
all masses are constituted in the same way. In addition to masses of sundry per-
sons fortuitously thrown together, there exist others that consist of individuals
from one and the same population stratum. Speaking generally, the most politi-
cally important homogenous mass is the proletariat, which has recently been
joined by the masses of salaried employees {Angestellten} and the proletarianized
middle classes more broadly. The proletariat should also be called a mass even if
its members do not form a mass. In conjunction with the industrial develop-
ment of the previous century, and emerging as one of its consequences, the
proletariat represents an enormous mass already in purely quantitative terms.
Furthermore, workers are in fact employed en masse in the production process
and, from the standpoint of those with more advanced training, are interchange-
able like mass particles. In terms of his social function the individual worker is
an element of the mass and he sees himself as such. It would not be a mistake to
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 57

equate the revolutionary interest of the working class in a socialist transforma-

tion of existing relations with their interest in the elimination of conditions that
reduced it to a mass. The emancipation of the proletariat is the negation {Aufhe-
bung} of its existence in the form of a mass. Here it is once again confirmed that
in principle communism originally had as its aim the consummation of democ-
racy. It does not want to eternalize the mass, but instead to create a social order
in which everyone—thus also and precisely the proletariat, which has been
restrained at the level of the mass—attain the possibility to develop according to
the measure of their individual abilities. But how can a proletariat that has
become conscious realize its demands? Only by attempting to amass itself and to
utilize its heft as a mass to exact recognition. The nature of the revolutionary
interest conditions the specific character of the revolutionary mass, which is the
means, not the end. The mass is not a goal, but instead a strategic necessity, of
which the proletariat makes use on the basis of tactical reflections that emerge
from a theoretical assessment of the current situation. One can see in the prole-
tariat’s relationship to theory that the goal is not their massification, but their
liberation from the condition of mass particles. In revolutionary activity empha-
sis is placed not so much on the organization of mass meetings, as on uniting
individuals in small groups and steeping them in theory. But this also means
that the revolutionary mass escapes to a certain degree the psychic constitution
that characterizes the masses in general. For one thing it contains, at least
according to its guiding principles, an avant-garde of thematically schooled indi-
viduals. For another, it also lies in the revolutionary interest to activate the con-
sciousness of this mass in such a way that they are able successfully to fight
against massification. In an unpublished section of his essay, “The Work of Art
in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Walter Benjamin makes a remark on
the constitution of the proletarian mass that has far-reaching implications.1
Horkheimer, as well, carefully distinguishes the revolutionary mass from other
masses: “The speaker’s goal then is for the masses to grasp the situation with
their own consciousness; the action to be taken then follows from this as a logi-
cal consequence. What matters is that things are made clear [. . .] and the leader’s
personality can recede, since it is not itself supposed to act as an influencing fac-
tor.”2 He also underscores the circumstance that work in groups, in the service
of expanding individual consciousness, is no less important for a flourishing
revolutionary movement than mass gatherings. An episode related by Goebbels
illustrates that he was striving exclusively for an expansion of the masses and
that the group—if it could not be avoided altogether—was only valued as an
opportunity to eliminate individual independence: “We could not yet put
together any large militant rallies,” he reports on the beginnings of the Berlin
58 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

movement (1926), “because the organization did not possess the inner strength
for it. We had to limit ourselves to bringing together party members with sup-
porters and fellow-travelers week after week in smaller rooms. In our speeches
we focused less on discussing current issues, and much more on explaining the
programmatic foundations of our worldview and hammering it into the heads
of our party comrades so that they could recite it in their dreams, so to speak.”3
(. . .)
Mussolini proclaims in the beginning of his ascent, “A period of history
is now beginning that could be defined as a period of the politics of the
masses.”4 And Goebbels regrets that “we are now living in an epoch, in which
politics must win the support of the masses.”5 Both of these nearly identical
explanations—as is clear from the very beginning—do not refer to the politi-
cally constituted revolutionary mass of the proletariat, upon which totalitarian
propaganda has had relatively little effect. Hitler repeatedly gives vent to his dis-
appointment about this: “The great mass of workers,” he says to Otto Strasser,
“do not want anything except for bread and circuses; they have no understand-
ing for any ideals.”6 Another time—in the early days of the movement—he
assures Oberst Hierl,* the first point is “to win the masses, even if only the petty
bourgeois masses, then the workers will follow.” 7 This second statement already
demonstrates that his desire is less for homogenous masses than for masses as
such. On the way to power he must undoubtedly strive to come into contact
with masses—at the same time or one after another—which have originated on
the basis of common afflictions and common interests; but the ideal is a mass
whose composition is not uniform, one whose elements come from different
social strata. “The street [. . .] is [. . .] the characteristic feature of modern poli-
tics,” says Goebbels. “Whoever can conquer the street, can also conquer the
masses.”8 One cannot express more clearly that the ideal mass is understood here
as the one that has been taken from the street. Hitler’s aforementioned claim,
that the great mass of workers has no understanding for any ideals, goes a good
way to explain totalitarian propaganda’s pronounced inclination towards this
type of street mass—which also and not coincidentally differs from the revolu-
tionary mass in that one of its components is the mob. In reality, Hitler’s criti-
cism is directed against the strong attachment between the ideals and the

* {Konstantin Hierl (1875–1955) was a senior military figure who established one of the Freikorps units
after the Great War and was involved in the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in 1919. He joined the
National Socialists in 1927 and took a leading role from 1929. He was elected to the Reichstag in 1930 and
from 1932 was involved in the organization and administration of the workforce and labor. He was con-
victed and imprisoned in 1948 for his participation in the Nazi regime and was released in 1953.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 59

interests of the revolutionary mass. Hitler can take power only when the evolv-
ing ideas have been established to the point where they can be manipulated
independently of interests. So of course he must accuse the workers of a lack of
understanding when they are unreceptive to his idea-montages {Ideen-
Montagen}, because they do not see their own interests in them. In so doing he
understandably confuses their indifference to such montages with a lack of
appreciation for anything higher. Totalitarian propaganda targets a mass that is
precisely not governed and guided by one interest. “Take away from the masses
their leaders or seducers,” as Goebbels says again, “then they are masterless and
can easily be overcome.”9 But leaders and seducers of masses are not only persons
but also interests. That is precisely the reason why National Socialism and Fas-
cism prefer masses that can be called ‘broad’ conglomerates, in which many
divergent interests clash and weaken one another. The other advantage of “mas-
terless” masses is that they alone satisfy the will to power of the cliques; for as a
mish-mash of population groups they seem to represent the people.
If a mass is a mass as such, then it is a “masterless” one; it must therefore
embody in particular purity the character that more or less all masses possess. It
represents a regression of character traits developed through civilization. As
soon as people become an element of the mass, their consciousness deteriorates;
the individual in the mass is no longer an individual. Hitler’s detailed comments
on this topic demonstrate remarkable insight and shed some light on the—to
him—welcome fact that the ‘broad masses’ react primarily with their feelings.
“The meager [abstract] knowledge they possess directs their sensibilities more
towards the world of feelings.”10 Accordingly, propaganda claims that it must
direct its efforts “at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-
called intellect.”11 Evidence of the destruction of consciousness, which is suffered
by the individual reduced to a mass particle, is also found in the observations
that the mass does not desire objectivity and that it feels more attracted to a
doctrine “that tolerates no other besides itself than to one that grants liberal
freedoms.”12 Hitler dwells particularly frequently upon the inchoate nature of
their sentiments, which is so important for propaganda. “And this sentiment
[. . .] is not complicated, but very simple and all of a piece. It does not have mul-
tiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth
or lie, never half this way and half that way, never partially, etc.”13 And, “the
psyche of the broad masses is not receptive to anything that is half-hearted or
weak.”14 Through its submersion in the mass the individual is thus automatically
forced into the same regression that totalitarian propaganda carries out con-
sciously, a transformation that in one stroke transports the individual back to
developmental stages that were overcome long ago. Ortega y Gasset says of the
60 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

“mass-man” {German: Massenmensch; Spanish: el hombre-masa}, not only that

he has the psyche of a “spoilt child,”15 but also refers to him as a primitive. “The
actual mass-man is, in fact, a primitive, who has slipped through the wings on to
the age-old stage of civilization.”16 If archaic humanity arises in the mass, then
it, the mass, must love its “great festive joy,” cruelty. “When the mass acts inde-
pendently,” as the Spanish philosopher then also claims in a logically consistent
and one-sided way, “it does so only in one way, for it knows no other: it lynches.”17
From this he (explains)* effortlessly that today since “the masses triumph, {. . .}
violence should triumph and be made the one Ratio, the one doctrine.”18 Hitler’s
clarifications extend deeper than those just mentioned: “the broad masses are
only a piece [of] nature.”19 As a piece of nature it is passive and active, wax and
raging torrent. Hitler grasps its hermaphroditic composition; he knows about
the “overwhelming power of the mass” that springs from its share in the mascu-
line principle, but he focuses primarily on its feminine receptivity, in which he
has a stronger interest.20 “The people in their overwhelming majority are [. . .]
feminine by nature and attitude.”21 Further, “Like the woman, whose psychic
state is determined less by grounds of abstract reason than by an indefinable
emotional longing for a force which will complement her nature, [. . .] likewise
the masses love a commander more than a petitioner.”22

II.

Hitler woos the mass like a woman. “Anyone who wants to win the broad masses
must know the key that opens the door to their heart. Its name is [. . .] will and
power.”23 Actually, it is called suggestion, and is not any regular key, but rather a
skeleton key that can open or shut many different doors according to need.
An attenuation of consciousness certainly also occurs in the revolutionary
mass. But this loss has a positive function insofar as it supports to a certain
degree the revolutionary interest against the excesses of individualism, and the
theoretical education of individuals is also an attempt to counteract this ten-
dency. In any case the revolutionary side does not in principle profit from the
psycho-physical structure of the mass particle, whereas the propaganda of the
totalitarian movements ruthlessly exploits the willingness of the broad mass to
be influenced. As a consequence of the attenuation of consciousness, the

* {“Explains” is in parentheses in the original text.}

 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 61

“mass-man” finds himself in a condition that borders on hypnosis or at least

greatly facilitates hypnosis. Totalitarian propaganda not only does not wake
him, but lulls him into an even deeper sleep to impart suggestions to him. Total-
itarian propaganda is exceptionally able in this task because its power-obsessed
directors claim a right to unconditional authority. Erich Fromm writes, “Among
relations between men that resemble hypnosis, the most socially significant is
the relationship to authority. Like a hypnotist, it impresses those under its
sway.”24 Those who hold power make no effort to conceal the methods they use
to profit from the psychic {seelischen} disposition of the mass. Hitler banks on
the assumption that everyone who participates in a mass rally feels the “over-
whelming power of suggestive intoxication.”25 Goebbels emphasizes the “sug-
gestion of an effective speech” and praises with the justified pride of an artist the
day of the awakening nation—which he organized on March 4, 1933—as a per-
fect example of mass hypnosis.26 “No one can doubt that this day was the
greatest propagandistic achievement accomplished in Germany in human
memory. But this achievement was only possible because we refrained from all
other work for an entire week and kept the eyes of the people focused in a hyp-
notic trance solely on this one event. Then, of course, we were also able to record
a major success.”27 For a skillful hypnotist it is in fact not impossible to distract
good subjects from their interests and to excite their passions in regard to some
goal or another. Hitler states, “the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this
earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the
masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria
which drove them forward.”28 Does not a hysterical person behave capriciously?
The mood of the inconstant mass can easily be changed by a Mark Antony.*
Accordingly, Hitler pays most attention to their endurance. “Their emotional
attitude at the same time conditions their extraordinary stability. Faith is harder
to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is
more enduring than aversion.”29 This observation is meant formally; it refers to
the unwavering obedience of the masses to the directives given to them. In fact,
the hypnotists do everything possible and use their power both to fanaticize the
masses and to extirpate their memory.
The entire style of the National Socialist and Fascist mass rally can be explained
in terms of their aim to place the mass, which is already predisposed to it, com-
pletely into a hypnotic sleep. For this reason their rallies unfold—differently than

* {The German original has “Antonius.” The editors of the Suhrkamp edition presume that the reference
here is to Mark Antony (ca. 82–30 BCE) and his famous oratory in Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Julius Caesar
(1599).}
62 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

revolutionary mass gatherings, which are unmasking, not mystification, and whose
basic features demonstrate a sober, unceremonial character—in a magical atmo-
sphere, whose function is the further attenuation of consciousness. With the con-
scientiousness of a magician, who makes all the preparations necessary to increase
the credulity of the audience, Hitler attempts to create such an atmosphere. As
indicated by the previously cited statement,30 he chooses the evening hours for his
gatherings, because people put up less resistance to being violated by the will of
another in the evening. He pays attention to space just as carefully as he does to
time. “There are spaces that leave one cold for reasons that are difficult to discern.”31
And when he compels the mass gathering to wait for him for hours, his aim here as
well is to tire them and thus put them in a condition that will permit him “to uproot
emotional prejudices, attitudes, sensibilities, etc. and to replace them with others.”32
To support this undertaking the hypnotic powers of authority are brought to bear.
“Any meeting that is protected exclusively by the police,” says Hitler in a passage
dedicated to the SA, “discredits its organizers in the eyes of the broad masses.”33
That means that the organizers do not appear in possession of the authority nec-
essary to direct the mass. Hitler himself alludes to why he desires the display of
power. “From the very beginning it was important to introduce blind discipline in
our meetings and absolutely to guarantee the authority of the committee in charge.
For what we said [. . .] in content and form was always suited to provoke a reply from
our opponents. And opponents there were in our meetings!”34 Put differently, the
assertion of authority should stifle any independent impulses in the consciousness
of the mass, so that the latter becomes even more lacking in will and alertness. It has
the desired effect: “soon no more hecklers, no more dissenters dared to come for-
ward,” reports Heiden from the early days of National Socialism in Munich. “With
what seemed like the wave of a magic wand, the mood in Hitler’s gatherings became
simpler, more unified and more faithful.”35 On a daily basis this wave of the wand
helps those who are the Führer’s fist to create miracles of belief that get people to
entertain even the most absurd propositions. Hypnotists normally proceed by let-
ting their patient stare at a shiny object. The shiny object used by totalitarian propa-
ganda is the symbol that plays a decisive role in all the mass rallies it organizes. It is
not as if the revolutionary mass does without, or even could do without symbols,
but since the function of symbols always depends on the intention behind their use,
in the case of the revolutionary mass they contribute principally to keeping progres-
sive consciousness alert and protecting it from the integrating power of the status
quo. The symbols enthroned by totalitarian propaganda, in contrast, refer to noth-
ing at all that exists outside of the propaganda itself; instead, their meaning is
exhausted in the role they play as an instrument of propaganda. “In red,” so inter-
prets Hitler the National Socialist flag, “we see the social idea of the movement, in
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 63

white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the vic-
tory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative
work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic.”36 Graphic
signs of inflammatory recruitment ideas, these symbols are intended to facilitate
the manipulation of the mass, and to reinforce the docility with which the mass
obeys the suggestions of the will to power. Horkheimer remarks aptly, “the great
importance placed on symbols, ceremonies, uniforms, and phrases, which attain
the same sanctity as flags and coats-of-arms, follows from the necessity of an irratio-
nal bond tying the masses to a policy which is not their own.”37 And, on a similar
note, a sentence of {Ernst} Krieck’s reveals just how much National Socialist sym-
bols are intended to agitate people’s drives and emotions {Triebleben}. Krieck praises
the National Socialists’ masterful practice of the “art of domination, of the excite-
ment and manipulation of mass gatherings.” He continues, “Based on the same
instinct, National Socialism prefers to work with symbols, with their captivating
visibility, rather than with rational concepts. The swastika, greeting rituals, and the
Third Reich have the direct mobilizing power—akin to the subterranean—of all
that is symbolic.”* Totalitarian propaganda knows very well the reason why it
amasses so many symbols. The denser the primeval forest of flags into which it lures
the mass, the more submissively it follows the voice that rings out in the dark.
“The power which has always started the greatest religious and political ava-
lanches in history rolling,” says Hitler, “has from time immemorial been the
magic power of the spoken word.”38 An insight followed directly by another:
“particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of
speech.”39 But there is more. In order to underscore the defining political signifi-
cance of mass speeches, Hitler and company usually play them off against politi-
cal literature, which is denigrated as much as possible. In a passage that has
already been cited, Hitler speaks—misrecognizing the connection between
theory and praxis—with disdain of the “mode of writing of Marxist church
fathers,” who have allegedly contributed far less to conquering the working
masses than the tens of thousands of propagandists and agitators.40 And if Goe-
bbels wants to express how much National Socialism owes to its public speakers,

* {No reference is given by Kracauer here. Ernst Krieck (1882–1947) was a leading and influential figure in
the development and implementation of a National Socialist (NS) pedagogy. Trained as a teacher, he first
agitated for an NS mode of education during the 1920s. He joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) and pub-
lished his Nationalpolitische Erziehung in 1932. He subsequently held various prominent positions in aca-
demia, including professor of philosophy and pedagogy and rector in Frankfurt-am-Main, professor in
Heidelberg, and rector in Baden. He was, at the same time, a leading figure within the Nazi movement
itself and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD). He was the editor of numerous pedagogic journals. Arrested after
the war, he died in custody.}
64 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

he clothes this conclusion in the following form: “the National Socialist move-
ment has grown through its speakers, not its journalists.”41 In short, totalitarian
propaganda dedicates itself with conspicuous zeal to subordinating the written
word to the spoken word. Undoubtedly this zeal comes from the fact that they
view the former as an instrument of Enlightenment—the correct use of which
could alienate them from the masses—and the latter as the principal means of
influencing the masses. Goebbels weighs one against the other: “Even when a
speaker can usually [. . .] reach only a few thousand people with his words—in
contrast to a writer, who sometimes finds tens or hundreds of thousands of
readers—the spoken word, in fact, influences not only those listening directly;
they pass it along and carry it forward in hundreds and thousands of ways.”42 So,
would the resonance of these two forms of communication be approximately
the same from a quantitative point of view? But since the aim is, after all, not to
awaken individual consciousness, but rather to direct an unconscious mass,
Goebbels must of course opt for speech and come to the conclusion that “the
suggestive power of an effective speech [. . .] still towers above the bookish sug-
gestion of a leading article.”43 Indeed, based on this desire to use the power of
suggestion, he demands of writers that they utilize the illusion of speech: “For us
the leading political article (for example, in Der Angriff ) was a written poster or,
even more accurately, a speech in the street put onto paper. [. . .]* It intentionally
presupposed as common knowledge that of which the reader should actually be
convinced, and drew from this the inexorable consequences. The reader should
get the impression that the author of the leading article is actually a speaker who
is standing next to him and who wants to convert him to his opinion with sim-
ple and compelling thought processes.”44
“Magical power of the spoken word.”45 The mass speech developed by totali-
tarian propaganda proves its magical power in that it escalates hypnotic sleep
into deep sleep and then seizes control of the unconscious. Hitler describes
(graphically) the rapport that the speaker should maintain with those souls who
are manipulated in both senses of the term. “He will always let himself be borne
by the great masses in such a way that instinctively the very words come to his
lips that he needs to speak to the hearts of his audience. And if he errs, even in
the slightest, he has the living correction before him.”46 In conjunction with

* Goebbels founded the weekly newspaper Der Angriff (The attack) in 1927. By 1932, there were two daily
editions. Although Goebbels himself lost interest in the paper, its readership grew to over three hundred
thousand copies by 1944. Its main contents were Nazi ideology, anti-Semitic and racist propaganda, and
various attacks on the Weimar Republic in general and particular individual figures. It was temporarily
prohibited in 1931.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 65

this, Hitler does not neglect to highlight and explain the function of the mass
speech. “Here again it is not seldom a question of overcoming prejudices which
are not based on reason, but, for the most part unconsciously, are supported only
by sentiment. [. . .] False concepts and poor knowledge can be eliminated by
instruction, the resistance of the emotions never. Here only an appeal to these
mysterious powers themselves can be effective; and the writer can hardly ever
accomplish this, but almost exclusively the orator.”47
How is the speaker successful with such an appeal? In regard to the formal
structure of the speech, he relies on two rhetorical devices: repetition and apo-
dictic claims. “The mass,” explains Hitler, “will commit to memory only a
thousandfold repetition of the simplest concepts.”48 He incessantly repeats this
conviction, which he once formulated succinctly as follows: “But the most bril-
liant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental prin-
ciple is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine
itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this
world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”49
Reinforcing Hitler’s experience, Goebbels concludes a speech in the Berlin
Sports Palace with the dithyrambic quatrain:

Whoever wants the same and always only the same

He unlocks the vault of heaven
Before him even the Gods must bow
And say: come and take. You seize what is yours.50

When a mother reads fairy tales to children, they long for repetition, and not
only of the meaning of the story; they always wish to hear the same exact words
repeated. The child, lying gently within the wooden bars of the crib, is lulled to
sleep by these familiar sounds, which in sleep become the building materials of
dreams. By using the principle of repetition, the speaker pushes the mass down
to the level of children and into a condition in which they no longer take in any-
thing except what he constantly repeats. Stereotypical formulas attain enchant-
ing power; passing through them, the mass identifies with them. The mass is
what the words say that monotonously trickle down, presupposing of course
that the material, out of which it should be composed—according to the will of
totalitarian propaganda—is conveyed to them in a tone of absolute certainty.
Since every doubt stirs slumbering consciousness, even the possibility of a doubt
threatens to destroy the magic. “The level of speeches at National Socialist ral-
lies,” as Wilhelm Stapel spells out in his study, Christianity and National Social-
ism, “is characterized by very skillful methods of operating with the idea of mass
66 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

individuals and avoiding factual arguments whenever possible.”51 Similarly,

Krieck: “Based on a revolutionary instinct, National Socialist agitation works
primarily not with intellectual proofs and arguments, but instead with the pri-
mordial power of rhythm.”52 Refraining from arguments is thus also motivated
by the interest in deepening the hypnotic effects.
For totalitarian propaganda everything depends on whether or not the con-
crete suggestions of mass speeches—inflammatory arrangements of ideas, direc-
tions for behavior, posthypnotic tasks, etc.—can truly capture the “mysterious
powers” that hold sway in the unconscious. This requires two things. First, the
speaker must “speak the language that the mass understands,” as explained by
Goebbels, who provides additional, more detailed information about the foun-
dations of this language.53 According to him, the art consists in “the elimination
of all arabesques and anything superfluous, in order to make these primitive
thoughts clear to the people, but also to carry them into the public sphere with
momentum and force.”54 This recipe demonstrates the intention of the mass
speech to strengthen the tendency of the “broad” mass to regress to a primitive
stage and cynically to take full advantage of it. Second, the speaker must set in
motion the primitive instincts and feelings, to which he appeals, in such a way
that his audience abandons all previous engagements and yields unconditionally
to his suggestions. According to a statement taken by Münzenberg from Goeb-
bels’s book Moderne Politische Propaganda,55 the “Reich propaganda division of
the NSDAP”* set forth in its guidelines for rally themes that “sensational cur-
rent events, scandals involving Jews or Marxists”56 should be chosen in order to
stimulate “curiosity, rage, or the hope of experiencing a sensation.”57 The totali-
tarian mass speech is indeed similar to sensational literature in that it produces
images of horror and happiness. One minute the speaker invokes in the darkest
of tones the diabolical machinations of real or imagined enemies, the next min-
ute he indulges in messianic prophecies, in the vision of the “ultimate goal”
{Endziel} that Hitler promises the mass again and again. He preaches the inevi-
table cataclysm and promises in the same breath the certainty of salvation—just
like the medieval charlatans who appear at the annual fair in luxurious costumes
and accompanied by music in order to peddle their elixirs. “Come and see! This

* {As of 1923, the NSDAP engaged a head of propaganda. Once reestablished in 1926 after the party’s
temporary prohibition, the propaganda division was led by Gregor Strasser, by Hitler himself and then, as
of 1930, by Goebbels. It was responsible for the control and coordination of NSDAP propaganda, and,
though there was much interconnection and sharing of personnel, it remained formally independent of
the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda itself. In its early years, its focus was on the use
of radio as a mass medium.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 67

cures all pains, bruises, tooth aches, rabies and scabies.”58 To be sure, the apo-
theosis forms the conclusion, but the dark chasm is exposed not only to make it
appear more fascinating; rather the opposite is truer, namely, that enthusiasm
also serves to intensify horror. Enthusiasm dissipates and the mass speech would
soon cease to resonate if it appealed solely to easily generated hopes. Its intention
is precisely to mobilize not only hope, but also curiosity or rage and, like other
totalitarian propaganda events, to cause an oscillation of the elementary move-
ments of the psyche {Seelenbewegungen}. For only if it produces such movement
in the depths, is it able to take hold of the entire system of “mysterious powers”
and put it in the service of their suggestions. But the mass soul will submit itself
to these different suggestions even more blindly, if the speech also has the effect
of replacing the repressed individual consciousness of the mass particles with a
pseudo-consciousness that is in its control. “The Jew,” declares Goebbels, “is the
same thing for the people as a tuberculosis bacillus is for a lung. The tuberculosis
bacillus is not dangerous until it comes into contact with a weak lung. The Jew
becomes dangerous when he comes into contact with a weak people.”59 In
National Socialist speeches one finds thousands of formulations like this, whose
razor-sharp and primitive logic is reminiscent of children’s drawings. They behave
precisely as if they had the intellect of the mass in mind. In truth, however, the
intellect to which they lay claim has its foundations in a psyche that has already
been manipulated. This intellect is imposed through suggestion upon the mass in
order to make them forget that their own intellect has been forfeited. Power pre-
vents individual consciousness from sinking deeper roots in this psychic founda-
tion, because it too has been artificially grafted onto mass-man.
With the aid of other hypnotic techniques, which are usually supple-
mented with the elementary rhythms of military marches, the mass speech suc-
cessfully carries out a totalitarian manipulation of opinion. The mechanism of
totalitarian propaganda functions so wonderfully that, once it has been set in
motion, it hardly needs to function any longer. Neither is it necessary to imple-
ment all the propaganda devices, nor is it important that speeches are under-
stood. A fleeting hint from the stage-production is all it takes, and the mass is
already hypnotizing itself.

III

Although totalitarian propaganda does in fact attempt to win over the broad
masses, it still cannot proclaim often enough—as has been demonstrated—that
68 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

it holds them in contempt. As if it wanted to emphasize this contempt even

more, it never misses an opportunity to celebrate the “personality” {Persönlich-
keit} at the expense of the mass. Hitler commands the party to “promote respect
for personality by all means,”60 and comments upon this wish with the follow-
ing words: “the organization must not only not prevent the emergence of think-
ing individuals from the mass; on the contrary, it must in the highest degree
make this possible and easy by the nature of its own being. In this it must pro-
ceed from the principle that the salvation of mankind has never lain in the
masses, but in its creative minds.”61All efforts seem directed toward putting the
person, instead of the mass, on center stage. “The greatest revolutionary changes
and achievements of this earth, [. . .] the immortal deeds in the field of states-
manship, etc., are forever inseparably bound up with a name and are represented
by it.”62 It is self-evident that these efforts to inflate the prestige of the person
must culminate in the cultic idolization of Hitler and Mussolini. Their lives
become myths and their names are spun into legends.
Thus, on the one hand, totalitarian propaganda imposes itself violently
upon the mass; on the other hand, it strives to dismiss and devalue this same
mass. Is this a contradiction? One should first recall the aforementioned observa-
tion that the concept of personality targeted at the masses by the National Social-
ists receives its particular stamp from the will to power that drives the move-
ment forward. The Führer, as the embodiment of this will to power, commands
the apparatus he founded through a hierarchy of demagogues {Verführer}, whose
authority flows from his own absolute authority and also represents it within a
more or less limited region of power. So when Hitler insists that “the state must
have the personality principle anchored in its organization from the smallest
community to the highest leadership of the entire Reich,” he makes evident that
for him personality means the representative of power.63 The personality that he
means can have no other character than the nihilistic one of National Socialism
itself. Consequently, it manifests itself in the pursuit of power as such and rises
above the mass through its ability to perform ruling functions. One sees once
again, and more clearly than before, that for propaganda personality means that
species of superior human {Herrenmensch} that is indispensable for the totali-
tarian regime in its pursuit of power. But one also sees that the National Social-
ist and the historically inherited concepts of personality cannot be reduced to a
common denominator. Horkheimer returns repeatedly to the fact that the lead-
ers of bourgeois revolutions in the past were not apotheosized any less than the
modern dictators—which for him can be explained by the necessity of captivat-
ing the masses to distract them from certain social demands that the revolution,
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 69

as precisely a bourgeois revolution, was not able to fulfill.* Deification of the irra-
tional personality in the past as today. The image that one has of the person has
changed fundamentally, and this transformation reveals changes in economic
and social relations. As a fruit of the bourgeois revolutions, nineteenth-century
democracy—with its parliamentarism and liberal capitalism—constructed itself
on the belief in reason, which of course was limited to the extent that it did not
come into conflict with the concerns of the bourgeoisie. Since individual con-
sciousness is the point where reason enters into the world, that era celebrates the
conviction that politics and the economy are regulated by the free competition
of enlightened individuals. Democracy is put to use by the individual; so it must
see in personality the perfected individual. It is not for nothing that personality
in Goethe’s sense is the individual who has developed his capacities in a harmo-
nious and multifaceted way.† This ideal of personality associated with democ-
racy is distinguished by the fact that it is directed against the formation of
masses. In the context of a bourgeois-democratic regime, the leader is not cele-
brated as a ruler of the masses, but instead as a role model whom everyone should
emulate. And, from this democratic perspective, the more that the masses dis-
solve into individuals, and the individuals mature into personalities, the more
successful are economy, progress and civilization {Gesittung}. Whereas socialism
affirms this valuation of the individual so unreservedly that it wants to achieve
its universal recognition, the National Socialist movement uses the concept of
personality in order to liquidate the individual. But they use it in such a way that
differs from its original use just as monopoly capitalism differs from liberal capi-
talism, which illustrates once again their alliance with the capitalist powers. The
interest of big capital, which has been pushed into a defensive position and
become increasingly dependent on violence, is not the struggle of opinion—that
it would lose—but instead the death of opinion; not the disappearance of the
mass, but its domination; not the development of the individual into a personal-
ity, but the “personality” that knows how to subdue a mass. Whether the totali-
tarian dictatorships have been summoned to rescue capitalism in danger, or they
are simply using it to enhance their own power—they are, in any case, breeding
a type, without which capitalism would have to surrender: the type of the man
of power, the mass hypnotist. Instead of working against the development of

* {The reference here is once again to Horkheimer’s essay “Egoism and Freedom Movements: On the
Anthropology of the Bourgeois Epoch.”}
† {This theme is most evident in Goethe’s second novel, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795–1796), a
work that became the model of the bildungsroman.}
70 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

masses, this kind of personality compels their rise. It is one pole of the totali-
tarian regime; the mass is the other. They mutually condition each other. The
personality demanded by National Socialist propaganda posits the mass and is
posited by the mass. “A leader,” says Goebbels, “does not emerge randomly [. . .].
He grows with the mass and the larger it gets, the more the genuine leader grows
beyond the mass.”64
And nonetheless totalitarian propaganda holds the masses in contempt?
Without doubt, contempt is really the feeling that grips a ruler in relation to
one who is dependent upon him. But whether this contempt is genuine or
feigned, in all cases it is conspicuously displayed for propagandistic reasons.
One time, this display—sublimely pursued—is likely the product of the cyni-
cism mentioned earlier. It is intended to test the depth of the hypnotic sleep of
the mass and also to inject them with the belief that they are insignificant in
comparison to the personality {of the leader}. The next time, the mass is con-
demned in order to carry out an effective polemic against the workers’ parties
which, like the totalitarian movements, have to win with mass rallies. National
Socialist propaganda tries again and again to protect itself from this trouble-
some competition by claiming that the revolutionary left is engaging in shame-
ful idolatry with the mass, and the National Socialists are the first to treat them
in the way they deserve. “The National Socialist movement,” assures Goebbels,
“does not blindly worship the mass and sheer numbers, as do the democratic-
Marxist parties.”65 At the congress of the labor front, which met in Berlin on
May 10, 1933, Hitler justifies the liquidation of Marxism and the union organi-
zations with the following words: “For we know very well the final aim of this
entire development, no, this struggle between fist and forehead {Faust und
Stirn}, between mass, i.e. number, and quality: annihilation of the quality of the
forehead.* But this means not only a blessing for the number, or simply the ele-
vation of the worker; on the contrary, it means poverty, misery and privation.”66
Such typical mirror reflections demonstrate that the totalitarian, not the prole-
tarian, movement targets the mass. Needlessly, Hitler even goes so far as to
invoke the archetype {Urbild} of the truth, instead of its reflection {Spiegelbild}:
“The mass rally is also necessary,” according to Mein Kampf, “for the reason that
in it the individual, who at first, while becoming a supporter of a young move-
ment, feels lonely and easily succumbs to the fear of being alone, for the first
time gets the picture of a larger community, which in most people has a

* {“Workers of the fist and the forehead” (Arbeiter der Faust und Stirn) was an expression used by the
Nazis to refer to blue- and white-collar workers. Hitler used it—for example—on campaign posters dur-
ing his run for president in 1932.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 71

strengthening, encouraging effect. [. . .] In the crowd he always feels somewhat

sheltered [. . .], when the visible success and agreement of thousands confirm to
him the rightness of the new doctrine and for the first time arouse doubt in the
truth of his previous conviction—then he himself has succumbed to the magic
influence of what we designate as ‘mass suggestion.’ ”67 According to this, the
mass which is “massified” {massierte}* in both senses of the term by totalitarian
propaganda, is supposed to function as a form of Heimat.† The revolutionary
mass, in contrast, is always just a passageway to Heimat.‡ It turns out that con-
tempt for the mass is not at all opposed to the need for it. By openly spurning the
mass in the name of personality, National Socialism is merely expressing its own
proclivity for the mass. For the personality, with which it is concerned, comes
into its own only in the presence of large masses.
When totalitarian propaganda appropriates aspects of the revolutionary
mass demonstration, such as parades, speaking in unison, etc., it does so not only
to make its own mass event appear revolutionary, but also above all because the
methods developed to activate the revolutionary mass can be utilized to consoli-
date masses in general. Such a consolidation is no doubt a side effect of the vari-
ous actions of the revolutionary mass, but its decisive task remains to manifest
the will that animates the homogenous proletarian mass before it has formed
itself into a mass. As soon as totalitarian propaganda exploits the procedures
used in the revolutionary camp, their function changes and the side effect
becomes the main effect. The same actions and long-term developments, which
the one side directs toward revolutionary goals, lose on the other side any pur-
pose of transcending the mass, and now serve only to transform the mass into a
tough, rigidly structured formation. These actions are limited to provisions to
lend structure to the mass. Because the mass constantly appears here, there and
everywhere {an-, auf- und oben erscheint} at the command of Fascist and

* {In German, massieren means to bring people together in one place, usually for military purposes. But
Kracauer is also using the term here in the sense of transforming people into a mass in social-psychological
terms.}
† {In German, Heimat means literally “homeland,” but it also implies a tight-knit, organic community,
often inextricable from a particular locale with long-standing traditions. The term usually has conserva-
tive implications and was popular among both the traditional and fascist right in the 1920s and 1930s.}
‡ {Here, Kracauer seems to be appropriating the conservative concept of “Heimat” (see footnote 11) and
attempting to give it a revolutionary reinterpretation. Kracauer’s appropriation here reminds one of simi-
lar moves by other Weimar leftist thinkers—such as Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch—who attempted
to uncover the utopian and potentially emancipatory content of certain key conservative ideas. Bloch
ends his three-volume magnum opus, The Principle of Hope, with a discussion of Heimat. Ernst Bloch, The
Principle of Hope, vol. 3, trans. N. Plaice, S. Plaice, and P. Knight (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995),
1370.}
72 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

National Socialist propaganda, it gets caught up in a steady movement that takes

hold of all its elements and the movement becomes an end in itself.* The mass as
such {das Massenhafte} consolidates itself through the uninterrupted activity of
the mass particles. The type of this activity makes it clear that it truly aims for
nothing other than the thoroughgoing formation of the mass. In the actions of
the revolutionary mass spontaneity appears, which demonstrates that these
actions do not so much rigidify the mass, as instead express a common interest.
The actions of the National Socialist and Fascist masses, in contrast, are directed
from above and arranged as rituals. But they assume the character of ritual in
order to create the illusion that the masses are performing cultic practices that
increase their invincibility. As with symbols, totalitarian propaganda also accu-
mulates many rites, because the more the masses must perform, the more firmly
they are yoked, and the better (consequently) their cohesion is secured. Further-
more, the ceremonial duties with which the mass is burdened are so created that its
usefulness increases along with its stability. This observation proves once again
that the meaning of these duties does not extend beyond the mass. What is essen-
tial is not the content of the mass actions, but instead the rhythm of their execu-
tion. Krieck remarks in conjunction with a passage already cited,68 National
Socialist agitation works “with everything that is related to rhythm and that ema-
nates its stimulating power, such as speaking in unison.”69 In other words, speak-
ing in unison and other activities demanded of the masses aim to facilitate the
handicraft of the propagandist. Some of these activities—as the description of
Silone mentioned earlier illustrates—unfailingly induce self-hypnosis.
Being dependent upon the broad mass, totalitarian propaganda incessantly
strives to artificially produce the broad mass. The prophecy of Mussolini, that a
new period of history is dawning, which one could define as a period of the
politics of the masses, was less a prophecy than a program: in fact, Fascists and
National Socialists produce the masses for the sake of their own power poli-
tics.70 One year after the seizure of power, Hitler assures the “Old Guard” in
Munich: “Just as we used to address the people in ten thousand, in one hun-
dred thousand single rallies, so in the future we must also continue this strug-
gle with ten thousand and one hundred thousand rallies and mass meetings, in
order at least once a year to make an appeal to the entire nation. If the appeal is
not well received, no-one should say that the people are to blame; instead he
should say that the movement has become lazy. The movement is no longer
fighting properly, the movement has lost touch with the people. And from this

* {The editors of the German edition remark that “an-, auf- und oben erscheint” is conjectural, since the
original text is unclear here. TP, 200.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 73

one will be able to learn once again how to immerse oneself in the people. This
is where our strength lies.” 71 The ideological vocabulary of these sentences
hardly conceals Hitler’s actual opinion, according to which the National
Socialist movement fails at its task when it does not succeed in conveying the
suggestion appropriate at any given time so effectively—through the constantly
renewed formation of the mass—that one can rely upon such appeals to the
nation being carried out. For this reason, mass gatherings have become the
rule; so far, attendance at mass rallies has been obligatory. The totalitarian dic-
tatorships do not assemble the masses when there is genuine reason to do so;
instead, they create artificial reasons, which serve as a pretext to organize mass
gatherings. Only the outsider will misunderstand these innumerable rallies,
which interrupt the labor process again and again, and damage the entire land,
as a superfluous and unproductive affair. In truth, they are, like terror, a prereq-
uisite of the system. So much so, that even when the formation of the mass
takes places on the occasion of a politically important event, the question
remains open whether or not this event, notwithstanding its significance, has
been conjured up in order to further the formation of the mass. Within the
sphere of power of the totalitarian regime, propaganda is not merely an instru-
ment of politics; politics is also an instrument of propaganda. The aforemen-
tioned explanation from Goebbels, who requires the radio to broadcast all pos-
sible events of national relevance, demonstrates not least that the imaginative
powers of National Socialist and Fascist propaganda know no limits when it
comes to conjuring up the mass out of nothing. German radio has indeed been
systematically developed as a medium for producing and vastly expanding the
mass.* Fritz Morstein Marx† emphasizes in his superb study “State Propaganda
in Germany,” the propagandistic value of the Volksempfänger, whose produc-
tion was a National Socialist initiative.72 This particular use of radio demon-
strates that National Socialist propaganda is not actually trying to realize its

* {The National Socialists were quick to see and exploit the potential of the new radio medium for propa-
ganda purposes. Goebbels himself recognized the need to leaven political news, speeches, and other pro-
paganda broadcasts with popular entertainment to maximize the appeal and reach of the medium. The
production of inexpensive radio sets (the Volksempfänger, or “People’s Receiver,” was introduced in 1933;
the Deutscher Kleinempfänger, or “German Small Receiver,” followed in 1938) resulted in a massive
increase in radio ownership and audiences such that, by 1941, more than 60 percent of German house-
holds had a radio set. Public broadcasts were also used to reach those for whom the radio nevertheless
remained unaffordable.}
† {Friedrich Wilhelm Julius Morstein Marx (1900–1969) was a German legal scholar who “emigrated” to
the United States in 1933. He held various academic positions at U.S. institutions before returning to
Germany after World War II. He was chair of comparative administration and public law at the Hoch-
schule in Speyer where he became an emeritus professor in 1968.}
74 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

frequently proclaimed intention of transforming the mass into a people {Volk};

on the contrary, in the interest of the total manipulation of opinion it seeks to
transform the entire people into a single mass susceptible to suggestion. The
ideal is attained when the entire people permanently constitute themselves as a
mass rally, or at least when all individuals find themselves constantly in the
state of mass particles. This aim no doubt runs contrary to the tendency of the
regime to celebrate the family, but one will yet see how their propaganda—
precisely because of its totalizing ambitions—becomes caught up in antimo-
nies over time and as a result is increasingly forced to shed all content and to
reveal ever more nakedly the will to power that is its source. With its largely
successful reduction of individuals to mass particles, it additionally bound
together members of the people {Volksangehörige}, also in a progressive sense.
It creates the illusion {Schein} of a unity of the different social groups or
classes which, regardless of their divergent interests, belong together under
the rule of monopoly capitalism, and not only in a spurious way.* For, in so far
as monopoly capitalism also places previously privileged population groups
into a state of dependency, it does reduce the violence of existing differences.
The artificial production of the mass, which is supposed to make it possible for
totalitarian propaganda to influence people against their own interests, reflects
at the same time—of course, in a distorted way—a common interest, which
may reveal itself sooner or later. Undertaken in order to maintain appearances
{Schein}, it indirectly undermines social reality.

IV

Like terror, the mass addressed by the totalitarian movements is not only a
means of propaganda, but is itself propaganda. It seduces in the first place
because—in this regard also like terror—it represents power.” [In his book] Pro-
paganda and National Power, Hadamovsky recognizes that, “The most effective
power of the mass rally is every palpable form of the expression of power, that is,
in the first place the number of participants, the size of the rally, and beyond
that, everything that appears as power, people with arms and in uniforms, weap-
ons of all kinds.”73 The inherently appealing character of the mass already
insures that it has an effect; add to this, that the power speculating on this type

* {In the text, Kracauer uses the abbreviation “MK” for “Monopolkapitalismus.”}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 75

of mass is not satisfied with its inherent power of attraction. Incapable of ratio-
nal justification due to its nihilistic character, it tries twice as hard to dazzle.
The totalitarian dictatorships know exactly why they constantly engage in
grandiose actions and why they infuse the concepts of the imperium and the
Reich—these projects and projectiles of their will to power—with such beguil-
ing brilliance. The brilliance embellishes the tatters of those who bask in it, so
that they become convinced they are wearing elegant apparel, not tatters. But
the mass itself provides an excellent opportunity to dazzle, provided one makes
use of the match-making services of an art that can be best designated as the art
of mass images {Massenbildkunst}. This art, which has been systematically intro-
duced by Fascist and National Socialist propaganda, consists in orchestrating
the ensemble of the mass in such a way that it exerts an aesthetic attraction. By
transferring the mass demonstration from the political or social realm into the
aesthetic sphere of the monumental spectacle, which captivates the senses like
the nihilistic parade, totalitarian propaganda not only increases the cohesion of
the mass, it also nips in the bud—as has already been pointed out—any question
of the purpose of forming masses.
A French observer describes how the works of the National Socialist art of
mass images are produced and which sensations they evoke in the spectators:
“And [. . .] in the same way that the leader has made himself into the organizer of
the obedient masses,” writes Erich Wernert in his study L’art dans le Troisième
Reich, “he has also made himself the organizer of those mobilized masses, those
human masses [. . .] or actually those masses that no longer have anything
human about them and that form and reform themselves in an overwhelming
rhythm.”74 The masses no longer have anything human about them; however, in
their intention to annul the human as a standard, the totalitarian dictatorships
realize the aesthetic grandiose in inhuman material. This is the overwhelming
appearance of power; its function is to tear people out of the sphere of interests
into a sphere in which they imagine they have been elevated above themselves
and they are partaking in the magnificence that is presented to them, or that
they themselves represent.
Totalitarian propaganda celebrates the people as the quintessence of power
and its magnificence. Thus, in order to make the spell that emanates from the
composition of the mass completely irresistible, National Socialism seeks by
all means to create the illusion that it forms the mass into the people. It is not
a coincidence that for the majority of its marches propaganda drums together
only so-called deputations from the most diverse areas of the country; the
more it churns up the population, the more it strengthens the impression of an
identity of the people and the mass. It merely reflects this tendency when
76 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

Dressler-Andress,* the President of the Reich Chamber of Radio, goes so far as

to claim that “the radio [. . .] is [. . .] the mouthpiece of the entire people,” even
though the National Socialist radio is in fact the mouthpiece that those in power
use to belabor the broad masses.75 To his previous assertion, Dressler-Andress
adds another: “the radio has become the pioneer of a true culture and art of the
people.”76 The claim of National Socialist propaganda, that demonstrations
have conjured up the people, would be convincingly proven if the people’s
alleged resurrection manifested itself through cultural and artistic achieve-
ments. The National Socialist propagandists speak again and again about the
necessity or even the existence of art that has its roots in the people, and in so
doing take aim at contemporary art, which they view as degenerate and accuse
of individualization, intellectualism and internationalism. “The deeper art
springs from popular culture {dem Volkstum}, the higher will be its international
standing,” says Goebbels, although he simply conflates art that really does
emerge from popular culture with the “people’s art” that he propagates.77 But
what National Socialism considers art does not have the people as its origin, but
instead as its target; more importantly, it is an art intended to cloud the impres-
sion that the broad mass is the people. However, by commanding art to march
along this path, totalitarian propaganda stifles art. For art worthy of the name,
it is precisely this criterion of judgment that cannot be used, namely, whether or
not it—following Goebbels’s formulation—springs from the depths of popular
culture. Whether it presents itself as popular or esoteric, glorifies the people or
not, has nothing to do with its origins. It depends much more on the respective
artistic intentions and social relations. Without doubt, an artist like Picasso is
more closely connected to the people than a random painter, who paints the
people by order. And also art that takes the people as its subject is not by any
means—as long as it is genuine—identical with National Socialist conceptions.
Instead of enslaving itself to this or that doctrine, it shows the reality of the
people that goes beyond such doctrines, particularly ones that are so unequivo-
cally instrumental such as those of the totalitarian regime. In his wonderful
book about Dickens, Chesterton† says the following about him: “in this matter

* {A veteran of World War I, Horst Dressler-Andress (1899–1979) became active in cabaret and theater in
the 1920s and devised a political framework for radio and cultural organization within the NSDAP. He
held various cultural positions within the party and the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propa-
ganda, including leadership of the KdF. He worked in various positions, including propaganda, in Poland
during the war. After internment during 1945 and 1948, he became active again as a theater director and
actor in the DDR.}
† {G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English journalist and writer. He is perhaps best known today for
his creation of the Father Brown detective stories, several of which Kracauer himself reviewed at the time.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 77

he was the people. He alone in our literature is the voice not merely of the social
substratum, but even of the subconsciousness of the substratum. He utters the
secret anger of the humble.”78 Goebbels knows, of course, that art is not able to
flourish under a diktat, and thus makes it seem as if the totalitarian regime
granted complete artistic freedom, with the exception of absolutely necessary
limitations. In his public remarks to filmmakers,* he emphasizes “that the
national government does not intend to promote films with standardized cli-
chés. This is not possible because art is free and should remain free. But certainly
with one reservation. It must feel bound to certain political, moral and ideologi-
cal {weltanschauliche} norms, that do indeed exist and without which a common
national existence appears impossible.”79 But this argumentation is mere
shadow-boxing, because the reservations in question are not simply an essential
condition of common national existence; on the contrary, as a product of totali-
tarian propaganda, which eliminates the right to question and to individual
freedom of opinion, they in fact rob art of the air it needs to breathe. “The aes-
thetic doctrine of the Third Reich,” remarks Wernert, “insists on the existence
of the constantly renewed cycle of the people, the artist, the people, etc. It views
this cycle as the very essence of the artistic process. If the people is the purpose of
all things, and also of art, then the artist bears a heavy responsibility [. . .]. This
responsibility encompasses three domains of duty. Above all, the artist must
give expression to the race, the nation and the ideal of Germanic beauty; fur-
thermore, he must carefully ban from his art all elements that could corrupt the
soul of the people {Volksseele}; finally, he must instruct the soul of the people and
make it conscious of its unity and strength.”80 Wernert also sees that the inher-
ent nature of these demands favors certain forms of art, which—like the art of
mass images—are also well suited to influence masses of people in the desired
way. “In order to glorify this totalitarian and unifying spirit, the regime has suc-
ceeded in strengthening and giving expression to certain forms of art that are
better suited than any other to this collective action: for example, music, theater,

* {Goebbels recognized in film a key medium for mass propaganda. The Reichsfilmkammer (Chamber of
Film) was a subcommittee of the Reichskulturkammer (Chamber of Culture), established in 1933, and
was integrated into the Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda. Since membership of the
Reichsfilmkammer was a prerequisite for employment in the industry, some 1500 filmmakers, actors,
technicians, and other workers, finding themselves either expelled or excluded because they were Jewish
or on account of their political views, left Germany, some of them making their way to work in the
expanding film studios in Hollywood. From 1934, the Lichtspielgesetz (Film Law) heightened the pre-
and postcensorship regimes and intensified control of filmmaking and distribution. By 1941, the entire
German film industry was under state control through the directorship of the Ufa-Film company.}
78 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

architecture, ceremony. Through the people’s choir, the Thingspiel* and the
gigantic structures it erected, through the large national gatherings which were
conducted masterfully, the regime has succeeded in drawing in the masses.”81 As
a witness of artistic events, Wernert concludes that the arts favored by National
Socialist doctrine have successfully fulfilled their duties. In a Thingspiel the
choirs sang a march and all of Germany marched along: “One becomes aware of
a tumultuous German mass, but one that is expanding everywhere: in the galler-
ies, on the stage and also beyond the set. One is reassured, made happy, by the
observation that all of Germany marches and that Germany is one’s own self
and all of the others. The old and romantic rumbling of the Germanic tribe runs
through everyone present in the mass. The miracle occurs: for a few seconds the
Volksgemeinschaft is a living reality.”82 Admittedly, National Socialist art aims
for such psychological effects; so does this mean that it should be equated with
the “genuine culture and art of the people” envisioned by Dressler-Andress?83 If
it were, the content of its creations would have to confirm the existence of the
people: “In short, what can one say about contemporary German art? Only this:
it is nothing more than a form of political propaganda, run like the economy,
and mobilized like most other national activities.”84 Popular art? Utility art
{Volkskunst, Gebrauchskunst}. First, National Socialists and Fascists deform the
people into a manipulable mass, then they avail themselves of the arrangements,
posters and decorations, in which utility art exhausts itself, in order to deceive
the mass into thinking that they guarantee these values. Thus, the totalitarian
regime commands the mass to remain in existence; but its domination is based
on the reproduction of the mass.

V.

The analysis of the principles guiding totalitarian propaganda cannot be con-

cluded any better than with the following words of Goebbels: “The National

* {As a particular form of open-air theater involving audiences in the dramatic action, the Thingspiel was
developed primarily by Wilhelm Carl Gerst from 1929. Its usefulness was increasingly recognized by the
Nazi authorities in the early 1930s, and it came under the auspices of the Ministry of Popular Enlighten-
ment and Propaganda in 1933. By 1934, some sixty open-air theaters had been built, and, in the following
years, between two hundred and four hundred more were planned or begun. A performance of a Thing-
spiel by Eberhardt Wolfgang Möller marked the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936. However, Gerst had by
this time already lost his position and influence and the Thingspiel itself was renamed Freilichttheater
(open-air theater). The cultic elements dramatized by the Thingspiel increasingly ceded importance to the
new mass media of radio and film and their promulgation of the Führerkult.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 79

Socialist movement created its most active propaganda troops in the form of the
SA. [. . .]* A modern political struggle is fought with modern political means,
and the most modern of all political means is propaganda. Propaganda is basi-
cally the most dangerous weapon that a political movement can deploy. Against
all other means there is a counter-measure; only propaganda is unstoppable in its
effects. If, for example, a Marxist society is shaken in its belief [. . .] then it is
already overcome because it immediately surrenders its power to resist.Ӡ Even if
the last sentence turns out to be a propagandistic exaggeration—the nihilistic
will to power that animates the Fascist and National Socialist cliques and leads
them to monopoly capitalism, has created for itself in this propaganda—which
functions with the combined methods of terror and the formation of masses—an
instrument of incomparable force.

Translated by John Abromeit

Notes

1. [Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,”

trans. Harry Zohn, in Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt
(New York: Schocken, 1969), 217–52. See also “The Work of Art in the Age of Its
Technological Reproducibility” (second version), trans. Edmund Jephcott and
Harry Zohn, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 3: 1935–1938, ed. Howard
Eiland and Michael Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002),
101–33. See also “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”
(third version), trans. Harry Zohn and Edmund Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin:
Selected Writings, Vol. 4: 1938–1940, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 251–83.]
2. [Max Horkheimer, “Egoism and Freedom Movements: On the Anthropology of
the Bourgeois Epoch,” in Max Horkheimer: Between Philosophy and Social Science
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 78.]

* {Founded in 1921 as the paramilitary wing of the Nazi movement, the SA (Sturmabteilung, or “Storm
Detachment”) were also known as the “Brownshirts” on account of their uniforms. They played a key role
in the rise of the movement—intimidating opponents, carrying out acts of violence, providing “security”
at rallies and speeches—and by 1933 numbered some three million men. Hitler, however, grew increas-
ingly fearful of its power and influence under the leadership of Ernst Röhm. On June 30, 1934, the “Night
of the Long Knives,” up to two hundred leading figures of the SA were arrested and executed. Formerly
just a subdivision of the SA, the SS (Schutzstaffel, or “Security Force”) under Heinrich Himmler came to
the fore as its replacement. Though overshadowed by the SS, the SA was not formally disbanded until
1945.}
† {Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, 91. This quotation from Goebbels is actually missing in Kracauer’s text. As
the Suhrkamp editors point out, his reference system allows for the identification of the absent quote but
not its precise extent.}
80 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

3. [Joseph Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin Der Anfang, vol. 1 (Munich: Franz Eher Nach-
folger, 1934), 32.]
4. [Mussolini quoted in Il Popolo d’Italia, March 18, 1919; Kracauer citing Silone, Der
Fascismus, seine Entstehung und seine Entwicklung (Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1934) 33.]
5. [Joseph Goebbels, speech given before the press on the construction of the Reich
propaganda ministry on March 15, 1933, in Berlin, in Helmut Heiber, ed., Goebbels-
Reden, Vol. 1: 1932–1939 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1971), 217–21, 220.]
6. [Adolf Hitler’s conversation with Otto Strasser on May 21, 1930, is recounted in
Otto Strasser, Hitler und Ich (Leipzig: Johannes Asmus Verlag, 1948), 137. Kracau-
er’s citation is from Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler: Eine Biographie, vol. 1 (Zürich:
Europa Verlag, 1936) 273.]
7. [This quotation preserved from Hitler can only be found in a relevant collection of
National Socialist writings, which purports the existence of a correspondence
between Hierl and Hitler: Deutsche Sozialisten am Werk, ed. Friedrich Christian
zu Schaumburg-Lippe (Berlin: Deutsche Verlag für Politik und Wirtschaft, 1936),
17. Kracauer’s citation is from Willi Münzenberg, Propaganda als Waffe (Paris:
Editions du Carrefour, 1937), 146.]
8. [Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, vol. 1, 86.]
9. [Goebbels, 68.]
10. [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, Eine Abrechnung (Munich: F. Eher, 1934), 227.]
{Our translation. Kracauer cites the wrong page here.}
11. [Mein Kampf, 197.] {English: Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin: [1943] 1971), 180.}
12. [Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 44.] {42 (translation amended).}
13. [Hitler, vol. 1, 201.] {183 (translation amended).}
14. [Hitler, vol. 1, 44.] {42 (translation amended).}
15. [José Ortega y Gasset, Der Aufstand der Massen (1931), 41.] {English translation:
The Revolt of the Masses (New York: W. W. Norton, [1932], 1957), 58.}
16. [Ortega y Gasset, Der Aufstand, 59.] {Revolt of the Masses, 82.}
17. [Ortega y Gasset, Der Aufstand, 86.] {Revolt of the Masses, 116.}
18. [Ortega y Gasset, Der Aufstand, 86.] {Revolt of the Masses, 116.}
19. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 371.] {338. Brackets in Kracauer’s original.}
20. [Hitler, vol. 1, 201.] {183.}
21. [Hitler, vol. 1, 201.] {183.}
22. [Hitler, vol. 1, 44.] {42.}
23. [Hitler, vol. 1, 371.] {338.}
24. [Erich Fromm, “Theoretische Entwürfe über Autorität und Familie: Sozialpsy-
chologische Teil,” in Studien über Autorität und Familie: Forschungsberichte aus
dem Institut für Sozialforschung (Paris: Librairie F. Alcan, 1936), 107.]
25. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 535.] {Our translation. The page Kracauer cites here is
incorrect.}
26. [Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, vol. 1, 19.]
27. [Joseph Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen (Oldenburg: Stalling, 1933), 147f.]
28. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 371.] {337–38.}
29. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 371.] {337.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 81

30. [Kracauer, Werke, vol. 2.2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012), 73.] {Totalitäre Pro-
paganda (hereafter TP), ed. Bernd Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013), 62–63.}
31. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, 541.] {Our translation. Kracauer cites the wrong page
here.}
32. [Hitler, vol. 2, 280.] {Our translation.}
33. [Hitler, vol. 2, 546.] {487.}
34. [Hitler, vol. 2, 541]. {483.}
35. [Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler: das Zeitalter der Verantwortlosigkeit. Eine Biogra-
phie, vol. 1 (Zurich: Europa Verlag, 1936), 113.]
36. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, 557.] {496–97. Kracauer incorrectly cites p. 554. He (or
those who transcribed his manuscript) also writes “rationalistic” instead of
“nationalistic.”}
37. [Horkheimer, “Egoismus und Freiheitsbewegung,” 177.] {English: “Egoism and
Freedom Movements,” 63.}
38. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 116.] {106–7.}
39. [Hitler, vol. 1, 116]. {107.}
40. {Kracauer refers here to a passage in section B of this essay, which can be found in
Werke, vol. 2.2, 73.}
41. [Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, vol. 1, 19.]
42. [Goebbels, 19.]
43. [Goebbels, 19.]
44. [Goebbels, 200.]
45. [Kracauer, Werke, vol. 2.2, 100] {TP, 88.}
46. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, 527.] {470.}
47. [Hitler, vol. 2, 527–28]. {471.}
48. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 203.] {Our translation.}
49. [Hitler, vol. 1, 202.] {184.}
50. [Joseph Goebbels, speech on February 10, 1933, at the Berlin Sports Palace, in Wil-
fried Bade, Joseph Goebbels: Deutsches Volk und deutsche Männer, vol. 5 (Lübeck:
Charles Coleman, 1933), 70.]
51. [Wilhelm Reich, Die Massenpsychologie des Faschismus (Cologne: Kiepenhauer &
Witsch, 1986), 54.] {Our translation.}
52. [Ernst Krieck, Nationalpolitische Erziehung (Leipzig: Armanen-Verlag, 1932), 38.]
53. [Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, vol. 1, 46.]
54. [Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen, 147.]
55. [Joseph Goebbels, ed., Moderne Politische Propaganda (Munich: F. Eher, 1930).]
56. [Also in: Reichspropaganda-Leitung der NSDAP, ed., Kampfschrift, vol. 1: Arbeit-
erverrat (Munich: F. Eher, 1932), 19.]
57. [Kampfschrift, 19.]
58. [According to the manuscript, Kracauer is quoting Roger Mauduit here. The quote
could not be located.]
59. [Joseph Goebbels, “Um die deutsche Scholle,” speech on May 11, 1930 in Munich,
in Revolution der Deutschen, 27–34, 31.]
60. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 387.] {352.}
61. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, 497]. {446.}
82 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

62. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 1, 387.] {352.}

63. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, 501.] {449.}
64. [Joseph Goebbels, “Hitler über Deutschland,” radio program from the Siemens
plants in Berlin during the celebration of the nation on October 11, 1933, in Goebbels,
Signale der neuen Zeit: 25 ausgewählte Reden (Munich: F. Eher, 1934), 317–23, 318.]
65. [Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, vol. 1, 40.]
66. [Adolf Hitler, Die Reden Hitlers als Kanzler: das junge Deutschland will Arbeit und
Frieden (Munich, F. Eher, 1934), 46.]
67. [Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. 2, 535–36.] {478–79. Translation amended.}
68. [Kracauer, Werke, 2.2, 103.] {TP, 91.}
69. [Krieck, Nationalpolitische Erziehung, 38.]
70. [Kracauer, Werke, 2.2, 93.] {TP, 81.}
71. [Adolf Hitler, speech to the “Old Guard” of the Party in Munich on March 19,
1934, in Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, 1932–1945, vol. 1, ed. Max Domarus
(Vienna: Löwit, 1973), 367.]
72. [Fritz Morstein Marx, “State Propaganda in Germany,” in Propaganda and Dicta-
torship: A Collection of Papers, ed. Harwood Lawrence Childs (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1936), 11–35.]
73. [Eugen Hadamovsky, Propaganda und nationale Macht (Oldenburg: Stalling,
1935), 52. Kracauer here citing Münzenberg, Propaganda als Waffe, 179.]
74. [Erich Wernert, L’art dans le IIIe Reich: Une tentative d’esthétique dirigée (Paris:
Paul Hartmann, 1936), 7ff.]
75. [Horst Dressler-Andress, “Volkstum und Heimat,” in Der nationalsozialistische
Staat: Grundlagen und Gestaltung. Urkunden des Aufbaus. Reden und Vorträge (bis
zum November 1933), ed. Walther Gehl (Breslau: Hirt, 1933), 221–26, 221.]
76. [Dressler-Andress, “Volkstum und Heimat,” 221–26.]
77. [Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen, 191.]
78. {G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens (London: Methuen, 1913), 133.}
79. [Willi Krause, Reichminister Dr. Goebbels (Berlin: Verlag Deutsche Kultur-Wacht,
1933), 55.]
80. [Wernert, “L’art dan le IIIe Reich,” 28.]
81. [Wernert, 120.]
82. [Wernert, 100.]
83. [Kracauer, Werke, 2.2, 116.] {TP, 102.}
84. [Kracauer, 116.]
 2
Totalitarian Propaganda
Section G

I.

Propaganda orchestrated to win power cannot cease after the seizure of power.
This follows necessarily from the principle according to which Fascism and
National Socialism emerged. Were both movements to identify with a real soci-
etal interest, then their victory must effect not so much the continuance of pro-
paganda as its dismantling, for the satisfaction of such an interest would speak
for itself, and would not require total influence over opinion to earn them recog-
nition. Should Moscow’s propaganda have assumed totalitarian forms in the
Soviet Union, that would be a sign of the regime’s withdrawal from its original
conception. Doubtless the totalitarian movements, invariably misrecognized,
can and will satisfy one or another societal interest they encounter along the
way, but their actions are not determined by such interests. Rather, they are pre-
determinately grounded in a nihilistic will to power {Machtwille} stemming
from war, and this requires no lasting ties with any social interest. Thus, since
the rulers see themselves as obliged to manipulate and disavow existing interests,
and since they are also predisposed to take into account their experience in war
that power is not won and upheld by force alone (Goebbels confirms in 1933 that
“The national government has no intention of sitting on bayonets”), all their acts
are necessarily accompanied by propaganda indeed are at the same time propa-
ganda themselves.1 Propaganda is not merely a means used only occasionally by
modern dictatorships; it is anchored in the fundament of these dictatorships.
And, instead of carrying less weight after the seizure of power, propaganda
becomes from this moment on effectively totalitarian. In his speech to the press,
16 {sic} March 1933, Goebbels states: “In setting up the new Ministry for Public
84 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

Enlightenment and Propaganda, I see a revolutionary act of government in as

much as the new government no longer intends to leave the people to their own
devices.”2 But he also says: “If this government is determined, never to yield . . .
then it cannot be satisfied in the long run to know that 52 per cent are behind it,
in order to terrorize the remaining 48 per cent with that figure, but will see its
next task as winning over the 48 per cent.”3
Obeying the impulse implanted in them, the dictatorships set to work after
the seizure of power and prepare an adroit national apparatus of power, with the
help of which they intend to realize their dream of the imperium or the Reich.
These goals determine the course of National Socialist and Fascist foreign pol-
icy. In order to overcome difficulties arising in the domain of foreign policy,
propaganda will have to proceed according to the same methods—appropriately
modified, of course—used to seize power at home. Certain idea-montages are
not without effect abroad, provided terror lends them sufficient force. But the
purpose of this investigation is not to pursue the use within foreign policy of
propaganda methods which have already been analyzed, but to indicate how
propaganda develops once it has become a monopoly. The task is to reconstruct
the development of effective totalitarian propaganda within its own dominion.
In the course of this process, world propaganda of course assumes an ever more
decisive role, and this will be taken into consideration at given points.
Despite all their differences, Fascist propaganda proceeds in the same direc-
tion as National Socialist propaganda. If the following representation refers
more to conditions in Germany, then this is primarily because National Social-
ism—in this it was truly German—attached great importance to the constant
“ideological” {weltanschaulich} legitimation of its procedures, and so is particu-
larly revealing.

II.

The installation of total propaganda is tied to that of terror. “This statutory,

almost absolute rule over life and death,” declares Heiden of conditions after
1933, “was expanded and refined piece by piece.”4 And Silone: “Fascism has never
eschewed the use of terror to dominate the country.”5 Totalitarian dictatorships
eschew its use so little that they sweep aside the few bulwarks that protect
against it and introduce a law that corresponds with the National Socialist rule
“Whatever benefits the people is right”6 {“Recht ist, was dem deutschen Volke
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 85

nützt”}.* Since, as has been shown, the concept of the people {das Volk} is purely
a cover term in National Socialist parlance for nothing more than the will of the
ruling clique, then this statement must be understood along the lines of: what is
right is—according to the definition of the National Socialist Huber—whatever
heightens the “force of political power.”7 According to Huber, “Civil liberties,
institution and institutional guarantees cease to exist in the people’s constitu-
tion. The underlying reason for this is that the principle of ‘guarantee’ has itself
been surmounted in a people’s constitution. The liberal constitution was essen-
tially a ‘guarantee;’ it is a system of safeguards and assurances vis-à-vis state
power. The people’s constitution does not have this guarantee function; on the
contrary, it is meant to heighten the efficacy and force of political power. It is not
supposed to protect individuals and groups from the whole, but instead serves
the unity and entirety of the will against all individualistic and group-based dis-
integrations.”8 “There are workers’ rights,” writes Silone with reference to
Alfredo Rocco,† who formulated the juristic doctrine of Fascism, “only as allow-
ances of the state. They exist only as reflected rights. The authority of Fascist
trade unions is a reflected authority, granted by the authority of the State. . . .
This State authority is the only original, non-reflected authority, the source of all
law. So, there is no Fascist legality, no written body of laws, out of which an
opposition movement could derive a justification of its existence. The only law is
that of the bourgeois {bürgerlich} state. All concessions it can make are nothing
more than that: concessions, temporary allowances.”9 Allowances can be
revoked, and the totalitarian regime really does not shy away from disavowing
its own laws just as soon as their implementation might hinder its claim to
totality. Elections to German works councils do not take place, the statutory
provision of symmetry between the unions of employers and employees in Italy
exists, according to Silone, only on paper.10 The law that, in a democracy,
regardless of its class character, still limits power {Macht}, is transformed into
an instrument of pure power. The illegal power {Gewalt} exercised by the
Gestapo and the Fascist militias, as explained above, must appear as doubly
arbitrary if it is constantly accompanied by legal power; the terror effect

* {The Surhkamp editors include the correct citation from Hans Frank: “Alles, was dem Volk nützt, ist
Recht; alles was ihm schadet, ist Unrecht”: “All that is beneficial to the people is right and lawful, all that
harms them is unlawful.” The term “Recht” can be translated as “right,” as “just,” and as “law”/“lawful.”}
† Alfredo Rocco (1875–1935) was a professor of commercial and economic law at a number of Italian uni-
versities prior to becoming justice minister (1925–1932). At one time a Marxist thinker, he later joined the
Fascist movement, which adapted his notion of corporatism, according to which the state should inter-
vene to mediate and harmonize otherwise conflictual class relations.}
86 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

produced by this association is further increased by the fact that the legal power
itself only maintains the semblance of legality.11 The installation of terror goes
hand in hand with the artificial production of the masses, and once all measures
have come into force which compel the desired shift in the psycho-physical
structure, then totalitarian propaganda can become effective. It functions all
the better when the dictatorship is in a position to corrupt wide strata via the
allocation of positions, offices and sinecures.
The seizure of power imposes an obligation on totalitarian movements to
make good their propagandist promises, or at least to attempt to fulfill them. The
NS State accomplishes—no matter how—tasks which de facto fulfill promises:
it promotes the political centralization of Germany, which wasn’t even tackled
by social democracy; it eliminates the problem of unemployment. Inasmuch as
these accomplishments further real societal interests, they do so for reasons that
are independent of these interests. The standardization of the state apparatus is
meant to strengthen the power position of the regime, and the elimination of
unemployment is for the sake of the prestige it will bring. Of course, the regime
never fails to exploit for propaganda purposes the fact that some of its achieve-
ments meet societal needs. Indeed, we may venture to assert that one or another
of these achievements arises not least from propagandist necessity. Motor-
ways and drained Pontine Marshes are the Potemkin villages of totalitarian
dictatorships.*
The real problem after the seizure of power is not, however, fulfilling what
can be fulfilled, but dealing with those propagandist promises which the
totalitarian movements cannot satisfy at all, in consequence of their approach.
What is meant here is the creation of class equality {Klassenausgleich}, which
in National Socialist Germany includes the creation of the Volksgemeinschaft.
Mindful of Fascism’s misuse of the concept of the trade union, Angelica Bala-
banoff elaborates:† “Here, too, we find the hallmark of Fascism: promises are not

* {Between 1933 and the outbreak of war in 1939, and starting with completion of a stretch between Frank-
furt and Darmstadt, 3300 km of the German Autobahn system were constructed, a program continued as
of 1940, using forced labor. In Italy, work to drain the Pontine Marshes southeast of Rome was abandoned
in 1914 and then resumed under Mussolini’s regime in 1930. Serving as a work creation scheme and photo
opportunity, the project led to the drainage of 775 square km in a ten-year period though subsequent
attempts to settle and utilize the land proved largely unsuccessful. The notion of a “Potemkin village” is a
reference to the creation of fake or simulated scenery and villages in the newly conquered Crimea by its
governor, Grigory Potemkin (1739–1791), during the reign of Catherine II.}
† {Born in Chernihiv in the Russian Empire, Angelica Balabanoff (1878–1965) was a Jewish Russian com-
munist activist in Rome who, after spending time in Russia and breaking with the Bolshevik movement in
1922, returned to Italy and worked as a journalist. With the rise of Fascism, she went into exile firstly in
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 87

kept, cannot be kept, nevertheless the semblance {Schein} of fulfilment is cre-

ated.”12 The compulsion to create this semblance requires the dictators to seize
upon a series of measures which, from the outset, are acts of propaganda. Their
function is to evoke the impression that class antagonism is liquidated and an
internally unified people is a reality.
Among these acts of propaganda, the first to be highlighted are those groups
which may be called direct since they behave as if they substantially changed the
relationship between employees and employers; whether, like National Socialist
employment law and the German Labor Front,* by treating both classes as sym-
metrical formations, or as organizations such as Strength through Joy (Kraft
durch Freude, KdF)† or the Fascist Dopolavoro, by granting employees special
privileges.‡ But the symmetry is exhausted in formalities, and the benefits leave
the position of the employee in the production process untouched. Such proce-
dures, that treat only the symptoms, do not in fact help the bourgeoisie in gen-
eral, but do indeed benefit big business and, above all, the ruling clique. That
they are undertaken in the interests of power and aim solely to lend weight to
the illusion of class equality is revealed in the arguments put forward by Dr. Ley
on 27 November 1933 before the German Labor Front as he establishes the
“KdF” organization.§
“The words coined by the Führer stand above everything: ‘How do we best
sustain the nerves of the people, knowing that to pursue politics one needs a
people with strong nerves?’ ”13 Thus, this organization is set up, neither for the
sake of the workforce, nor for the people, but as a prerequisite for the power poli-
tics of the totalitarian dictatorship. The KdF serves to build up the National
Socialist apparatus of power.
“Unfulfilled longing,” Dr. Ley explains further, “generates envy. But when
the German is allowed his share in life’s bounty, he will no longer be filled with

Switzerland and then in the United States. After the war, she resumed working for the cause of socialism
in Italy until her death in Rome at the age of eighty-seven.}
* {This served to cement a hierarchical relationship between employer and employee rather than an equal
reciprocal contractual arrangement.}
† {The KdF was established in November 1933 under the auspices of the German Labor Front (Deutsche
Arbeitsfront, DAF) and encompassed not only a wide range of recreational, sporting, and cultural activi-
ties, including mass tourism, but also various workplace improvements (e.g., the construction of modern
canteens and washrooms). Its mission was essentially twofold: to boost industrial production, and to
facilitate the integration of the workforce into the Volksgemeinschaft.}
‡ {The Dopolavoro (OND) was the Fascist Italian equivalent of the KdF.}
§ {A member of the Nazi Party since 1925, Robert Ley (1890–1945) was leader of the DAF in the period
1933–1945. He committed suicide while awaiting trial for war crimes at Nuremburg. Kracauer provides no
details of the source of these quotations.}
88 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

envy and hatred, but with happiness and gratitude. This results in the second
contribution of the movement. . . . It is to kill the inferiority complexes in the
working people.”14 In other words: The institutional purpose of Kraft durch
Freude is to render social resentments harmless by bestowing a few vicarious
gratifications on proletarian and proletarianized strata within the framework of
what already exists. Unable to remove the causes of inferiority complexes, it does
not in truth eliminate them but sedates the “working people” so that they forget
them.
“Thirdly, the organization should ward off boredom in the people. Boredom
gives rise to stupid, rabble-rousing and, indeed, ultimately criminal ideas and
thoughts. Dull tedium makes men brood, gives them a sense of homelessness
{Heimatlosigkeit}, in a word: a feeling of absolute superfluity. Nothing is more
dangerous for a state than that. And so we are going to build camps on heath
and mountain, and all across the uplands of the Rhine, where Germans will
spend their holidays in discipline and camaraderie.”15 Recreation is therefore
structured to deprive its coerced consumers of joy of any free time in which they
might come up with “criminal ideas and thoughts” i.e., pursue their class inter-
est. Obviously, the way to prevent such trouble is by systematically filling the
tiniest gaps in leisure time. In camps and on ships, it is easy to keep holidaymak-
ers under the lasting influence of propaganda, and the more magnificent the
natural setting, the more it too becomes a vehicle of propaganda.
“The Office for Teaching and Training {Amt für Unterricht und Ausbildung]
will enable everyone to acquire knowledge and skills free of charge. We will, how-
ever, only promote this hunger for training in those who are truly suitable and
capable.”16 These sentences declare that Dr. Ley’s organization, in as much as it
monopolizes education, prevents individual freedom of expression—the play of
which must immediately destroy the illusion of class equality. It is not enough
that the organization confiscates leisure, it promotes only the people of its choice.
Anyone who doesn’t pay homage to National Socialism will have difficulty
accessing knowledge, and the knowledge that is on offer will from the outset be
of a National Socialist persuasion. So it is that any thirst for knowledge that jeop-
ardizes the totalitarian regime is manipulated.
Among the measures striving to deal directly with the unattainable, there are
those related to the Volksgemeinschaft. Wishing to substantiate its existence,
the party leaders collect on the streets for the winter relief programme {Winter-
hilfswerk}; in a similar vein, mass visual art and other aesthetic productions
must have the same effect as these symbolic acts. Describing National Socialist
architecture, Wernert writes: “Architectural monstrosities intended for gather-
ings of the people convey to those who gaze upon them no sense of balance, of
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 89

scale and rhythm; they express only that relentless physical force, the force of the
avalanche, the irresistible oppressive force; they evoke the masses who populate
them, the German Volk.”17 Images of, and for, the masses, the purpose of which
is to simulate the existence of the Volk, transform themselves thanks to their
magic and all possible propagandistic ingredients into the very proofs of
existence.
Direct acts of propaganda are supplemented by indirect. Passions are
unleashed against some adversary outside the sphere of the class struggle—
whose presence or absence incidentally makes no difference—and immediately
any differences existing within the sphere lose their importance. Antisemitism
indirectly deepens the impression of the unity of the people—and the eco-
nomic beneficiaries of anti-Jewish legislation are those least likely to welcome
any diminution of that impression. The same indirect effect is achieved by the
cult of power and the leader; as power, through its glorification, appears to be
elevated above the classes, so the psychological significance of class interest is
automatically subdued. It is for this reason that the Nurnberg Congress Hall
has to be the biggest.* Gigantic proportions call to mind the power that is
becoming absolute, and precisely this glaring emphasis of its absolute nature
means the conception of the real Volk can be surmounted by the fiction of the
Volksgemeinschaft. Finally, there are those propaganda acts which serve only
to reinforce. Fascism is concerned to ensure the punctuality of the trains;
National Socialism promotes hygiene and values the publicity potential of
beautifully arranged factory yards and workplaces. In their efforts to keep up
appearances, every means of seduction is right.
“With us, seeming {Schein} has become being {Sein}”—with these words, spo-
ken in 1932, Goebbels certainly also wishes to express the conviction that the
National Socialist regime hopes to transfer the idea of class conciliation {Klassen-
versöhnung} and of the Volksgemeinschaft into reality.18 The propaganda acts
undertaken after the seizure of power do indeed conjure up a new reality in that
they create numerous institutions and organizations and generally steer the whole
conduct of the people. But this reality is to be bracketed since it only comes about
under the pressure exerted by the terror and the production of the masses {Mass-
enerzeugung}. The extent of its reliance on the unremitting assistance of totalitar-
ian propaganda is made clear by the exhortation of the SA Gruppenführer Schöne

* {Designed by Albert Speer and Walter Brugmann, the foundation stone for this edifice was laid in 1935
but the building itself was never completed. It was part of a complex of sites in Nuremberg where the Nazi
Party staged its rallies and events from 1933 to 1938.}
90 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

at a conference in East Prussia:* “We still haven’t learned to see everything from
the point of view of propaganda. Propaganda must therefore be used more.”19
Knowledge of the general rule covering the dictatorships’ reality is also apparent in
Silone’s comments about Mussolini: “He is doomed to play carnival Caesar to
the end of his days, to keep his facial expression in check at all times.”20 Reality in
the totalitarian state is a pseudo-reality. For, if Fascism and National Socialism are
unable to achieve the unity of the people, then they are obliged, of course, to create
a synthetic reality in which unity seems to be an actuality. Thus, Goebbels’s state-
ment would more correctly read: “With us, seeming has become the semblance of
being {Schein des Seins}.” This pseudo-reality differs from the actual reality it has
largely eliminated in that it is a product of the will to power as the latter becomes
absolute, its actions disregarding societal requirements whenever necessary. “In a
way, as of a certain point,” Heiden says, “power is always right, as it no longer needs
to adapt its assertions to circumstances but can change circumstances according to
its assertions.”21 This helps to explain the consistency with which the world of
pseudo-reality develops: what doesn’t add up is made to add up. Another feature of
this world is that it extends deep into the regions of the absurd; if the unattainable
must be considered attained, then absurdity does become a necessity. As a result of
its consistent and at the same time absurd character, the pseudo-reality has some-
thing of a drawing by the insane come to life.
For totalitarian dictatorships, everything depends on the maintenance of the
psycho-physical constitution in which this pseudo-reality works as reality.
“Once a Marxist following is shaken in its ability to believe . . ., then it is already
overcome; for it instantly relinquishes its power to resist.”22 This remark from
Goebbels illuminates, as a mirror reflection, the structure of National Socialist
and Fascist rule. If Goebbels’s theory is followed to the letter, then it seems that
the totalitarian regime would fall apart if at any point, even for only a second, the
total influence over opinion were interrupted. Hence the humorlessness of the
modern dictatorships—humor might damage the fine weave of propaganda;
hence their efforts to underpin the acts of propaganda with precautions, the sole
purpose of which is to prevent any slippage from the sphere of pseudo-reality.
And the more constantly people are kept in a state of eager anticipation of direc-
tives issued from above, the less fear there is of such slippage. Totalitarian propa-
ganda incorporates its own agents of suspense. By privileging a heroic life over a
happy one, and the Volksgemeinschaft over the individuals who comprise it,

* {Heinrich Schöne (1889–1945) joined the National Socialist movement in 1924 and the SA in 1925.
Leader of the Hitler Youth movement (1926–1927) he rose to hold senior positions in the SA and became
a leading Nazi politician and official. He was killed on the Russian front.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 91

propaganda encourages psychological forces of attraction to develop that thwart

any individual’s relapse into her/his special existence; with its time-limited
plans, it constantly seeks new ways to keep all those subjected to it on tenter-
hooks. In his 1936 book, Das deutsche Wirtschaftswunder, Hans Erich Priester*
remarks of the second German four-year plan23: “A prime concern remains the
need to ensure that the first so-called four-year plan does not simply run without
further ado, but to put something new in its place. . . . People want to be com-
pensated for shortcomings in the present with change in the future.Ӡ This
means that the four-year plans, like all projects tied to a deadline, serve to rein-
force that state of mind in which the reader of sensational novels {Kolportagero-
mane}, caught up in the suspense, will not stop reading at any price. The threat
of armed conflict also creates tension, an effect not to be underestimated—it is
a threat which produces the same oscillation between conflicting emotions and
convictions that is so indispensable to propaganda. The presence of crisis has a
similar effect as the calculated threat of war. A thoroughly dialectical relation-
ship prevails between the totalitarian regime and crisis. On the one hand, Fas-
cists and National Socialists wish to fulfil their promises of better times by
overcoming the crisis; on the other hand, they need the crisis in order to justify
the dictatorship to the masses. If there were no crisis, then it would have to be
invented by the totalitarian movements. “Is there a way out of . . . the difficult
situation?” writes Priester. “What Germany needs is the transition of the
pseudo-economic growth into a real economy growth. This is not unattainable.
However, one precondition must be met: The Third Reich must reach a political
understanding with the world.”24 But this way conflicts not only with the will to
power of National Socialism, but equally with its need for a continuation of the
crisis, the value of which can hardly be overestimated. The pressure of the crisis
strengthens the pressure of the terror and the tensions and vibrations emanating
from the crisis reinforce the pseudo-reality. Incidentally, totalitarian propa-
ganda likes to make use of the possibility of transforming some measures which
originally had no propagandist significance into agents of suspense, simply by
the way they are employed. It is not unusual for them to be used for acts of

* {Han Erich Priester (life dates unknown) was a journalist and commentator on economic affairs. He
wrote critically on the German banking crisis of 1931 and in 1936 described what he saw as the success of
National Socialist policies in eliminating unemployment.}
† {Announced at the party conference in 1936, this centered on the swift rearmament of Germany and
preparations for what was seen as an inevitable war with Russia. Hermann Göring was commissioned to
lead this program, which involved the reorientation of German businesses and industries away from con-
sumer goods and toward military equipment.}
92 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

foreign policy, in order to relieve weariness with domestic policy. Fundamen-

tally, then, any act can achieve the significance of an act of propaganda.
Plebiscites represent spot checks of the psycho-physical constitution associ-
ated with the pseudo-reality; to say nothing of the fact that their proliferation is
intended to produce tension and their success to increase the prestige of the
leadership at home and abroad. The positive outcome of these plebiscites is guar-
anteed, not only by terror, but also by the questions, which wisely refer to
national existence. The plebiscites are not meant to establish the opinion of the
masses, but on the contrary to show quite starkly the extent to which the masses
have been deprived of their freedom of opinion. A proclamation of the will of
the people turns into a proclamation of the power of the regime over the will
of the people. What Silone said of the union elections is true also of the plebi-
scites: they are the “means by which the masses can confirm their connection
{Anschluβ} to the government.”25 In a turn of phrase already cited elsewhere,
Hitler himself declares that the purpose of such voting manoeuvres is to demon-
strate and control the steadfastness of this “connection.” “If the appeal is not
well received, no-one should say that the people are to blame; instead he should
say that the movement has become lazy. The movement is no longer fighting
properly. . . . And from this one will be able to learn once again how to immerse
oneself in the people.”26 Like the plebiscite, the National Socialist Reichstag is a
farce. Its eerie antics reveal at a stroke those of the entire pseudo-reality.

III.

The expansion of the apparatus of power keeps pace with the build-up of the
propaganda machine. The ruling caste installs itself; it implements military
armament and seeks to transform the army into its instrument; bending to the
force of circumstances and the logic of the will to power, it develops the orga-
nized capitalism of the postwar period into a kind of steered economy—the so-
called military economy, which takes its impetus from the regime’s aims of
imperialist expansion and in reality satisfies monopoly capitalist interests,
though of course without wholly identifying with them. . . .
But the question here is not the construction of the National Socialist and
Fascist apparatus of power, but the course of totalitarian propaganda. Holding
the monopoly, propaganda lines up act after act and assertion after assertion
{Setzung} with absolute authority: are these acts and assertions such that they fit
into a unified whole without special modifications? On the contrary: the more
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 93

established the regime becomes, the more propaganda finds itself in the predica-
ment of disavowing some of its own claims and striving to reconcile contradic-
tions. Apart from very few contents, there is in fact nothing to which it would
be able to commit definitively. As was said above of the pseudo-reality, what
doesn’t add up will be made to add up. The inconsistency consists precisely in
the divergences that form in the field of propaganda.
They can be explained in the first instance by the fact that totalitarian dicta-
torships must take into account an intrinsically contradictory societal reality.
Leaving aside the medley of interests with which foreign policy must deal, class
differences at home are by no means a thing of the past, and nor are groupings of
peasants, the middle classes, the churches, etc. Thus: “In the first flush of enthu-
siasm,” writes Heiden, “the social problem is benumbed, but not resolved. . . .
The social circumstances remain, and the class differences remain; these are the
societal facts of the National Socialist dictatorship of 1937.”27 What is more, this
reality is constantly being recast by the actions of the regime; new potential con-
flicts arise, new needs make themselves heard. A mix of criss-crossing interests
and tendencies brings about necessarily heterogeneous situations—situations
which could be addressed within the democracy through the struggle between
parties. Since, according to its guiding principles, the totalitarian regime aspires
to power per se and, in order to win this power, displays a nihilistic indifference
toward all contents, it will not hesitate to modify its realization-convictions
{Realisierungs-Überzeugungen} according to the current situation. As a conse-
quence of the rupturing of the social fabric, it must go on and on annulling com-
mitments made by the propaganda.
The glaring conflict between the acts of the dictatorships and their propagan-
dist promises conjures up crises both in Italy and in Germany which threaten
the collapse of the pseudo-reality. According to Silone, the Matteotti Crisis* is
“the result of the blatant contradiction between the government policy of Fas-
cism and the interests and wishes of the majority of the population, including

* {Giacomo Matteotti (1885–1924) was a socialist politician who warned of the threat of Fascism and, in a
speech on May 30, 1924, denounced Fascist violence and fraud in the recent elections. He was abducted
eleven days later and murdered. Among those arrested and convicted of this killing was Amerigo Dumini,
a member of the Fascist secret police. This murder led to a temporary decline in support for the Fascists.
Mussolini’s involvement is still much debated. He accepted some responsibility for the killing in a speech
in early 1925 but did not admit any direct link with the events. The crisis was a turning point in Musso-
lini’s politics: from then on, his apparent efforts to work with parliamentary institutions gave way to a
much more dictatorial approach. The threat that provincial Fascists might trigger civil war strengthened
Mussolini’s position in his dealings with the Italian monarchy, setting himself up as a guarantor of
national stability.}
94 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

the Fascists.”28 And the National Socialist crisis of 1934 stems from the disap-
pointment of the left wing of the party that the government is clearly moving
with big business instead of fulfilling its pledge to find a socialist solution.* At
that time, as the “second revolution” festers in Germany, the very propaganda
that once demanded the communalization of the department stores and the
nationalization of already socialized businesses heaps argument upon argu-
ment to make the discontented masses understand the contrary behaviour of
the regime. At a rally on 14 May 1934, Goebbels rounds on the “moaners
{Miesmacher}”:† “No-one is going to take an economy which everyone knows
has been mismanaged and replace false methods with wholly new ones in an
instant. When an economy is fighting for its life, it first needs to be given a
modicum of good health.”29 And, at a regional party congress in Essen on 25
June 1934, he declares: “A single blunder could destroy our economic life.”30
But such sophisms fail to make any real impression on the SA with its left-
leaning old Freikorps leaders, and so they are replaced five days later by the
execution squads, whose powers of persuasion are, of course, incontestable.
The middle classes are more easily manipulated. Although they, too, despite
their early solidarity with the National Socialist and Fascist movement, must
likewise learn to think little of propaganda promises, they will—because the
regime draws functionaries from their circles and breathes some life into middle-
class illusions—always obscure the monopoly-capitalist character of the totali-
tarian dictatorships. In his study of the problem for small businesses in the
Third Reich, Das Mittelstandsproblem im Dritten Reich, published in 1934,
Benedict Schmittmann finds “that National Socialism has not lived up to the
group-centred {gruppenegoistisch} hopes of the small business community
{gewerblicher Mittelstand}.”‡ This is no longer necessary, he continues, “since the

* {Material shortages and high unemployment in Germany compounded internal strife in the National
Socialist party itself, with the leader of the SA, Ernst Röhm seeking to seeking to increase his own power
and that of the SA vis-à-vis the Gestapo and SS. In what became known as the “Röhm Putsch,” Hitler had
Röhm and other leading figures in the SA, some two hundred in total, arrested and summarily executed.
Around one hundred other opponents met a similar fate. Hitler sought to persuade the populace that this
was necessary action against corruption. Retrospectively, these extrajudicial actions were legalized by the
ruling cabinet and legitimized by Carl Schmitt.}
† {The rally actually took place on May 11, 1934. The “moaners” dismissed by Goebbels, according to an
article of May 13–14, 1934, in the Völkischer Beobachter, were, typically, critics of the regime, Jews, and the
foreign press.}
‡ {Benedict Schmittmann (1872–1939) was a Catholic social scientist, academic, and political figure call-
ing for federalist reforms of the German Reich. He was arrested in 1933 and prohibited from teaching.
Declining to emigrate, he was arrested again in 1939 and died of the effects of ill treatment in the Sachsen-
hausen concentration camp.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 95

Volksgemeinschaft puts an end to class division and, instead of class stratifica-

tion, the movement itself, embodying the people, acts as an all-defining stratum
and, through its leadership, reconciles interests.”31
One by one, the contents of propaganda fall victim to the acts of the regime.
The concept of autarky is removed from usage when the momentary require-
ments of National Socialist economic policy demand its abandonment, only to
be back in the limelight to publicize the second Four-Year Plan. The concept of
the entrepreneurial personality, played off against Marxism, evaporates before
our eyes thanks to the economic measures of the regime. Writing in the Völkische
Beobachter in early January 1934, Gottfried Feder assures the reader that “The
danger of Marxist economic policy was precisely that it dragged the State down
into the sphere of production and would have preferred to make the State itself
into some gigantic economic machinery, with the result that every creative per-
sonality and every self-sufficiency in the economy would have been destroyed.”32
In the interim, National Socialism has in fact proven to stifle the very private
initiative it extols. Its propaganda vows to sanctify the family and protect it from
destruction at the hands of Marxism; its actions are dictated by the desire for
total power and must therefore undermine any entity like the family. The eradi-
cation of the individual and the requisitioning of youth through the Party and
the state run directly contrary to the cult of the family which has brought the
petit-bourgeois masses to National Socialism. Moreover, the regime does not
hesitate for a moment to intervene in the intimacy of the home. A recent deci-
sion of the chancery court in Frankfurt-Höchst, which was applauded by the
magazine Deutsches Recht, denied a divorced mother custody of her two chil-
dren “because she had registered the son in a boarding school and wanted the
daughter to have a convent education.”33 Another recent verdict of a German
court states that “derogatory remarks about Party leaders made in the family
circle are to be considered public insults.”34 It is telling that, in the same edition
of Kulturkampf, mention is made of an attempt by the SS magazine Das
Schwarze Korps to justify male infidelity on biological grounds.* Marriage ceases
to be an arcanum, and time spent inside four walls is like sitting on the street.
The independent existence of societal reality not only destines the dictator-
ships to incessant changes of direction in their actions but also frequently com-
pels them to decide upon ever differing ways to propagandize one and the same
action. Contents mean nothing, and if propaganda makes no impression with

* {This weekly newspaper was first published in March 1936 and was required reading for members of the
SS. The print run increased from an initial 70,000 to approximately 750,000 by 1944, making it the sec-
ond largest political weekly of the Third Reich.}
96 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

one motif, it will deliver a second and third in its place. “Obviously there is no
discussion,” Goebbels explains in an interview published by the Berliner Börsen-
Zeitung on 5 December 1937, “about whether our politics is right or wrong; but
we often think long and hard about whether the arguments we put forward are
right and compelling enough for our political purposes. Once we have set a
political course, we never depart from that line. But if we see that a policy we
deem right has not sufficiently taken root in the people, then we make sure we
improve the arguments that speak in its favour.”35 A method applied on a large
and small scale. Initially, in order to underpin its anti-church political propa-
ganda, the National Socialist regime maintained that the churches were sowing
the seeds of confessional discord; now that the churches have united to form a
defensive front, the sole aim of propaganda in the interests of anti-church policy
is once again to incite the confessions against each other. In an article in the
Nationalsozialistischen Monatshefte of July 1937 dedicated to the Oxford Con-
ference of World Churches, the Protestant churches are urged, finally to recog-
nize the danger posed by the Catholic church.36 Each phase of the struggle calls
for a change of position. Josef Grohé,* Gauleiter and state councillor in Cologne,
writing in the Westdeutschen Beobachter,37 has no scruples in restoring to
Charlemagne—whom the propaganda has liked to dub “Saxon butcher”—the
epithet of Greatness because it is useful at this moment to denounce the Aachen
Pilgrimage of 1937 as a political demonstration and let Emperor Charles the
Great appear as the true head of Christendom.38 Indeed, not content with con-
stantly changing its fixations, propaganda takes each fixation and extracts from
it further contrasting meanings. Depending upon whether security needs are
used to justify French or German armament, they are one minute decried as the
contemptible product of bourgeois fear, the next hailed as the expression of a
peaceful nation’s will for self-preservation.
But even assuming the impossible, namely, that societal reality is inherently
without contradiction and that the totalitarian regime need not therefore aban-
don a single item of propaganda content in the course of its own unfolding, even
then propaganda (inasmuch as it sets the contents) would still not have won the
game. For, since the will to power, which the dictatorships repress, stems from a
nihilistic sensibility {Gesinnung}, it must in its realization become embroiled in
antinomies. The will to power strives for total rule and represents nothingness

* {Josef Grohé (1902–1987) joined the National Socialist Party in 1922 and held various offices and posi-
tions in and around his native Cologne. In 1928 he was imprisoned for hate speech in an article for the
Westdeutscher Beobachter. He served as a functionary within the party up until 1945. After the war, and a
four-and-a-half-year prison sentence, he worked in the toy industry.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 97

{das Nichts}: the consequence of this is that it comes into conflict with its own
totalizing claims. In the interest of power per se, Fascism and National Social-
ism have to suppress the spontaneity of the mind {geistig} which, if given free
rein, exposes the illusion that sustains them both; and yet, without lifting the
controls on this spontaneity, they cannot achieve power per se. An intractable
dilemma: the dictatorships lay claim to absolute power, the very pursuance of
which would call precisely their power into question. Thus, nihilism, if it enters
the world, is taken to the point of absurdity; like the devil of Grimms’ fairy tale
swindled by the crafty farmer.*
In all areas of spontaneity of the mind {geistig}, the totalitarian dictatorship
is thwarted by its own imperialism. In the interests of power, National Socialism
endeavours to throttle religious freedoms completely; but for these very same
interests, it must recognize them. If the churches are not tolerated, National
Socialism calls into play spiritual {geistig} resistance, which cannot be over-
come—at least not through propaganda. If, on the other hand, the churches are
left unhindered, then National Socialism might gain their support, but be
obliged to endure the withdrawal from its influence of a spiritual-intellectual
{geistig} sphere capable of shattering the pseudo-reality at any time. This conflict
is all the more intractable since its only possible removal would consist in the
regime as it were absorbing the churches—a solution ruled out by its own irra-
tionality. Hence the ambivalence of National Socialist church policy, its fluctua-
tions clearly carrying over into propaganda. All that remains is for the regime to
resort to compromise, though this compromises the absoluteness of power. In
the domain of art, as in culture in general, the same antinomy has a disruptive
effect. On the basis of the principle of totality, the dictatorships must prescribe
the direction of artistic and cultural works; if, however, these become a variable
of pure power, then the preconditions for their emergence no longer apply and
they can at best be considered achievements within the pseudo-reality. Con-
trolled art is wooden iron {Gesteuerte Kunst ist hölzernes Eisen}. “This general
mobilization of art and the artistic powers of the nation for the benefit of
the Volk,” remarks Wernert, “has a weakness. This is not lost on the men of the
hour. They have seen that there was an antinomy between the duties imposed on
the artist and the freedom essential to any creative work of art worthy of the
name. They have tried to find a solution, mainly simply by contesting that such
an antimony existed.”39 Goebbels himself recognises the antinomy in order to
repudiate it. “If liberalism started out from the individual and positioned the

* {The reference here is to the tale “The Peasant and the Devil” (“Der Bauer und der Teufel”) in which a
cunning farmer twice outwits the Devil.}
98 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

single human being at the centre of all things,” he declares, “then we have
replaced individual with Volk and single human beings with Gemeinschaft.”
Goebbels is speaking to filmmakers at the opening of the Chamber of Culture
{Reichskulturkammer} on November 15, 1933, and his words chime with his
other explanations cited above: “And, of course, the freedom of the individual
had to be limited inasmuch as it conflicted with or contradicted the freedom of
the nation. This is not a restriction of the concept of freedom per se. Exaggerat-
ing the freedom of the individual means jeopardizing or even seriously endan-
gering the freedom of the Volk. Thus, the limits of the concept of individual
freedom abut upon those of the freedom of the Volk.”40 Since, in the meantime,
the regime is not so much limiting individual freedom as abolishing it
altogether—not in the interests of the freedom of the Volk, but for the sake of
the National Socialist power apparatus, this argumentation merely glosses over
the conflict rather than eliminating it. The antithesis coined by Goebbels in 1932
follows the same line: “Culture is there to serve the soul of the Volk, not poison
it.”41 But culture is one with the life process of the Volk, and by contemplating
the possibility that the soul could be poisoned by culture, Goebbels announces
unequivocally that he understands culture as various pseudo-cultural events
serving to uphold the National Socialist fiction of the Volk. What is more, belit-
tling artistic and cultural life, as is the wont of the dictatorships, strikingly con-
firms the sense that the conflict between the claims of the mind {Geist} and
those of power per se cannot be resolved. More ominously for power itself, this
conflict comes to a head in the sphere of knowledge. Imbued with the significant
conviction that freedom of scientific inquiry and totalitarian propaganda are
mutually exclusive, the dictatorships do everything to bring schools and univer-
sities into line. Speaking at the assembly of the National Socialist Teachers’ Fed-
eration [Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund, NSLB] in Frankfurt on 5
August 1934,* Reichsamtsleiter and State Minister Schemm† assures his audi-
ence that “in Germany’s educational life today, there is no schoolwork and no
science, no English, French or Greek, no mathematics, geography and no history
that is not focused on a single goal, and that is Germany and its future.”42 The
more divergences appear in the content of propaganda, the more the regime has
to fear from spontaneous acts of knowledge; the pressure on science must

* {This association of National Socialist teachers grew enormously following the 1933 seizure of power
(from approximately 12,000 to 250,000 members). However, its influence on educational policy remained
limited.}
† {Hans Schemm (1891–1935) was a teacher in Bayreuth and joined the party in 1923. In 1928 he was elected
to the Bavarian Assembly (Landtag) and founded the NSLB in 1929. Involved in numerous publications,
including setting up a newspaper, he joined the SA and became Bavarian minister of culture in 1933. He
was killed in a plane crash.}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 99

therefore increase steadily over time. Only at a relatively late stage of the devel-
opment is an agreement reached between Reichsminister Rust* of the Ministry
for Science, Education, and Teaching {Reichsminister für Wissenschaft, Erzie-
hung, und Unterricht} and Reichsleiter Bouhler, chair of the Official Party
Inspection Commission for the Protection of National Socialist Literature {Par-
teiamtliche Prüfungskommission zum Schutze des nationalsozialistischen
Schrifttums} to ensure the supervision of science in such a way that amounts to
its total prescription.† The official rationale is that experience has shown the
necessity of bringing scientific literature—as far as it deals with, or touches
upon, questions of political worldview—broadly into line with National Social-
ist literature policy.43 However, by gaining power over science, the totalitarian
regime loses power itself, since scientific enquiry is bound to waste away if it
cannot move freely and its decline will in turn limit the perfecting of the power
apparatus desired by the regime. Already today, the military is openly critical of
the training of new recruits; the latter leave much to be desired—not only in the
humanities, but also in technical subjects. And so it even comes about that an
official voice sometimes speaks out in favour of science; this means that propa-
ganda begins to waver between the implementation and the suppression of its
own totalitarian claims. As in its dealings with the churches, so too with sci-
ence: the regime is reliant on compromise.
The continuing development of the totalitarian system therefore brings with
it the dynamization of the contents of propaganda. Everywhere there are diver-
gences demanding to be suppressed, vulnerable positions crying out to be cov-
ered, so that the task of propaganda visibly becomes nothing more than ordering
ad hoc mobilizations of motifs and montages of ideas hither and thither like
squadrons. During the mass trials of Catholic priests, it is noted that the charges
of immorality are not firing up the public enough and immediately the emphasis

* {Bernhard Rust (1883–1945) joined the National Socialist Party in 1925 and, after losing his teaching
position in 1930, entered politics. He oversaw the dismissal of thousands of teachers and academics on
account of their political views and backgrounds. He sought to integrate Nazi ideology into the curricu-
lum. His influence waned after 1936. He committed suicide on the day of the German capitulation.}
† {Philipp Bouhler (1899–1945) worked on the Völkischer Beobachter from 1921 and joined the National
Socialist Party in 1922. He became a leading Nazi functionary and in 1933 achieved the position of
Reichsleiter, the second highest rank in the party. A key figure in Hitler’s central office, he was given over-
sight of cultural affairs and became chair of the Official Party Inspection Commission for the Protection
of National Socialist Literature. From 1939, with Karl Brandt, he planned and coordinated the Aktion T4
program involving the mass killing of disabled people and psychiatric patients and the “special treatment”
(Sonderbehandlung) program of mass murder in the concentration camps. He committed suicide after his
arrest in 1945.}
10 0 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

is shifted to the accusation of treason.* Women in the workforce were once

frowned upon, but a shortage of labor to keep pace with armament makes it
necessary to resort to them again and promptly assert that homage has never
been paid to any “Gretchen ideal” of German women. A shifting of convictions
which gathers pace inexorably. For one thing, the formation of the pseudo-
reality does not master the actual societal reality, but instead transforms it into
a confused mishmash of conflicting interests and needs; for another, the antin-
omies in which the nihilistic will to power embroils itself become ever more
apparent. The image presented by propaganda moves closer and closer to the
fencer in the fairy tale who brandishes his sword with lightning speed to fend
off raindrops.† The reproach levelled at science by National Socialism—that it
professes unbridled relativism—can therefore more rightly be aimed at fully-
fledged totalitarian propaganda itself. The result is that propaganda, inasmuch
as it sets certain contents, must wear out. The totalitarian mobilization of con-
victions leads to the total liquidation of them all. The degree to which these are
devalued emerges in the section Silone appends to his description detailed above
of the radio transmission of a Mussolini speech: “Discussion is impossible for
Fascism.”44

IV.

The wearing out of the contents of propaganda by no means spells the end for
totalitarian propaganda overall. Due to the increasing frequency of contradic-
tions between the acts of the regime, between its acts and the assertions {Setzun-
gen} of its propaganda, and between these assertions themselves, the convictions
promulgated by propaganda have worn so thin that they no longer serve to
uphold the pseudo-reality—and this despite the unbridled implementation of
terror and the artificial creation of the masses. In response, the propaganda
changes direction, plotting a course which will allow it to hold on to the masses
after all. Unable to sustain an effect by means of particular contents, propaganda
withdraws from those contents. Material propaganda turns into formal propa-
ganda; the onus is not on the content, but on the manner of its presentation. The

* {The persecution of (mainly Catholic) clergy, accusing them of homosexuality, began in earnest in 1935
and reached its high point in 1938, when several thousand priests and other religious figures were con-
demned in show trials.}
† {A reference to Grimms’ fairy tale “The Three Brothers.”}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 101

movement itself must become the substance—this goes for National Socialism
as well as for Fascism. According to a statement by Krieck, cited above,45
National Socialist agitators do not entice with intellectual proofs and argu-
ments, but rather seduce with the “primordial energy of rhythm.”46 In fact,
rhythmic formations gain the upper hand as, and to the extent that, the swarm
of previous promises loses its value. Shocks are orchestrated in random material
to prevent any respite from the tension; waves of propaganda are sent out and, as
required, either build steadily or swiftly ebb away; and, in all cases, care is taken
to coordinate tempi to good effect. These occurrences are lent propagandist sig-
nificance by the rhythmic quality of the course they take: the skillful sequencing
of quiet and action, of push and pull. If the proclamation of content, of substan-
tive and attractive goals, was once decisive, now the appeal to the psycho-physical
state associated with the pseudo-reality is predominantly through form—the
form in which the propaganda accomplishes the requisite acts and resolutions.
The further this process advances, the more the nihilism with which the propa-
ganda handles all convictions reveals itself, of course, and the more undisguised
is the eruption of the will to power, whose product is propaganda. Still, the “pri-
mordial energy of rhythm” could hardly provide lasting compensation for the
destruction of the contents of propaganda if the propaganda didn’t also succeed
in making people forget about its own vacuity by stamping the now transparent
will to power as the content itself. Whilst, at the beginning of their careers and
in the interests of propaganda, National Socialism and Fascism must conceal
that they seek nothing but power, they are now, inversely, likewise in the inter-
ests of propaganda, obliged to make power per se appear as the epitome of all
that is desirable. The impulse to power, which engenders the totalitarian move-
ments and drives them to monopoly capitalism, not only becomes manifest in
this phase of development, but also and of necessity assumes the function of its
devalued masquerades. The idea of class equality has vanished; what remains is
the notion of the abundance of power as the central propagandist motif. In
accordance with this theoretical conclusion, Heiden remarks: “If the strength of
the dictatorship essentially consisted from its inception in the agreement of
wide strata of the Volk and in the resignation of equally wide strata, then by the
beginning of 1937 its strength consists in sheer power and in the absence of
actual political opinion.”47 “Domination for its own sake,” he also writes, “is the
content of the dictatorship. Where the latter appears to engage in argumenta-
tion, persuasion, even logic, it is only ever an attempt to bolster domination by
ostensibly intellectual means. [. . .] The power of persuasion at their rallies
flows, not from the conclusiveness of what is said, but from the display of their
power in having the last word.”48 Doubtless, the totalitarian regime uses every
10 2 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

opportunity to display its power and, through the suggestive effect of such
events, to replace any of its ideational montages which have expired. Just as pro-
paganda uses the aesthetic magic of the well-organized power apparatus, so it
also benefits from the sheen of military pomp. It is no coincidence that the army
is summoned to all major political events; aircraft and tank parades, as means of
publicity, help the lamest argument back onto its feet and still weave a seductive
shimmer around nothingness. Such displays may again and again disguise the
nihilist nature of the totalitarian claim to power, but they do not present to their
masses the creditworthiness which alone would enable that claim to replace the
worn-out contents of propaganda. The masses directly subjected to propaganda
will at most give credit to the National Socialist and Fascist claim to power if it
gains outward recognition. Indeed, nations in the economic situation of Ger-
many and Italy—nations, moreover, whose unification has taken place compara-
tively recently—will function particularly willingly if such a claim appears to be
identical with that of safeguarding and augmenting national standing. Since pro-
paganda is shrinking while National Socialist and Fascist domination is consoli-
dating, and since the shrinking process threatens to cancel out organizational
consolidation, striving for imperialist goals is by no means at the discretion of
the dictatorships; rather, they would perish along with their propaganda if they
did not live out their will to power in the form of expansionism. In the interests
of its own continued existence, upon which the existence of the entire regime
depends, totalitarian propaganda must give ever greater emphasis to foreign
policy.
This is not to say that propaganda hasn’t been working on foreign policy
material already from the days of the seizure of power, nor that it would refrain
from inflammatory slogans to campaign for the National Socialist and Fascist
politics of conquest. Corresponding in propaganda terms to Mussolini’s prole-
tarian nations, Hitler’s words attacking the Bolshevization of Europe do so in
the name of race and blood, laying claim to the incorporation of ethnic German
minorities. Such assertions {Setzungen} seek to arouse sympathetic masses in
the most varied countries and to create a mood of civil war; they indisputably
owe a part of their effect to the terror which the dictatorships bring to bear on
international public opinion through the extreme escalation of the potential for
war. German armament and the second four-year plan are not least acts of world
propaganda. “Ultimately,” writes Priester, “the autarkic programme is meant to
ease the situation in foreign policy and to move future negotiating partners
towards the greatest possible concessions in colonial and trade questions.”49
Added to this comes the use of all remaining means of propaganda in the
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 10 3

interests of foreign policy: vibrations are sent rippling through the international
public, fixating it on promulgated slogans; relentless excitement is created so
that the tragic effect of these slogans doesn’t abate. In time, world propaganda
undergoes the same process as domestic propaganda. Gradually, in the interests
of the dictatorships’ expansionist drive, propaganda must overturn the very
watchwords it proclaimed itself because otherwise it would be unable to with-
stand the heterogenous situations evoked by the independent existence of for-
eign policy reality. Divergences and contradictions are the consequence. Tactical
adaptation? But when the strategic goal is no less than world domination, every-
thing that otherwise counts as substance falls within the sphere of the tactical.
The course of Italian foreign policy is reminiscent of a temperature curve. And if
National Socialist colonial propaganda believes that momentarily it can achieve
nothing with the thesis “people without space” {Volk ohne Raum}, then it foists
in its place the argument that what’s needed is more space and more people.* The
propaganda montages are constantly in flux, unless constancy in international
relations necessitates their provisional retention. And through both their wear-
ing out and the acts in which they culminate, what reveals itself—ever more
unmistakeably—is the imperialism from which they stem. Subsequent to the
declaration in the autumn of 1936 that Germany and Italy will not tolerate the
establishment of a Bolshevist stronghold in Spain, events take place which con-
clusively show that the anti-Bolshevism of the dictatorships is not so much the
expression of a Platonic ethos but rather represents the propagandist justifica-
tion of armed intervention. Hitler’s solemn renunciation of all claims to South
Tyrol proves unequivocally that the dogma of all Germans belonging to the
people as a whole {Volksganze} is only intended to camouflage the National
Socialist will to conquer. Dogma is toppled, imperialism remains. Gradually
world propaganda assumes a formal character; in any case it increasingly bur-
dens the necessity or the fact of the increase in power per se. Hitler’s Königsberg
address, calling the people to the first greater German plebiscite on 10 April 1938,
ends with: “On this day I will be the Führer of the greatest army in world history
because when, on this 10th day of April, I place my ballot in the ballot box, I
know: Behind me come 50 million, all of whom know only my rallying cry: One
people and one Reich, Germany!”50
Although these words invariably exploit associations with the conquest of
former German territories, the emphasis is quite clearly more on winning power.

* {Originally the title of a 1926 Hans Grimm novel, this became a key slogan of National Socialist propa-
ganda and part of their manifesto.}
104 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

Portraying the electorate as the greatest army of world history is a singularly

striking admission that National Socialism consists entirely in striving for the
greatest possible power apparatus. But the use of such an image at these out-
standing moments also betrays that undisguised imperialism is in fact becoming
the decisive propaganda content. Totalitarian propaganda has no other choice:
it must live on conquests, but it is dying. Its art consists now more in supplying
renewed energy with the injection of imperialist motifs. War has been described
as the recourse of dictatorships which fail internally. But war is an extreme case
and, in the event of difficulties at home, at least the totalitarian regime has many
propagandist tools of a foreign policy nature at its disposal; though it may push
on towards war all the same and war may be its ultima ratio. Through the rhyth-
mic gradations of its acts and resolutions, world propaganda can offset the loss
of tension due to the decline hitherto of domestic propaganda, and, if psycho-
physical upheaval is called for, is never at a loss for ways to trigger shocks; not to
mention that the slightest increase in external prestige contributes to strength-
ening the pseudo-reality, in which nothing appears quite as real as prestige itself.
To be sure, the National Socialist colonial program provides for a string of
functions which initially don’t even concern the colonies. By shifting imperial-
ism into the centre, the dictatorships not only find a replacement in the shape of
world propaganda for home propaganda as it expires, but also directly fan the
flames of the latter; for, as has been seen, an expansionist politics needs extensive
propagandist preparations within the sphere of influence {Machtbereich} of the
dictatorships themselves. In the end, world and domestic propaganda interlock
so tightly that every foreign policy action at the same time satisfies inner propa-
ganda needs and every domestic action seeks to serve the purposes of outward-
looking propaganda. Fully corresponding totalitarian propaganda is of necessity
propaganda on a world scale.
Looking at the play of this propaganda: blindly it whirls and swirls every-
thing that appears fixed, since only by distorting and confusing the contents
which it unleashed is it able to achieve total influence over opinion, the realiza-
tion of which is a condition of its total claim to power. In the first phase, totali-
tarian propaganda becomes a technique for exciting the masses, no matter what
methods are used. Up is down and down is up. Instead of ideologically transfig-
uring its colonial demands according to familiar patterns, National Socialist
propaganda is in the habit of accounting for these demands with overt reference
to economic interests. It says calico and means God*—the God who inspires

* {In section A of the manuscript, Kracauer approximates Theodor Fontane’s comment: “When they, the
English say Christ, and mean cotton.”}
 Tota li tari an Propagan da m 105

Mussolini’s vision of the Mediterranean and Hitler’s campaign to the southeast.

Behind the tumult of totalitarian propaganda, a death’s-head appears.51

Translated by Bernadette Boyle and Graeme Gilloch

Notes

1. [Joseph Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen (Oldenburg: Stalling, 1933), 140.]

2. [Joseph Goebbels, statement to the press on the establishment of the Reich Minis-
try for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Berlin, March 3, 1933, quoted in
Deutsche Geschichte 1933–1945: Dokumente zur Innen- und Außenpolitik, ed. Wolf-
gang Michalka (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1992), 78f.]
3. [Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen, 136.]
4. [Konrad Heiden, Adolf Hitler, vol. 2 (Zürich: Europa Verlag, 1937), 133.]
5. [Ignazio Silone, Der Fascismus: Seine Entstehung und seine Entwicklung (Zürich:
Europa Verlag, 1934), 179.]
6. [Hans Frank, Nationalsozialistisches Handbuch für Recht und Gesetzgebung,
2nd ed. (Munich: F. Eher, 1935), 13.]
7. [Ernst Rudolf Huber, Verfassungsrecht des Grossdeutschen Reiches (Hamburg: Han-
seatische Verlagsanstalt, 1939), 360.]
8. [Huber, Verfassungsrecht, 360.]
9. [Silone, Der Fascismus, 271.]
10. [Silone, 271.]
11. {Kracauer refers here to a passage in section E of this essay, which can be found
here: Siegfried Kracauer, Werke in neun Bänden, vol. 2.2, Studien zu Massenmedien
und Propaganda, ed. Christian Fleck and Bernd Stiegler (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 2012), 81.}
12. [Angelica Balabanoff, Wesen und Werdegang des italienischen Faschismus (Vienna:
Hess/Verlag, 1931), 62.]
13. [Robert Ley at the German Labor Front rally in Berlin to mark the founding of the
culture and leisure organization Kraft durch Freude (KdF) on November 27, 1933,
quoted in Der nationalsozialistische Staat, ed. Walther Gehl (Breslau: Hirt,
1933/34), 90.]
14. [Robert Ley, Durchbruch der sozialen Ehre (Berlin: Mehden-Verlag, 1937), 34.]
15. [Ley, Durchbruch, 34.]
16. [Ley, 43.]
17. [Erich Wernert, L’art dans le IIIe Reich (Paris: Paul Hartmann, 1936), 112.]
18. [Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen, 119.]
19. [This statement from Heinrich Schöne is found only in Willi Münzenberg, Propa-
ganda als Waffe (Paris: Éditions du Carrefour, 1937), 273.]
20. [Silone, Der Fascismus, 266.]
21. [Heiden, Adolf Hitler, vol. 2, 212.]
22. [Joseph Goebbels, Kampf um Berlin, vol. 1 (Munich: F. Eher, 1935), 91.]
10 6 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

23. [Hans Erich Priester, Das deutsche Wirtschaftswunder (Amsterdam: Querido,

1936), 269.]
24. [Priester, Das deutsche Wirtschaftswunder, 323.]
25. [Silone, Der Fascismus, 204.]
26. [Max Domarus, ed., Hitler: Reden und Proklamationen, Vol. 1: 1932–1945 (Vienna:
Löwit, 1973), 367.]
27. [Heiden, Adolf Hitler, vol. 2, 150.]
28. [Silone, Der Fascismus, 175.]
29. [Joseph Goebbels, rally in Berlin Sports Palace, May 11, 1934, quoted in Deutsches
Reich 1933–1937, Vol. 1: Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden
durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland, 1933–1945 (Munich: Oldenbourg,
2008), 337.]
30. [Joseph Goebbels, speech at party rally, Essen, June 25, 1934, quoted in Gehl, ed.,
Der nationalsozialistische Staat, 73.]
31. [Benedict Schmittmann, “Das Mittelstandsproblem im Dritten Reich,” in Rosi
Karfiol, Mittelstandsprobleme, vol. 4, Kölner Sozialpolitische Studien, ed. Benedict
Schmittmann (Cologne: Reich und Heimat Verlag, 1934), 123.]
32. [Gottfried Feder, writing in the Völkische Beobachter, January 4, 1934, quoted in
Gehl, ed., Der nationalsozialistische Staat, 74–76, 75.]
33. Kulturkampf: Berichte aus dem Dritten Reich, no. 75, November 29, 1937.
34. Kulturkampf, no. 74, November 18, 1937.
35. Kulturkampf, no. 76, December 8, 1937. [Goebbels in an interview for the Berliner
Börsenzeitung, December 5, 1937.]
36. Kulturkampf, no. 62, July 19, 1937.
37. [Josef Grohé, “Zur Aachner Heiligtumsfahrt,” Westdeutscher Beobachter, July 24,
1937.]
38. Kulturkampf, no. 63, July 28, 1937.
39. [Wernert, L’art dans le IIIe Reich, 31f.]
40. [Joseph Goebbels, speech on the opening of the Reich Chamber of Culture in Ber-
lin, November 15, 1933, quoted in Helmut Heiber, ed., Goebbels-Reden, Vol.1: 1932–
1939 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1971), 133–141, 134.]
41. [Goebbels, Revolution der Deutschen, 120.]
42. [NSDAP/Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund, ed., Hans Schemm spricht: Seine
Reden und sein Werk (Gauverlag Bayerische Ostmark, 1941), 223.]
43. Cf. Kulturkampf, no. 62, July 19, 1937.
44. [Reference cannot be determined with certainty.]
45. [Kracauer, Werke, 2.2, 103.] {TP, 91.}
46. [Ernst Krieck, Nationalpolitische Erziehung (Leipzig: Armanen-Verlag, 1937), 38.]
47. [Heiden, Adolf Hitler, vol. 2, 148.]
48. [Heiden, 62.]
49. [Priester, Das deutsche Wirtschaftswunder, 269.]
50. [Adolf Hitler, speech in Königsberg, March 25, 1938, proclaiming Reichstag elec-
tion on April 10, 1938, quoted in Domarus, ed., Hitler, 837. Kracauer also cites Ber-
liner Tageblatt of March 27, 1938, nos. 145–46.]
51. [Kracauer, Werke 2.2, 17.] {TP, 11.}
 3
Abridged Restricted Schema

8th July {1937}

1. The role of the superstructure

2. Postwar situation in Germany and Italy:
a) Democracy not self-evident: therefore relationship between democracy
and Bolshevism sensed
b) Self-elaboration possible within democratic frame
3. The Fascist Führer type
a) Monstrosities of War
b) Social Contingency
c) Mentality [preceded by:] Dependence on the army
d) Power of the Nation, for this it must be unified.
(Interests of the imperialistic monopoly capitalism of the dominant
class,)
(Interests of the people (and/or the state) people’s front (enemy of the
state)
4. How does the clique judge the political superstructure?
It sees the slogans of the ideologies of the parties as fixed and frozen
Strongest concept: socialism, this as in the possession of the SPD and KPD
5. Possibility for the clique: to seize at the point of a bayonet: this contradicted
by the experience of the war (H[itler]’s war propaganda) and the experience
of the SPD
Thus propaganda: its content, mass-stimulating concepts torn from their
underground realm
10 8 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

6. What the task of propaganda reveals about its essence

a) Regression
b) Totality
c) Criterium: success alone
α Movement and actualism
ß Lie = Cynicism
7. Pre-given susceptibility to Fascist propaganda
a) Crisis in general
b) Middle class
c) The unemployed
d) Youth
But not overly decisive: it concerns precisely the dissolution of strata,
whose existence rigidity increases.1
Goal: total influence of opinion as such
8. Terror
9. The production of the masses*
10. Functioning of propaganda. This is inherent in the regime. It cannot stop.
Conquest of contradictions.
What is propaganda, what action.

Translated by Bernadette Boyle, Graeme Gilloch, and Jaeho Kang

Note

1. [8 and 9 are connected by a preceding curved bracket.]

* {The meaning of the original is unclear here. This is a literal translation of “deren Bestand Verfestigung
steigt.”}
 4
Schemata

5, 6, 7 July 37
I. The role of the superstructure.
You learn nothing if you only listen to the ideology of the leaders. But
you also learn nothing if do not pay attention to it at all and turn your
back on things altogether. (Petit bourgeois paradise (. . .) see Horkheimer)*
In the long run it is about what happens in the sphere of the
superstructure.
II. Core leadership of National Socialism and Fascism only seen sociologi-
cally. On the concept of the adventurer. His mentality. (Power:)1
III. The situation, seen sociologically: (democratic character has not been able
to establish itself).
Post war:
Class struggle: the semblance of democracy, capitalism stronger than
denatured socialism. Most important situational factor: the rigidity {Fixi-
ertheit}, the mass-mobilizing idea in heterogeneous parties.† Nothing

* {Kracauer’s reference to Horkheimer here demonstrates that his interest in Horkheimer’s analysis of the
sociohistorical roots and social psychological mechanisms of authoritarianism in modern capitalist soci-
eties was genuine, not merely perfunctory.}
† {Kracauer is describing a shift in party affiliation in the latter half of the Weimar Republic, which has
been documented by more recent historians of the period. In the early and especially the middle phase of
the Weimar Republic, the party system became very fragmented and based on narrow self-interest. The
Nazis succeeded in getting many people to abandon these parties and to join a populist “Volkspartei” that
overcome this fragmentation and rigidity. See, for example, Peter Fritzsche, Germans Into Nazis (Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 172–214.}
110 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

in-between. Socialism as the mass-mobilizing idea kat exochen {par excel-

lence} in the possession of the SPD and KPD.
IV. Objectives of Fascism and National Socialism:
Not socialism, not capitalism, but class peace, i.e. taking the status quo
in hand as it is. (Trustees!) For the purpose of national power (= imperial-
ist monopoly capitalism). Therefore: not classlessness but the appearance
of classlessness.
Hitler says: Only when the nation is in power can the worker thrive.
The following overarching motif {Motivik} is true: Only when the work-
ing people are satisfied, will National Socialist power succeed.
V. The necessity to mobilize, to convince the masses, does not yet follow from
this. One could. In Italy force sits first on the bayonet. But, on the other
hand, war experience and experience with people shows the objectives of
socialist propaganda. Therefore, one must already use the mass-mobilizing
ideas.
Task: Go to the masses! i.e. prise the mass-mobilizing ideas away from
their foundation: “Nation,” “Socialism.” These ideas accepted like images
{Bilder}, not analyzed. Thus: entrenched mass-mobilizing ideas are set in
motion and become more fluid: this is propaganda in the sense of counter-
reformation. Task of Fascist propaganda, which corresponds to a particu-
lar historical situation.
VI. Given the image-like manner {Bildhaftigkeit} with which “Socialism” is
understood, and given the necessity of propaganda, it follows for the char-
acter of the latter that:
1) it means the same as its regressus, i.e., anti-liberal, anti-Marxist (Roman
Orion for regressus of course dialectical)2
2) it must lay claim to totality (in every sense: uniformity, not a single
impulse left to itself)
3) its criterion is not coherence, but only success, for this reason it seeks
to adapt successfully to every situation. (Controlling the basis: people
or state) Therefore Fascism defined as a “movement.” Actualism {Aktu-
alismus} (. . .) with ambivalence fixed or resolutions: ruling class, prop-
erty (. . .) therefore, in addition: deceit and cynicism (removes also the
regressus).* Propaganda as art (National Socialist propaganda = the
influence of opinion as such)

* {The meaning of some of these fragments is unclear in the original German. In such cases we provide a
literal translation.}
 Schem ata m 111

VII. How can Fascist propaganda be implemented? Begin here by studying (in
the period of the conquest of power) the pre-existing susceptibility for it in
the social body. Schema of propaganda: nation—socialism—promise of
happiness. Crisis creates work in many places.
Distinguish especially middle classes / unemployed / youth.
Conclusion: of this section: the inclusion of individual social strata
{Schichten} is not decisive—what we are dealing with here is also a petit-
bourgeois movement. But the most essential task of this propaganda is
precisely the dissolution of social strata, the total influence of opinion
itself. So, again: How can Fascist propaganda be implemented?
VIII. The use of force {Gewalt}, more precisely: of terror. For Mussolini’s Arditi,
very characteristic that Hitler views the SPD as terror.3
1) Force as regression
2) Force strengthens the semblance, makes it real;
Here: Terror is always exercised by the superior power: not out of cow-
ardice, but because otherwise there would be no successful ignition.
Terror is denied, because taboo.
Terror integrates into the regime: its function: to create fear. The con-
stant pressure of fear—decisive condition of the liquidation of all concepts
and their largely arbitrary implementation. [Preceded by:] Fear = hysteria.
IX. The means of changing human beings to increase their receptivity. The
artificial production of the mass, in which individuals find themselves in a
hypnotic state.
Hitler on this: a classic of mass technique
The art of mass images {Massenbildkunst}
[Preceded by:] Stupefication {Betäubung}! The speech! Radio
(The lack of culture proves that it is not about the people. Nothing
blossoms here)
[Preceded by:] Here also: aesthetic effect.
“Mass” in the socialist sense.
Concluding formulation: In the space staked out by terror, concepts
are set in motion on the debris of concepts. In order to be injected into the
masses in the appropriate manner . . .
X. The functioning of propaganda: propaganda is not an incidental aspect of
the regime but intrinsic to it.4 After the seizure of power, it really takes
hold, since the antagonistic play of social forces is by no means eliminated;
{this antagonism} must therefore be continuously concealed lest it run riot
and explode “classlessness.”
Fact: that the Fascism of the ruling class is different.
112 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

That it—pro gress*—realizes the neutral economy.

Contradictions:
Autocracy—export necessity
Family—state youth
Church—Volk/leader
Worker—Entrepreneur
[Like] a motorized troop, the propaganda wave is sent everywhere,
where cracks are to be plastered over. Main motif of propaganda: never
leave the people alone!
Important! Contradictions in the propaganda itself, but these generate
shocks and fear—are therefore useful.
Chaos ensues, since no one knows what is propaganda and what action.
Who serves whom? [Line added here to refer to:] Meyrowitz†
a) National Socialism used to oppose the relativism of science. Today sci-
ence opposes the relativization of National Socialism. (But a bourgeois
consciousness is forming)
b) Class is released from caste
c) Capital must make sacrifices in order to preserve itself [preceded by:]
9th July.
d) Against everything that the world contains: thus, against churches,
against monisms.
e) Crimes against morality {Sittlichkeitsverbrechen}. Discontinued after a
series of trials, since eroticism was not effective, and continued with
new series of criminal trials for treason.

Translated by Bernadette Boyle, Graeme Gilloch, and Jaeho Kang

Notes

1. [There follow after “Power” {Macht} a number of symbols that cannot be deci-
phered with certainty.]
2. [Römischer Orion für Regressus natürlich dialektisch: uncertain reading.]
3. [ansieht: uncertain reading.]
4. [abgewandtes {incidental}: uncertain reading.]

* {Space in “pro gress” here is present in the original text.}

† {Kracauer is probably referring here to Henri Meyrowitz, who was born in Darmstadt in 1909, studied
law at the University of Frankfurt, and moved to Paris in 1933. He was the author of numerous books and
articles on the law of armed conflicts.}
 5
Disposition

[At the top of the page Kracauer records a “Titulary” of the planned essay/book:]
Titulary:
Total Propaganda

A. The genesis of total propaganda

B. The character of total propaganda
C. The method of total propaganda
D. Total propaganda on the way to power
E. Total propaganda as instrument of power

DISPOSITION

10, 11, 12, 13 July 1937

Total Propaganda

A.
Genesis of Totalitarian Propaganda

I. The independent life of mental {seelischen} structures, concepts, etc.* Their

economic classification a new problem.

* {The underlining throughout this text appears in the original.}

114 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

II. The founders of total dictatorships. Identification of the core troops

(demobilized officers, the déclassé, bohemians, adventurers). They are
excrescences of war. About the direct post war situation in Germany and
Italy: national humiliation, ruination of the economic and social organ-
ism; defeat of the socialist upsurge. This situation and the war induced
psychological {seelischen} structure of the core troops produce the men-
tality and objectives of the totalitarian type: nation and/or people as the
ultimate entity. Enhancement of the national power apparatus. Dream
of unlimited expansion of power of the nation (= people = people’s front)
and/or the state, the communities of the people {Volksgruppen} . . . In
order to achieve this power once again, the people must be unified.
(Interesting Strasser’s dictum: first fight for power, then German social-
ism = national unity; de facto vice versa: first German unity, then win
power. The extent to which this comes from the army demonstrates the
sympathy of the army for the fascist type. Yoking the fascist type with
the interests of imperialist big capital. Origins of Sorel and Nietzsche.
Völkisch.
III. Interim considerations on the post war situation. This consideration
serves to assess the objective chances of the fascist type in Italy and
Germany.
1) Finding, that for the forceful subjugation of the socialist movement,
fascism and/or National Socialism were not united. Socialism hoped
that the bourgeois regimes would maintain the upper hand.* But:
2) In both countries, democracy is a distorted picture. A democratic
character has not been established in either country. Therefore, oppo-
sition to attacks by the agents of power {Machttyps} is lacking. What’s
more:
3) Both in Italy and Germany, capital is pushing—to differing degrees
and for different reasons—towards dictatorship.
IV. From the outset, one thing is certain for the agents of power: that the
unity to be achieved cannot be maintained with bayonets, but only
through the conviction of the masses. He must win the masses, put them
in mental bondage {geistig fesseln}. Where does this fundamental desire
come from? From the experience of propaganda during the war. From the

* {Kracauer is referring here to the more moderate Majority Social Democratic Party in Germany, which
supported the Weimar Republic and cooperated with bourgeois parties that also supported the
Republic.}
 Disposit ion m 115

experience of socialism (Mein Kampf ). As a result, for the agent of power

propaganda becomes necessary.
V. How does the agent of power see the situation which is to be changed?
His attitude defined by the will to re-establish and to perfect limitlessly
the national power apparatus. Thus, he sees with hatred: the fragmenta-
tion into parties, into the right and the left, the class struggle. In the
interest of resolving this fragmentation, he wishes to win the masses.
Thus, he sees with hatred that the concepts that mobilize the masses are
not only claimed as their own by various parties but also linked to mod-
ern pacific concepts. “Socialism,” a great ideal, is linked with pacifism and
internationalism: the national idea, to make use of this catchphrase, is
commandeered by money powers and so devalued for the masses—by the
money powers who are themselves engaged in class struggle. The agent of
power cannot structurally consider that the parties and their conceptual
linkages are anchored in real interests, are therefore only symptoms; he
recognizes only the ready images, not their origins. It seems to him there-
fore worth fighting against: the class struggle, the rigid linking of useful
concepts with those of the enemy, moreover their linkage with certain
social strata and interests, i.e., rigidity per se. In the end the agent of
power type views with hatred the blinded masses’ inclination towards
communism.1
[Preceded by:] New Montage of the Concepts
VI. The situation depicted gives rise to the task of organizing propaganda by
the agent of power: the objectives that excite the masses must be freed
from their rigid attachment to the parties and to certain combinations of
ideas and used instead for one’s own purposes. This means uprooting
established conceptual formations, in order to set the superstructure in
motion. This is tantamount to overcoming the class struggle in the interest
of national unity, serving to perfect the national power apparatus. But this
only in appearance [Bild], not reality. The intention is not to eliminate
class struggle by abolishing exploitation, but to compel the warring classes
to come together in a show of unity—a show of unity, because the cause of
class struggle is not to be eliminated, merely the symptoms eradicated.
Thus, much greater emphasis must be placed on transforming the super-
structure. It is clear that these interests conform with those of the large
landowners and of big capital. The task of propaganda is to liquidate the
prevailing “system” of ideas, to uproot ideas that excite the masses and to
manipulate them in the interests of power. This is “movement” in the
strictest sense of the word. The Italian “Actualism.”
116 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

B.
The Character of Total Propaganda

I. Total propaganda must have the character of regression. Its fundamental

trait: to go back beyond the French Revolution. (Anti-liberalism, anti-
Marxism—borne by the important insight that democracy and Marx-
ism belong together; the latter supersedes the former; accordingly anti-
intellectualism). Appeal to the lower classes (as in war!!). But this
regression itself dialectical: the democratic fiction seen through: social-
ist internationalism too early. As Russia professes socialism in one coun-
try, and in so doing regresses itself, there remains in fact as a possible
next stage: the realization of national imperialism for the benefit of the
ruling class. Sign of the dialectical character of regression: the Roman
salute—its interpretation.
II. Total propaganda must lay claim to exclusivity. Its claim to totality is
determined by the character of the regression. If democracy and Marxism
are to be eliminated, there has to be absolute control over the formation of
opinion; all the more so since—as a result of the efforts not to overcome
class differences, but only to force them together—all emphasis is placed
on organizing the superstructure. The demand is for total power over
opinion formation. This is why totalitarian propaganda strives for autoc-
racy. Here for the first time about the relationship to authority with its
command and obedience up to the power over and sacrifice of life and
death.
III. Total propaganda must see its criterion only in success. It does not serve to
win over the masses for a doctrine or a program; in fact, it has absolutely
no doctrine and the program serves only to win over the masses, since the
true objective of the agent of power—reconstruction of the national power
apparatus for the use of capital—wouldn’t exactly be a useful propaganda
medium. Apart from a few items indicative of capitalism’s ideological
inventory, such as the retention of property rights, no further objective
remains, so that success in winning over the masses becomes itself the ulti-
mate criterion (see Hitler, Goebbels).2
Thus: Propaganda per se, propaganda in “pure culture” {Reinkultur} . . .
Here also: the mystifying concepts of “Volk” (in National Socialism) and
“State” (in Fascism). Furthermore, the position of the “program” (Muss[olini]
and Hitler). Almost complete ambivalence regarding promises.3
[Preceding addendum in margin:
Volk: leader and a vicious circle
 Disposit ion m 117

Volk: romantic, Savigny

State: Roman empire
Romans]
Due to the fact that propaganda measures itself only in terms of suc-
cess—a fact which betrays that the executors of this propaganda only value
power per se, but in general are nihilistic in their conduct towards all val-
ues—it follows that:
1) The irrelevance of the lie.—This is a propaganda medium. Meyrow[itz].*
Fin-de-siècle attitude. Here the openness to forms advertising, that
Hitler and Goebbels develop in their propaganda.4
2) The aesthetic-cynical attitude of the executors of the propaganda. This
attitude legitimated from the standpoint of nihilistic power. Here
already the guiding formula for this propaganda clearly emerges: it is the
technique [Technik] of totally influencing opinion as such. No wonder
that the best formulations about propaganda stem from Hitler.
[Addition in the left margin:] Here: total propaganda always suspects the
opponent of what it is and wants itself. See Heilbut: essential objectives: recog-
nized as phenomenon and called “mirror reflection.” How is this to be inter-
preted? It is a forced confession! The urge to reveal the truth emerges as a mirror
reflection.

C.
The Method of Total Propaganda

In order to set the superstructure in motion in the aforementioned sense, propa-

ganda must change the psycho-physical structure of the people, indeed the
psyche itself. This is dependent on two decisive conditions:
The systematic use of terror. Terror = the creation of fear by means of
violence.
Demonstrated by fascist punishment expeditions and Feme murders.

1) Terror is not an end in itself, for the agent of power proceeds from the
assumption that it is a question of winning over the opinion of the masses.

* {Kracauer is probably referring here to Henri Meyrowitz, who was born in Darmstadt in 1909, studied
law at the University of Frankfurt, and moved to Paris in 1933. He was the author of numerous books and
articles on the law of armed conflicts.}
118 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

But terror also corresponds intrinsically to the regressive character of the

“movement.” Open terror reveals the dismantling of layers of civilization
and the affirmation of elementary, conspiring role of nature in exploitation
as a “principle of nature.” Terror as a sign of monopoly capitalism, of monop-
oly as such. Of course, regression is dialectical and so terror also contains a
revelatory moment. Direct terror uncovers the terror basis of class society
(Hitler on the “terror” of the SPD, Nazis in general on the “terror” of the
system). Remark: terror always implemented by the dominant power, not
out of cowardice, but in order to peel back layers of civilization; in order to
create a passageway for raw nature.
2) Terror therefore not an end in itself, but a means to the end of carrying out
the task of propaganda. It facilitates this task in a twofold way. Terror
a) produces fear in the people to be won over, the fear takes the fear from
the concepts, under its pressure mass-mobilizing concepts can be sepa-
rated from their interests, put in motion and redirected.5 (Terror, com-
parable with drumfire, the function of which is to wear down the enemy
to prepare an assault on their position.) Examples of this fear (Paris
World Exhibition?). Chronic fear creates hysteria, leads to a blurring of
the lines between reality and semblance. The spell takes effect, the
ground slips from under one’s feet. Lies and inversion of images in this
state are matter of course. [Preceded here by:] Corruption.
Remark: terror is denied not out of a sense of shame, but because it
must remain taboo in the interests of the propaganda and because its
denial heightens fear further and, making the lie true tests the effect of
the terror (just as with the lie of the grotesque = Aryanism).
b) reaffirms the illusion—the illusion that class divisions have been over-
come and a community of the people has been established. Blood
appears to give truth to the illusion, to make it real.
3) terror not only the condition of total propaganda, but propaganda itself. It
has appeal because
a) it excites the (economically and socially determined) sadomasochistic
structure of its executors and victims and
b) it appears to be the product of limitless power. Power attracts. Why?
(Reflect!) [How to include Horkheimer’s interpretation of terror: terror
as the revenge of those who have fared badly against the happiness of the
fortunate.]*

* {The square brackets here are Kracauer’s own. Here, also, we see another example of Kracauer’s genuine
interest in Horkheimer’s analysis of authoritarianism.}
 Disposit ion m 119

II. The Systematic Production of the Masses

1) The structure of the mass. Individual consciousness diminished in the mass.

In addition, the mass as a source of energy.
2) But not every mass is a mass in the sense of the Moehl type.6 Here, an analy-
sis of the revolutionary mass: it consists in principle of members of the
exploited class and subscribes to a doctrine. It is not the end, but the means.
Its revolutionary energies are to be used. It is not a homeland [Heimat]
either, (as the mass of the dictator), but by (all means) a passage or passage-
way to a homeland. The diminution of the individual consciousness has here
a progressive aspect to it.
[Noted in left-hand margin:] mass as homeland
3) The mass in the sense of the agent of power is instead a prerequisite of the
effectiveness of total propaganda. What is it? The recipient of suggestions.
Interject here that ideal mass is one which unites people with the most varied
real interests = symbol of the community of the people [Volksgemeinschaft].
Mass from the street! In order to be that, the mass is sedated, hypnotized and
prepared in every way. Means employed to this end:
a) the long wait (see Hitler)
b) the symbols
c) the speech itself with its repetitions. Speech not writing (opposing the
Enlightenment!) Written language enlightens.
No matter what the subject of the speech, it always moves from horror
to happiness. Like sensationalism, it exploits concepts that have been mobi-
lized and that excite the masses. Horror and the promise of happiness both
equally present. Ultimately, the content of the speech is not what really
matters; instead, the mass hypnotizes itself (citation from Silone “Bread
and Wine”).
[Preceding the paragraph:] Charlatan!
4) Since total propaganda depends on maximizing its influence, the preexist-
ing “natural masses” do not suffice; instead, it systematically produces new
masses.
The innumerable gatherings, festivals, celebrations, radio masses.
For the purpose of consolidating the mass:
Marshalling the masses with rituals (marching = war and “movement”)
and the art of mass images [Massenbildkunst].
[Preceded by:] The mass as “homeland” for Hitler
The goal would be that each individual constantly finds themselves in
that state in which they are a member of the mass (this is contradicted,
120 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

however, by esteem for the family; but that belongs in the chapter on
antinomies).
[Preceded by:] Speaking choir
Postulating the ideal of the personality in no way refutes mass as ideal.
There have to be people there to manipulate the masses and what does per-
sonality mean here anyway—the superior man? Ley quotation about the
superior caste (see Heiden I)
[Preceded by:] Myth
5) The crowd not only means of propaganda, but propaganda itself.
a) It seems to represent national unity, the community of the people and
its effect is therefore propagandistic (Hitler says: the individual finds his
homeland in the mass). That the mass is not the people is proven by the
lack of culture. National Socialism produces no culture.
b) It represents power, which attracts
c) Its effect (therefore becomes mass ornament) is aesthetically appealing.
An effect in the material present. Embellishing existing conditions with
aesthetic, decorative features, disables the forces aiming to change them.
Concluding remark: In the space demarcated by terror the superstruc-
ture is set in motion and, after the mass-mobilizing concepts are set free,
they are injected at the most effective time and place into the masses. [as the
most dangerous weapon, see Goebbels]*

D.
Total Propaganda on the Way to Power

1) Starting thesis: the propaganda of the power squad would not prevail if
there were no existing receptivity for it. (Proof: the decline of National
Socialism in the Dollar Years 1924–29, initially of bourgeois democracy):
but such a link between propaganda and situation has to exist since, after all,
propaganda develops in close contact with the situation.
The social basis of propaganda, its natural foundation:
2) What matters to the propaganda of the agent of power: liquefying the
superstructure = destruction of rigid parties, as already partially occurred
during the post war crises (= poor blanket term, must be discarded) . . . and

* {Kracauer’s own square brackets here.}

 Disposit ion m 121

the societal developments caused by them. The crises, etc. have the effect of
objective terror, they generated in the different strata fear, which took the
fear out of the concepts. In all circumstances, it is the “movement” which
profits. A number of strata are particularly susceptible to its propaganda.
[Added here with an arrow:] Workers!
3) Outstanding role played by the middle class, that stratum stretching from
the petit bourgeoisie to the liberal professions.
a) Their abridged sociological analysis; they are partly regressive—partly
progressive (white-collar employees)
b) Proletarianized by the hyperinflation. As white-collar employees and
academics, they become acquainted with unemployment during the cri-
sis of 1929/30.
c) What should the proletarianized, déclassé middle classes do? They orig-
inate in the bourgeoisie but find no representation of their interests in
the bourgeois parties. Economically proletarianized, their middle-class
interests are equally poorly represented in the proletarian parties.
Should they, therefore, pledge allegiance to the proletariat? They are
hindered by the glaring weaknesses and one-sidedness of the SPD and
KPD (the latter international and unable to see the whole picture). Fur-
thermore, the risk of parting with a traditional psychological structure
is too great (see Horkheimer).*
The entire superstructure retreats from the middle classes, for as little as
Marxism appears an alternative, they see though capitalist ideologies just as
much. The spiritual wasteland which plagues them, the cult of distraction /
dissipation (see work on “white-collar employees”).†
d) Important to add: the untenable position of the proletarianized middle
classes between the parties, and their distance from the production pro-
cess create a natural affinity between the mentalities of the middle-class
mentality and the agent power. (the middle classes must also wish for a
false reconciliation of class antagonisms, not their elimination {Aufhe-
bung} in a sociological sense). Furthermore: the agent of power is, in
fact, usually of middle-class origin.

* {Kracauer is referring here to Horkheimer’s concept of “cultural lag,” which he introduces in his intro-
duction to the Institute’s 1936 Studies on Authority and Family. For the English translation, see “Author-
ity and the Family,” trans. Matthew J. O’Connell, in Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays
(New York: Continuum, 1992), 47–68.}
† {Kracauer is referring here to his own study, Die Angestellten, which was first published in 1929. In Eng-
lish: Siegfried Kracauer, The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany, trans. Quintin
Hoare (London: Verso, 1998).}
12 2 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

[But that does not mean that the “movement” is petit bourgeois!]
4) The role of the unemployed—lumpen proletariat—inadequately grasped by
class concepts.
5) The role of the youth—also distant from class and inadequately grasped [by
class concepts]
6) Peasants, etc.
7) The social process thus leads to the formation of masses particularly recep-
tive to the propaganda of the agent of power. How is propaganda carried out
in relation to the different strata of the population? It deals with each in its
own way, promises each heaven on earth. (Program: “political advertising”)
(see, for example, Strasser’s speeches intended for workers)—compare with
Hitler’s speeches in industrialist circles. Total propaganda has been
reproached with this (it takes money)—very unjustly. In fact, it only uses
given propensities, without identifying with a particular stratum. Its goal is
precisely the dissolution of the strata which embody various interests, total
influence over opinion formation per se, for the sake of power. It functions
according to horror and happiness—sacrifice and bliss. That appeals to the
sadomasochistic type.

[Preceded here by:] Heroism

E.
Propaganda as Instrument of Power

1) After the seizure of power—i.e., after the establishment of a totalitarian

dictatorship—can propaganda cease? No! For two reasons:
a) The construction of the national power apparatus is just one stage on
the way to the imperialist goal. Thus, propaganda must be contin-
ued—as foreign policy—on an international scale. Installation of pro-
paganda a./b. explicit propaganda acts.*
b) Propaganda cannot stop domestically either since its content—
community of the people, elimination of class struggle, etc.—is in real-
ity not achievable. This means propaganda becomes an essential compo-
nent of the dictatorship (Ministry of Propaganda and Public

* {It’s unclear what “a./b.” signifies in the original text.}

 Disposit ion m 123

Enlightenment). Terror is incorporated into the system (jurisdiction),

the mass eternalized.
2) No need to consider world propaganda here since it proceeds in the same
way as domestic propaganda striving for power. [The implementation of terror
is facilitated by perfecting the potential de guerre;* the incitements are, for
example, the global threat of Bolshevism—Volk without living space—but
all suggestions are of course interchangeable].† Investigate solely the—ideal
typical—development of propaganda directed inwards; since it alone is an
ongoing process.
[Added in margin, left:] Do not forget:
a) continuation of crisis
b) enforced censorship
3) After the seizure of power follow necessarily attempts to realize propagan-
distic promises. But these measures and institutions do not remove social
antagonisms; at best they paper over them. Propaganda has to give the
impression that semblance is not semblance, but reality. This takes place by:
a) creating, with these measures and institutions, sinecurists and benefi-
ciaries of the regime who are happy to accept these attempts at face
value; [Added in margin:] Corruption
b) pressing on with the relevant measure and institutions to the point of
grotesque absurdity. The absurdity of the Aryan paragraph, for example,
heightens terror and serves as a doctrine of faith.
Summary: All the fulfillments of propaganda are at the same time them-
selves propaganda; since they undeniably represent realizations, without
however attacking the reality of class itself, they incline toward an attempt
to uproot—at least psychologically—the concept of reality.
Comment: The more that total dictatorships develop, the more domi-
nant the sphere of psychological pseudo-reality becomes in them, related to
insanity. Pseudo-reality could only become reality if dictatorships succeeded
in achieving their ideal of total autarchy, but that would mean attaining
absolute world domination. But not even then, since pseudo-reality reveals
itself as just that in the immanent contradictions in the superstructure of
the regime (family, freedom of art, church, etc.).
4) Concurrent with this development of propaganda, there occurs in fact an
enhancement of the national power apparatus. Its characteristics: fulfillment
of the aspirations of the masses. Controlled national (military) economy

* {“Potential of war.”}
† {Kracauer’s own square brackets here.}
124 l St udies of Totalitari an ism

[progressive tendency]. All this under the pressure of the crisis (Mussolini’s
speech in Silone). Who profits from this? Large-scale industry, high finance.
[Closely tied to capitalism, but the axis is the party. Does it call the shots?
Can it shift over to the “second revolution,” to Bolshevism?]*
5) At a certain stage propaganda becomes worn out insofar as it relies on spe-
cific convictions and the nihilistic character of the regime becomes ever
more apparent.
a) Propaganda must wear out because
α) social antagonisms gradually break through again, which were only
covered up and were not—even with the enhancement of the
national power apparatus—done away with. Such antagonisms are:
those of the classes
those of autarchy and the world economy
economic and social (. . .)
as a result of this, various particular real interests and interest
groups are created, which tend toward different ideologies.
β) the contents of the propaganda are in themselves contradictory
Family affirmed and denied
Art free and bound
Religion registered as a positive force and opposed as worldly
Youth disciplined and anarchic
Culture should be made and should not be made, etc.
b) The nihilistic nature of power is revealed precisely in the regime’s
increasingly open reliance upon the armed forces, from which it origi-
nates, and in its imperialist objectives. Devaluation of the party.
6) To avoid economic decline, which would mean the end of the regime, the
propaganda must change. Its change in function consists in the closer align-
ment of certain contents and convictions. The nihilism of the agent of power
breaks through—as had the nihilism of the exercise of power—and increas-
ingly reveals itself as what it was intended to be from the beginning: the
technique of totally controlling opinion as such (—as trivialization). In
view of the antagonisms and contradictions surfacing everywhere, it
becomes complete power. Keeping the masses in line, regardless of how it’s
done. That is their function. The image of the fencer.

* {Kracauer’s own square brackets in this paragraph.}

 Disposit ion m 125

[But world propaganda also becomes the domestic agitator of the masses.
Thus, the increasing importance of foreign policy. Foreign policy actions increas-
ingly become means of propaganda.]*
Further: Wherever a weakness is exposed, similar to motorized troops, any
old concepts and/or the ruins of concepts are hastily deployed. It is not about
their content. Propaganda formalizes itself. More decisive than its content is
the rhythm of the waves of propaganda, its artful acceleration or delay. The
shock. The contradiction between word and deed can become propaganda, the
change of the measures in itself. Interesting: NS Propaganda, which opposed/
set itself up against relativism in art and objectivity in science, is driven to the
complete relativization of all content. Mass mobilization for its own sake is its
end and its nihilism becomes manifest. Born of war, it tends towards its own
destruction in war.

Translated by Bernadette Boyle and Graeme Gilloch

Notes

1. [“moreover” and “blinded” uncertain in Kracauer’s original text.]

2. [“indicative” uncertain in Kracauer’s original text.]
3. [“promises” uncertain in Kracauer’s original text.]
4. [“advertising” uncertain in Kracauer’s original text.]
5. [“takes the fear” uncertain in Kracauer’s original text.]
6. [Kracauer is likely referring here to Ernst Moehl, Hermann Goering. Ein deutscher
Führer (Paderborn und Würzburg, 1934).]

* {Kracauer’s own square brackets here.}

 Part 2
The Caligari Complex
(1943–1947)
INTRODUCTION

In this section, we consider Kracauer’s writings dating from his arrival in

American exile in April 1941 to the publication of his retrospective social-
psychological study of German film during the years of Weimar Republic,
From Caligari to Hitler (1947), the major work that was so central in enabling
Kracauer to obtain the requisite visas for leaving occupied France. All of these
writings in some way orbit around the Caligari book, in which so many of his
ideas come to fruition, and especially the attempt to interweave the study of
particular images and their resonance with the inner workings of (certain)
minds. Nevertheless, we can divide these texts into two main categories. First,
there are those that examine specific propaganda techniques and motifs, as well
as audience psychologies in relation to Nazi newsreels. These studies were seen
as a direct contribution to the American war effort and to work combatting the
spread of National Socialist ideas. Second, there are those that are concerned
with studying American audiences for the important purposes of identifying,
understanding and countering fascist mentalities and anti-Semitism in the
United States itself—“the enemy within,” so to speak. Most significantly, there
are various drafts, sketches, and fragments pertaining to Kracauer’s proposed
test film project, a social-psychological investigation using film as an experi-
mental device to expose latent anti-Semitism and other racist tendencies using
selected American students as subjects. Although Kracauer himself drafted
several versions of the screenplay of the film, it was never made, and the project
128 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

came to naught. These various documents have never been published before in
the original English.
Kracauer’s research projects at this time on propaganda in general, and on
the medium of newsreels in particular, were conceived against the background
of his ongoing research on the Caligari project. Some of these studies first
materialized in the United States with help from members of the faculty of
the New School for Social Research, such as Alvin Johnson, Hans Speier, and
Ernst Kris, as well as the director of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library,
Iris Barry. Kracauer’s first American publication, the review article “Holly-
wood, the Movie Colony—The Movie Makers by Leo C. Rosten,” appeared in
Social Research in 1942, a journal edited and published by the Graduate Fac-
ulty of the New School. The first tangible outcome in relation to German pro-
paganda was a pamphlet, Propaganda and the Nazi War Film, issued in 1942
by the Museum of Modern Art Film Library, which explores two feature-
length campaign films—Feuertaufe (Baptism of Fire, 1940) and Sieg im Westen
(Victory in the West, 1941)—both of them largely composed of newsreel foot-
age. The study emphasizes three key points regarding the efficacy of German
war newsreels: they had to show the actual footage of events themselves and
not simulations or reconstruction; these newsreels were extended in length
(up to forty minutes); and they were subject to rapid distribution so that the
scenes depicted were fresh from the frontline. Later this brochure was incor-
porated as a supplement into From Caligari to Hitler in 1947 (hence we omit it
from our selection).
Working in the field of cultural sociology and communication studies in
America in the 1940s, Kris and Speier, among other émigré scholars, were them-
selves extensively engaged with quantitative analyses of German media and
political communications. Kris’s work on German radio propaganda was highly
influential in the early stages of media and propaganda research.1 It is little won-
der to find close theoretical affinities between Kracauer’s and Speier’s views on
the impact of fascist propaganda on the transformation of white-collar workers.
Since the mid-1930s, Speier had comprehensively researched the structural
changes of salaried employees in modern society and, in particular, the role of
German white-collar workers in the rise of Hitler. From the 1940s onward,
Speier investigated how the radio communication of war news in Germany
played a particular role in the transformation of the masses. Kracauer’s second
study of Nazi newsreels, “The Conquest of Europe on the Screen: The Nazi
Newsreel, 1939–1940,” was originally produced for the Experimental Division
of the Study of Wartime Communication in 1943. It was published in an abbre-
viated version in a 1943 issue of Social Research, which included a major article by
 T h e Cali g ari Co mplex m 129

Hans Herm, “Goebbels’ Conception of Propaganda,” and Speier’s “Nazi Propa-

ganda and its Decline.”
Kracauer’s short report contains some fascinating insights, including notions
that figure prominently later in his theory of film. One reads, for example, that
“film surpasses other arts in that it reflects the visible world, to an extent hith-
erto unknown. Everyday life, with its infinitesimal movements, its multitude of
transitory actions, could be disclosed now there on the screen.” Moreover, he
notes how early German cinema presented pictures featuring “the city street as
the place where the ‘man of the crowd’ perceives the kaleidoscopic configura-
tions of everyday life; they are full of house facades, window dressings, strangely
lit rooms and physiognomic details.” The unique capacity of film for the redemp-
tion of physical reality is anticipated here—perhaps not surprisingly, since such
ideas, as Miriam Hansen notes, had already been formulated in Kracauer’s Mar-
seilles notebooks as he was waiting to escape from occupied France.2 As for the
newsreels themselves, Kracauer emphasizes that their power derives from a
number of key features. For one thing, they are able to construct the sense of a
single unified narrative through the use of image sequences, which seem to
merge into each other and stand in stark contrast, Kracauer suggests, to the
plethora of heterogeneous episodes characteristic of contemporary American
newsreels (a point later reiterated in his article “A Duck Crosses Main Street”;
see part 3 in this volume). Additionally, Kracauer notes that the Nazi newsreels—
grounded in the techniques, practices and skills perfected by German cinema
during the Weimar years—give much greater emphasis to the images themselves
rather than to the commentary and subtitles. Kracauer argues that images can
speak for themselves to a much greater degree. This is important because they
stimulate an emotional response from the audience. Propaganda does not rely
on an appeal to reason and intellect; instead, it manipulates emotions and pres-
ents images in the form of an integrated totality. The spare commentary of Ger-
man newsreels is far more effective than the verbosity of their American and
British counterparts, which are distinguished by a deluge of words. Kracauer
also notes the key role of music in the newsreels—not just Wagnerian sym-
phonic music with its leitmotifs, but also popular songs and familiar melodies,
prompting nostalgia, sympathy, and identification. The cinematic qualities of
German newsreels are truly different from other forms of screen propaganda,
especially that of the Allies. The clever use of intercutting, the presentation of
dramatic landscapes and seascapes, and an overall emphasis on movement and
dynamism all contribute to what Kracauer sees as an aestheticization of war—a
clear echo of Benjamin’s notion of the aestheticization of politics with which he
concludes in his famous 1936 “Work of Art” essay.3 Finally, Kracauer highlights
130 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

how Nazi newsreels succeed in contrasting the figure of the Führer, as a solitary
and distinct individual, to the mass into which the individual has been wholly
dissolved. The mass itself becomes a motif in the form of an adoring crowd,
victorious soldiers, flag-waving parades; the image of the mass itself becomes an
ornament. This theme of the remote leader as an auratic figure—in Benjamin’s
sense, of maintaining a distance no matter how close it may be—is developed in
Kracauer’s article “The Hitler Image,” which was published in 1944 in the New
Republic. Here, Kracauer comments upon the way Nazi newsreels present the
Führer as a quasi-mythical being, a kind of savior who heals the sick; as an artis-
tic genius, who turns his marvel Olympia into a living being; as the “lord of
hosts” directing his generals; and as a great leader, who is the object of adoring
crowds. Kracauer suggests that, amid such sycophantic representation, attempts
“to humanize the idol” by placing him among weeping children or next to a
faithful warhorse, prove less than successful. Hitler is much more at home when
pictured with dutiful soldiers—the cannon fodder of the Wehrmacht.

So far in this volume, we have been concerned with Kracauer’s writings on total-
itarianism, propaganda, and the masses. The materials pertaining to Kracauer’s
“Below the Surface” project are of a different kind. Kracauer’s interest here is not
so much in communication techniques, particular ideologies, or forms of per-
suasion, but rather in the development of a social-psychological experiment to
test the susceptibility of America itself—that is, a liberal democratic capitalist
society—to authoritarianism and anti-Semitism. Kracauer’s beloved medium of
film was not to be the object of the analysis; instead, it became a methodological
tool used to investigate deep-seated and latent psychological predispositions,
tendencies, and prejudices. The project came into being in the context of the
Studies in Prejudice program—a collaboration that started in the late 1930s
between the Scientific Research Department of the American Jewish Commit-
tee and the members of the Institute for Social Research, who, like Kracauer,
found themselves in exile in New York. The possibility of using film as a tool of
empirical social research, by depicting an incident and then using a series of
questionnaires to tease out audiences’ responses, seems to have originated with
Horkheimer as early as 1941.4 The involvement of Kracauer, newly arrived in
America, remains unclear in this initial stage. The project was resumed in 1945
when Kracauer engaged in a flurry of communications with Horkheimer and
Adorno in Los Angeles, and with Lowenthal and others in New York. The first
version of the screenplay for the twenty-minute film was proposed under the title
 T h e Cali g ari Co mplex m 131

“The Accident.” The second version bore the title “Below the Surface,” or “Below
the Surface, Final Version,” and was produced by Kracauer. There is also another
version of the script in which some of characters involved are named for the first
time. The project was dogged by competing suggestions and countersuggestions
as to precisely which questions should be asked in the follow-up to the film
screening. More seriously, the issue remained of who would make the film, and
how exactly it would be funded; indeed, these were to prove fatal to the project
as a whole. “Below the Surface” sank, but not without a trace. The documenta-
tion of the project was strewn between different archives, including those of
Kracauer himself and Max Horkheimer, until it was eventually published in
German translation.5 We are publishing here a variety of documents relating to
this failed enterprise for the first time in their original language.6
Although many of the details of “Below the Surface” remain unclear, the gen-
eral intention is nonetheless evident. The film was to be shown to small groups
of students drawn from American colleges, and then their responses to events
on-screen were to form a data set in which levels and degrees of prejudice could
be measured and established. In a manner that would probably fail our current
ethical standards for research methodology, the student test subjects were sup-
posed to remain ignorant of the purpose and design of the experiment itself. The
film events themselves were intended to provide sufficient distraction and diver-
sion to disguise its principle intention. In accordance with his long-standing
emphasis upon methodological digression, Kracauer was at pains to emphasize
that genuine attitudes could only be captured if the experimental subjects them-
selves were unaware of, or unable to second-guess, the experimental goals. The
screenplay itself went through various changes, and, most importantly, it was
decided that different variants of the film be shown in which the accused person
would be Jewish or African American or white American white-collar workers—
the latter as a kind of control variant. The action is as follows: on an overcrowded
evening subway train taking commuters home from their workplaces in the city,
a woman encumbered by a large vacuum cleaner falls through the rear door of
the carriage but is saved by safety chains. Emergency brakes kick in, and the
train stops in the tunnel. An argument breaks out among various passengers (an
array of types) when the vicious accusation is made that the woman did not fall
but was pushed, her assailant being Jewish, African American, or white. Passen-
gers take a side, and the tensions rise. It is probably at this point that the film
would have been paused, the questionnaires distributed, and the views of stu-
dent subjects elicited. Would they share the prejudicial views—anti-Semitic,
racist—of the lead accuser, the clubfoot peddler? Or would they see through
such malicious allegations as the expression of bigotry and hatred? Once such
13 2 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

data had been collected, the conclusion to the film could be shown. Now recov-
ered from her ordeal, and unharmed by her near-death experience (the vacuum
cleaner is completely destroyed!), the woman is able to refute the spurious allega-
tions that have been made: she just tripped and fell. No one is to blame. Calm
returns, and the train moves off. The End.
“Below the Surface” will probably not strike the reader today as a particularly
subtle or sophisticated social-psychological experiment. Various characters
involved in the events are certainly rather crude stereotypes, serving essentially
as mouthpieces for different ideological positions. As we have made clear in our
previous discussion of the screenplay, what one sees in this film is a veritable
rogues gallery of figures embodying particular preoccupations of Critical The-
ory: the linkage of forms of ignorance and irrationalism; bourgeois prejudices
that lie just below the surface in everyday life; working-class solidarity with the
marginalized; and the spinelessness and supine attitude of (American) intellec-
tuals. But if the plotting and characters are rather crude, nonetheless Kracauer’s
test film project remains of interest for us because its pioneering attempt to uti-
lize the medium of film in social scientific research looks to get below the sur-
face of public opinion and reveal the American unconscious. It is a fascinating
example of Kracauer seeking, as Wiggershaus puts it, to “combine European
ideas and American methods”—or, more precisely, to develop a new critical
empirical research method as a key component of Critical Theory.7

Notes

1. Ernst Kris and Hans Speier (and associates), German Radio Propaganda: Report on
Home Broadcasts During the War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944).
2. Kracauer was part of the larger émigré community in Marseilles at this time, which
was memorably depicted in Anna Seghers’s 1944 novel, Transit, and—more
recently and more allegorically—in Christian Petzhold’s 2018 film, Transit, which
was based on Seghers’s novel.
3. Kracauer attributes the camera’s continual concern with figures in motion—
especially columns of soldiers, military vehicles of all kinds, aircraft, and ship-
ping—to pleasures of movement itself inculcated into German youth by such orga-
nizations such as the Wandervögel and other hiking groups. A more likely reason
for the emphasis upon the speed and movement of troops, we suggest, would be as a
contrast to the stasis and immobility that characterized trench war experiences of
1914–1918.
4. It is worth noting that the Institute would use a different version of this method in
the Group Experiment (Gruppenexperiment): the first major empirical study it
conducted after reestablishing itself in Frankfurt in 1949. This study analyzed West
 T h e Cali g ari Co mplex m 133

Germans’ attitudes about recent historical events and current political topics, such
as World War II, the Holocaust, and American occupation. In this study, the sub-
jects’ responses were provoked not by a film, but by a fabricated “stimulus letter”
that was supposedly written by an American military officer, who was skeptical
about Germans’ willingness to accept responsibility for the recent past. As with the
film “The Accident,” the stimulus letter was used to expose attitudes that lay below
the surface and would not be revealed by standard questionnaire or interviews
methods. See Friedrich Pollock and Theodor Adorno, Group Experiment and
Other Writings: The Frankfurt School on Public Opinion in Postwar Germany, ed.
and trans. Andrew J. Perrin and Jeffrey K. Olick (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 2011).
5. “Projekt eines Testfilmes,” in Siegfried Kracauer, Werke, vol. 2.2 (Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012), 470–99.
6. For a more detailed account of the history and themes of this ill-fated project, see
Graeme Gilloch and Jaeho Kang, “ ‘Below the Surface’: Siegfried Kracauer’s ‘Test
Film’ Project,” New Formations, no. 61 (2007): 149–60; and Graeme Gilloch, Sieg-
fried Kracauer: Our Companion in Misfortune (Cambridge: Polity, 2015), 146–52.
7. Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Signifi-
cance, trans. Michael Robertson (Cambridge: Polity, 1994), 410.
 6
The Conquest of Europe on
the Screen
The Nazi Newsreel, 1939–40

A
s far back as the early days of the Polish campaign the Nazis
began a series of organizational steps to incorporate the news-
reels in their system of war propaganda communications. They
insisted upon authentic shots of warfare, extended the length of the newsreel,
and speeded its release. In addition, every possible means was employed to force
these pictorial records upon the naive population, and to spread them abroad in
appropriate versions.1 It is evident that such reorganization of the German
newsreel could not be accomplished without changing its character. In terms of
the standardized American film types, the Nazi war newsreel now keeps mid-
way between the normal newsreels and the shorts.
The following comment is based on a set of eighteen Nazi newsreels issued
during the years 1939 and 1940.2 They cover the period from the Polish cam-
paign to the Battle of Britain, and includes, besides the warfare proper, scenes of
civilian life and activities in the occupied countries. As is well known, the news-
reels of that period helped in undermining the moral resistance of neutral peo-
ples and governments. It is true that their undeniable effectiveness may have
been partly due to the profound impression then being made all over the world
by the German conquests themselves; but the effectiveness of the Nazi newsreels
is doubtless traceable to their own specific nature as well. The Nazis know how
to arrange the propaganda content in a compelling way, and also they excel in
persuasive cinematic devices. Because of space limitations only these devices can
be presented here. The film devices used in the German newsreel command spe-
cial attention, not only because they contrive to increase and supplement the
effects of the topics, but also because they follow a line that deviates considerably
from the ways of the American film of fact.
13 6 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

The normal newsreel consists of a more or less casual mixture of various bits
of news. This applies both to the American newsreel of today and to the weekly
record that was issued by the German U.F.A. before Hitler. It would be interest-
ing to learn the full extent to which the Nazis have superseded that hodgepodge
of episodes by a purposeful arrangement. Are there any rules governing the rela-
tions between episodes of military and civilian life, activities in the occupied
countries and at the home front, political events and mass agglomerations? And
how do the Nazis manage to canalize the spectator’s mental processes through
their planned succession?
Unfortunately, the material at hand is too limited to settle such problems.
Only one compositional device can be determined with absolute certainty: the
Nazi newsreel tends to unify the news instead of dividing it. Time and again
several successive stories are connected to form a whole. Pictures of an unsuc-
cessful English air raid over occupied Norway imperceptibly run into a lyric glo-
rification of the German Spirit of attack against England; Hitler’s visit to his
soldiers is the middle part of a unit that opens with derisive shots of the English
king and ends in the destroyed Maginot Line.
As a result of its use of these large units the Nazi war newsreel has not much
in common with the American. It is a species combining traditionally fashioned
episodes with sequences that vaguely recall the March of Time or World in
Action series —–vaguely, for a closer approach reveals decisive differences
between the American or British type of short and the “unit” within the Nazi
newsreel. First, this unit is not necessarily concerned with one theme alone; sec-
ond, the episodes of which it is composed are linked more frequently by pictorial
than by verbal transitions. Such fusions of diversified contents have most often
the character of picture units. But before their composition is dealt with, it is
necessary to consider the share of the pictures, the commentary and the music in
the organization of the whole newsreel.

The part these components play is easily recognized and defined: in the Nazi war
newsreel, pictures prevail over the commentary. This preeminence of the visual
element is an extremely important and consciously handled device. That it is
peculiar to the Nazis can be proved by a quantitative comparison of their news-
reels and analogous American films. The rough estimate that in the latter the
words cover about 80 or 90 percent of the shots is certainly not exaggerated. In
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 137

the Nazi newsreel the commentary inclines toward brevity and, for long inter-
vals, lets the pictures explain themselves. Sixteen of the eighteen newsreels have
been examined with regard to the quantitative relation between their verbal and
visual parts; the result is the finding that, on an average, only 31 percent of the
total number of shots are accompanied by words.3 Thus the Nazi commentary
does not even extend along one-third of the film’s footage, while the American
spreads over nearly its whole length.
To make the German newsreel in this way would scarcely be possible, of
course, without the existence of numerous skilled cameramen capable of fur-
nishing lavish material. The staffs of the High Command, the Propaganda Min-
istry and the film companies have neglected nothing in this respect. And it is
solely due to their organizational preparations that the Nazi newsreel editors
can shape a scene like that showing the welcome offered to troops returning
from the front—a sequence brimful of pictorial details, such as two soldiers
jumping together from a freight train, boys creeping into a tank turret, a raised
hand holding a hat against dark foliage, and an old woman’s head behind a gun
barrel that slowly passes by. One recalls, too, the enormous stock of newsreel
shots available for the full-length German campaign films; “Victory in the
West” was drawn from film material of about one million feet.4
By subordinating the commentary to the visual element, the Nazis employ a
truly cinematic procedure. The film surpasses other arts in that it reflects the
visible world, to an extent hitherto unknown. Everyday life, with its infinitesi-
mal movements, its multitude of transitory actions, could be disclosed nowhere
but on the screen. That films cling to such little phenomena never consciously
evaluated before, may be related to their descent: they originate in the sphere of
popular art, and there is no doubt that the plain people are always intimate
neighbors to the many objects surrounding them.5 And this inclination toward
the minute is furthered by technical possibilities inherent in the film. The ubiq-
uitous camera can detail any subject or part of a subject, show it from various
angles, and thereby approach its very nature. A work of art comes closest to per-
fection when it complies with the specific conditions under which it is achieved,
and this is exactly what the Nazi newsreels set out to do. In so far as they play off
the picture against the word, they expand within a dimension which belongs
entirely to the film.
Their persistence in this line may be explained by the influence of powerful
traditions. The German film grew up in a period of revolutionary crises and
social insecurity. Chaos spread in Germany from 1918 to about 1923, and as its
consequence the panic-stricken German mind was released from all the conven-
tions that usually limit life. Under such conditions the unhappy, homeless soul
13 8 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

not only drove straightaway toward the fantastic region of horrors, but also
moved like a stranger through the world of normal reality, seeing its conven-
tional forms in such a way as to change them into weird, abnormal structures. At
that time Karl Grune, Lupu Pick, G. W. Pabst and other film directors por-
trayed apparently familiar objects and made them seem new. Their early pictures
feature the city street as the place where the “man of the crowd” perceives the
kaleidoscopic configurations of everyday life; they are full of house facades, win-
dow dressings, strangely lit rooms and physiognomic details.
Thus, the Germans introduced a cinematic realism deeply rooted in their par-
ticular experiences. And this was done with a perfect insight into the language
of lights and shadows, and by means of a camera which, in ‘‘Variety” and “The
Last Laugh,” became as movable as the unfettered mind directing it. It is not
astonishing that such a cinema felt strongly attracted by the realism in the Rus-
sian screen epics which, headed by “Potemkin,” poured into Germany after 1926.
In their desire to explore the human environment through pictures the Ger-
mans not only adopted many Russian camera and editing devices, but also took
advantage of certain material contents stressed in those films. The same desire
proved active in Ruttmann’s “Berlin,” a late silent composition which connected
multifold shots of Berlin everyday life in a rhythmic way, so that this life seemed
to exhibit itself on the screen. Ruttmann continued to work under Hitler until
he was killed in Russia.
While the pre-Hitler Germans employed these techniques to conquer more
and more provinces of the bible world, the Nazis are using them with quite
another intent. In emphasizing the role of the visual they bolster those efforts
that attempt to repress the intellect and directly affect the emotional life. The
predominance of pictures in the Nazi newsreel is synonymous with a minimum
of verbal explanations. In addition, the pictures themselves are so selected as
to work in the desired direction. Taylor has said of the Nazi propaganda tracts
that they supersede rational argumentation by “pictures and symbols.” Nazi
speeches, too, dwell upon metaphoric turns, for the spell of the image smothers
the interest in motives and reasons. Totalitarian propaganda in general con-
sciously attempts an approach to the unconscious language of primitive tribes.
And this orientation directs also the visual element in film. Thus, many newsreel
shots are not inserted simply to illustrate some event, but function, exactly like
the images in Nazi speeches, as ‘‘pictures” within the pictures. Instead of enlarg-
ing the spectator’s knowledge they aim at arresting his mind and shaping it
through figurative meanings. Swastika flags hoisted on the roof of Versailles and
the Eiffel Tower symbolize the significance of the French campaign, and, hence
deepen its emotional resonance; clips of the reopened market in occupied
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 139

Brussels detail birds, girls, onlooking soldiers, cheese and other peaceful things
for the obvious purpose of making a future German peace appear idyllic. All
objects that function as current metaphors are widely exploited, particularly
children and flowers; sufficiently piled up, they are indeed able to impart to the
most sinister projects an air of radiant innocence. Thus, the succession of literal
pictures is interrupted time and again by metaphoric pictures. Their frequency
clearly indicates the reason such a conspicuous part is assigned to the visual
element.
In the whole formed by the commentary, the visual element and the music,
the last is an active partner. Although the score—a symphonic interweaving of
themes of a Wagnerian character, popular melodies and songs—offers no inter-
est in itself, it strikes any audience as a weighty contribution to the whole. One
cannot look at Nazi newsreels without sensing that their music goes far beyond
a mere accompaniment. Its expanded role is necessitated by the specific tasks it
has to achieve. When in this kind of film the visual element lacks verbal elucida-
tion, music proves indispensable in determining the effect of shots that imply
several meanings. What could be intimated by a commentary can emerge also
from an appropriate tune. The same stilted musical motif is synchronized with
the market scene at Brussels and with an episode picturing occupied Copenha-
gen. This leitmotif of the little nations, as it might be called, is probably intended
to give the impression that all conquered peoples are full of confidence in the
Germans. But the faces on the screen lend themselves to other conclusions as
well.
Besides its interpretative duty the music performs an even more vital func-
tion: that of shortening the way from the visual element to the senses. Nazi
newsreel music makes the motor nerves vibrate; it works directly upon the
bodily feelings. Like a fifth column these themes penetrate the spectator’s sub-
conscious and soften it up for an eventual invasion by pictorial suggestions.
While Hitler visits the Strassburg cathedral the old German folksong is heard,
“O Strassburg, O Strassburg, du wunderschöne Stadt . . .” Meeting both
demands imposed upon the score, this song not only interprets Hitler’s Strass-
burg excursion as a symbolic re-annexation of former German territory, but also
drags the audience—at least any European one—into a sentimental mood. To
many listeners the song has been familiar since childhood. And the emotions it
arouses in them are likely to become identified with the accompanying
pictures.
In their desire to utilize the whole stock of emotions the Nazis occasionally
reverse the usual relation between the visual and musical elements. This is the
case in the scene which, through juxtaposed shots of battleships, submarines
140 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

and bombers, celebrates in a rather lyric way the offensive warfare against Eng-
land. The synchronized song, a tune apparently popular in Nazi Germany,
includes the words: “Give me your hand, your white hand, good-bye, my sweet-
heart, good-bye. For we are sailing, for we are sailing, against Eng-e-land—
Eng-e-land, ahoy!” Words and melody alike attempt to express the feelings of
soldiers determined to make the decisive attack. In this scene music goes
beyond its mediating function and takes a leading role. It is complete; it shapes
emotions itself, instead of merely opening the emotional sphere to pictorial
assaults. Whereas normally music accompanies the pictures, here a visual accom-
paniment is synchronized with the music. Not by chance is the scene composed
of a somewhat incoherent mixture of shots. They need not be connected, for
they confine themselves to illustrating the meaning of the song.

II

The predominance of the visual element over the commentary results from two
basic devices. The first of these concerns we might call the distribution of the
contents. In the Nazi newsreel, as we have seen, the great majority of facts and
propagandistically important topics are set forth through pictures. To be sure,
there are a few episodes in which this rule is abrogated by shifting the burden to
the commentary. One of them shows prominent enemy statesmen, such as
Churchill, Eden, Duff Cooper, Reynaud and “the Jew” Mandel; since their faces
cannot be transformed into odious caricatures, name-calling is resorted to, the
shots becoming mere illustrations of exhaustive insults. Another sequence, con-
cerning the German reconstruction efforts in conquered Norway, is intended to
boast that more than sixty bridges were rebuilt and that the German Labor Ser-
vice helped to finish a railway line planned by the Norwegians; here words are
necessary to convey the information. The same holds true for an episode denying
London’s report that English bombers reduced Hamburg to ruins; the claim
itself could have been denied with the aid of pictures alone, but the commentary
takes the lead, the reason being that the Nazis wished in addition to advertise
the death of twenty-two children whose corpses they did not like to picture, and
also the presence of foreign newspapermen who are not recognizable as such on
the screen. In all these sequences the propagandistic intention could be achieved
only verbally. The words cover much footage, but they express nothing that
might be expressed in the pictures.6
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 141

These, however, are exceptions. Throughout the newsreels a practice prevails

that is closely connected with the Nazis’ reluctance to give more than purely
technical information, if any at all. But information is only one theme among
others, and every normal newsreel episode reveals how rich in content a series of
shots can be. The verbal statement, “Various armed formations push forward in
Poland,” refers to about eighteen clips which considerably enlarge the scope of
that reserved sentence. They show columns of artillery and infantry on a high-
way; night conflagrations obviously caused by guns; heavy guns in action; a row
of infantrymen taking cover along a slope; soldiers machine-gunning; soldiers
running across a field; a cannonade; horse-drawn wagons moving.
It is interesting to compare this procedure, characteristic of the Nazi news-
reel, with the American methods of narration. In one of the German reels the
statement, “German Stukas start for an attack on military objectives in Eng-
land,” is accompanied by about twenty shots of the take-off and flight of the
German squadron. A recent American newsreel uses about four shots to show a
similar action: Army planes taking off from a carrier. But these few shots,
amounting to only one-fifth of those in the Nazi film, are deluged by the follow-
ing commentary: “Amy-Navy cooperation is graphically evident as an airplane
carrier transports a fleet of Army fighting planes—though not taking them to
any harbor. At sea, some distance off-shore, the speedy fighters take off and
deliver themselves to their destination. One after another, they go. On to an
undisclosed destination, and to the Army planes the Navy men say ‘Happy
landing’.”
The point is that here and elsewhere the American commentator, not content
with furnishing information, gets florid about the events on the screen. It is as
though he were bent on outdistancing the pictures. Unlike the Nazi speaker, he
formulates in words what doubtless would emerge from the pictures themselves
if the many words allowed the audience to look at them. Precisely this is the
trouble with the typical American and English procedure: it makes spectators
uncertain whether they should follow the pictorial development or the verbal
narration. And since they are not able to do both at the same time, their atten-
tion is divided, thus weakening the effect. Much could be gained by ending this
competition.
The second basic device which makes the pictures predominate in Nazi
newsreels concerns their structural relation to the commentary. As a result of
purposeful arrangements, the pictorial part of the Nazi newsreel gives an
impression of continuity. If we disregard those large units in which several suc-
cessive stories are connected mainly by means of pictures, we can distinguish
14 2 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

two methods that are employed to produce this impression. One of them is an
appropriate timing of the verbal statements. When a newsreel episode ends and
the subsequent one begins, it often happens that the commentary accompany-
ing the new episode begins not with its fade-in but only after a certain lapse of
time. In similar American films verbal explanation rarely fail to set in with the
opening shot of a sequence, but in the Nazi newsreel, pictures generally precede
the words. Five shots silently depict the construction of a suspension bridge,
before the commentator tells that this bridge is part of the new German high-
way system. Preceding a verbal account of English troops in Egypt are two air-
plane shots of a mosque and the pyramids, indicating where the story will be
located. And the statement about German Stukas starting for an attack on
military objectives in England joins the pictures at a moment when they have
already begun to develop the action. As a result of this method of timing, the
pictorial parts of successive episodes seem to run into one another, despite their
different content. Thus, the feeling grows in the spectator that he is carried
along by a flow of pictures. In addition, the shots that come before the com-
mentary refrain from revealing their meanings while they pass by, thus result-
ing not so much in straining the intellect as in loosening the emotions. Under
the influence of these shots the whole pictorial flood tends to work in the same
direction.
The other structural method for creating the impression of such a current
consists in shaping verbal statements as incidental remarks to some shot. In the
episode that pictures the welcome offered to returning troops two shots of sol-
diers enjoying the people’s cordiality are accompanied by the words, “No one
will ever forget this day.” Similarly, the commentator extemporizes, “A bunker
at the outskirts of the town,” during a series of clips of Hitler’s drive through
Strassburg. Statements of this kind are frequent and seem to be inspired by the
pictures. It is as though the speaker, confining himself to the role of a spectator,
silently followed the course of the pictures and only here and there, struck by a
detail or a sudden idea, felt the desire to comment. Particularly he likes shots
that lend themselves to a propagandistic interpretation. One sequence shows the
Bastille Square crowded with people listening to a loudspeaker announcing the
Armistice conditions in French.7 The camera, voluptuously dwelling on the peo-
ple’s dejection, turns after a while to a man who is haranguing a group, and the
commentary speedily assumes: “Here one discusses Messrs. Reynaud and Man-
del. The opinion about them is rather obvious.” The subsequent shot is also
exploited. It represents a conclave of four women, one of whom illustrates her
chatter with a gesture simulating the secret pocketing of money. This provokes
the bold conjecture that “Here one talks over the warmongers’ flight abroad.” By
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 14 3

eliciting such propagandistic subtleties from the pictures, the speaker encour-
ages the audience to plunge like him into their flood.8
While the Nazi commentary thus consciously submits to the hegemony of
the pictures, the commentary in Anglo-Saxon films is always tempted to go even
beyond their content. In the World in Action short, “Our Russian Ally,’’ several
shots of Russian troops and tanks moving across the snow are bound up with
the elaborate narration: “From the trenches of Leningrad to the gates of Rostov
they stood to arms all through the bitter winter of 1941. All winter long they
wrote across the bloodstained snow a chapter of heroism of which the greatest
armies of history might be proud. And come what may, on this two-thousand-
mile battlefront, where the titanic forces of the swastika and the red badge of
courage struggle for dominion over one-sixth of the earth’s surface, Russia
knows that her true war power lies not alone in arms and equipment but in the
inner spirit of a people.” As long as there is such a tendency to bury the pictures
under a snow of words, there is a danger that the film will degenerate into an
illustrated editorial.
So much fur the structural relation between the visual element and the com-
mentary, though it should be added that these two components have a certain
inclination to run contrapuntally. Thus, the statement, “At noon military bands
play in the towns of the occupied zone,” belongs to a number of shots intended
to show that German soldiers and French girls are mutually attracted. Another
fascinating instance is provided by several shots of a big swastika flag hoisted on
the Eiffel Tower—symbolizing the statement that “Paris is in the hands of the
Germans”—which are followed without any marked interruption by pictures
reveling in accumulated swastika banners and cheering crowds. Where does this
spectacle take place? Instead of locating it the somewhat delayed commentary
declares, ‘‘Marshall Pétain, deputy minister of the newly organized French gov-
ernment, asks the German government for the conditions of a possible armi-
stice.” In other words, the speaker, indifferent to what is shown on the screen,
continues reporting on the events ‘that sealed the French defeat. After two more
shots he joins in again with the remark, “At a meeting in Munich between the
Fuhrer and Mussolini terms of an armistice were agreed upon.” Through this
contrapuntal procedure the Nazis succeed in affecting the psychological system
by at least two simultaneous suggestions.9
14 4 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

III

Since the visual element prevails in the Nazi newsreel, the camera and pictorial
editing devices are of special interest. Some of them are not peculiar to the
Nazis. Of these, one may be cited because it is used rather frequently: the falsifi-
cation of reality by means of tricks. The sequence in which French girls and Ger-
man soldiers seem to take to each other is decidedly not so much a true image of
life as the illusory outcome of clever cutting. The mirage is accomplished
through a series of clips that alternately picture smiling girls and gaily chattering
soldiers. Then, to deepen the impression that the groups are really in touch with
each other, the girls look toward the right, while, in the subsequent shot, the
soldiers turn toward the left-whereupon the girls appear once again, seemingly
pleased at having been noticed by the males. For a cutter with many newsreel
clips at his disposal it was rather easy to palm this romance off as the finding of
some cameraman. Sometimes it happens that the changes worked upon reality
by studio specialists are admitted openly as such. British film material showing
English recruits drilling on a barracks square has been re-edited with the aid of
optical tricks to shape a comic strip for the purpose of making the audience
laugh at England’s amateurish soldiers. But the Nazis have no monopoly on cin-
ematic jokes of this kind. In fact, the dance steps that Hitler’s columns perform
in Cavalcanti ‘s “Schicklgruber Dancing the Lambeth Walk” are even funnier
than the goose-steps of those caricatured English recruits.
One of the devices that seems to be confined to the Nazi film is an important,
though simple, use of the camera to feature moving troops. It is not by chance
that marching columns are the property of the Nazi regime. In calling them into
existence, Hitler took advantage of traditions emanating from the old German
Youth Movement—a revolt of middle-class youth against the obsolete conven-
tions of the parental world. The rebels wanted to free and renew themselves. But
since they failed to recognize the social and political reasons for their unrest,
they were unable to visualize any real goal, and thus confounded true freedom
with freedom as an end in itself. They opposed the adults by rambling in loose
groups with guitars with no definite destination. This kind of wanderlust was
animated by their belief in the then popular idealistic conception that the world
is in eternal movement toward eternal ideals; these being inaccessible, the young
idealists revered movement as a goal in itself, and as they wandered aimlessly
they all had the gratifying feeling of expressing a metaphysical creed. After the
last war this attitude persisted in the youth of middle-class Germany, which was
then becoming increasingly affected by the worsening economic situation.
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 145

Hitler knew how to exploit these traditions. He persuaded the young people
that he was sent to realize their ideals, and thus influenced them to join the S.A.
The rambler movement was lost in the Nazi movement, the loose groups in uni-
formed, marching columns. And yet some of the young people may still have
believed that nothing essential had changed, for Hitler was on his guard not to
destroy the spell of the movement by a premature disclosure of his aims. Signifi-
cantly, such official Nazi films as “Hitlerjunge Quex” and “Triumph of the
Will” end with enormous S.A. columns marching off against the sky. It is as if
these processions were intended to convince the spectator that they are carrying
on the unending movement of the past. Because of their ideological importance,
marching columns are a leitmotif of the Nazi war newsreel, making the audience
itself participate in a spectacle that symbolizes irresistible advance.
All this accounts for the effort of the newsreel cameramen to cover the col-
umns’ movement as completely as possible. Placed near some highway or city
street—usually at the outside of a curve—the camera first captures the whole
scenery, with a column advancing toward the foreground, say from the left. As
the formation moves on, steadily growing in size, the camera pans to keep it
within the field of vision. Presently the column passes immediately before the
camera. But is it still the column? The former long shot picturing it as a unit has
now changed into a close shot that singles out several individual soldiers or even
mere fragments of them: their heads, their torsos, their marching legs. Thus, the
whole gives way to the puzzling movements of its parts. This disintegration not
only testifies to the Nazis’ desire to depict the movement from all conceivable
angles, but also serves in an impressive way to prepare spectators for the recon-
struction of the unit. The constantly panning camera still follows the soldiers,
who now reappear as a column as they march on to the right. In the final posi-
tion a long shot shows the scenery, with the now recreated column marching
off. Time and again the Nazi newsreel uses this kind of drawn-out pan shot,
which gives the movement of a column in all its details and yet never neglects to
represent it as continuous.
Another characteristically Nazi device is the occasional insertion of beautiful
natural settings, which are not, as a rule, given much attention in newsreels. Pic-
turesque seascapes open the episode that lyrically glorifies the Battle of Britain,
and also preface the shots of German Stukas starting for an attack on English
territory. In the latter the camera proceeds like a painter: a motionless soldier
and a little shore gun are silhouetted against a sea that quietly mirrors the
sinking sun. Both newsreel items attempt to evoke the spirit of attack-which is
evidenced, too, by the cheerful songs synchronized with the bulk of the pic-
tures. The seascapes have the function of facilitating this attempt. Before an
14 6 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

attack is launched, soldiers often receive an abundant alcohol ration designed to

weaken their instinctive fear of the coming battle. The supposition that these
pictures play, for the audience, about the same role as the alcohol plays for the
soldiers is the more justified as the pictures appear at the beginning of the two
episodes. Their beauty is expected to put the mind into a state of aesthetic
delight and thus repress the scruples of everyday life.
Thus, the Nazis profit by the power of aesthetic impressions in overcoming
psychological resistance. In fact, these seapieces, which recall the magnificent
posters of transmarine travel bureaus, work exactly like a stimulant. And there is
no doubt that an audience intoxicated by their charm will unconsciously trans-
fer that feeling to the subsequent praise of the attack on England. It should be
noted that for certain reasons, fascists generally tend to visualize war from an
aesthetic point of view. By extolling the “beauty” of war they obscure its real
significance.
An important device is used in the composition of those large units that
extend over several episodes: successive episodes are sometimes selected and
linked in such a way that the transition between them conveys a propagandistic
meaning. A transition of this kind is found in a unit that consists of the follow-
ing four stories: King George attending Air Raid Protection exercises; King
George visiting a Scout camp; Hitler among his soldiers; Hitler inspecting
Alsace and Lorraine. It is obvious that the first two and the last two stories
belong together, and the transition between them is shaped in such a way as to
bring the contrast to the fore and exploit it in favor of the regime. Toward the
end of the second the King appears amid the singing Scouts, imitating almost
timidly the droll gestures that are part of their ritual. To prepare the ground for
the contrasting effect, the commentary outdoes itself in ridiculing his behavior.
Then comes the transition. Usually pictures do the job, but in this instance it is
exceptionally performed by a verbal statement which, instead of being delayed,
has already started during the last shot of the Scout camp. “While His Majesty,
at a moment when England begins to fight for her very existence, does not know
of any better way to use his time, the Fuhrer of the German Reich shares the
company of his soldiers.” As this pompous sentence progresses the two opening
shots of the third story picture a multitude of soldiers informally saluting Hitler,
who, after a further shot, will leave his car to approach the old war horse. Because
of the contents of the stories which it connects, the transition implies that Eng-
land is in a state of complete decay, whereas Germany is young and virile.
When the pictorial transitions, more prevalent, assume propagandistic func-
tions, they are of the same demagogic nature. One of them links two parades:
the parade of French and English soldiers in 1938; and that of German troops
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 147

celebrating the seizure of Paris. Drawn from enemy film material, the flashback
has evidently been inserted to heighten the impressiveness of the Nazi soldiers,
whose goose-step shakes the famous Paris avenue. The contrast between the epi-
sodes manifests itself at their juncture. When the survey of past splendor is
about to end, the Nazi cutter manages to turn one’s attention from the cadets of
St. Cyr and the mountaineer formations to the French colonial troops. In fact,
the sequence concludes with two close shots of Negro faces. They are followed
immediately by a shot which anticipates the whole Nazi show: the camera first
points to the upper part of the Arc de Triomphe, then tilts down to a German
infantry column moving past the monument, and finally pans to reveal endless
columns participating in the parade. By confronting the colonials with the rep-
resentatives of the master race, the transition not only deepens the contrast
between the former Allies and the Germans, but also gives one to understand
that the Nazi victory must be an outcome of moral superiority.
No less pretentious is a transitional passage within the visual part of a unit
that includes three sequences: a detailed depiction of the Maginot Line, taken
from a French documentary; the German attack on the Maginot Line, indis-
tinctly illustrated by about four shots; Hitler’s return from the destroyed Magi-
not Line to Berlin. Here the transition—it connects the last two episodes—
underscores not so much a contrast as a consequence, that of the victory over
France, and does so by an ingenious shot. After having shown a demobilized
French fort the camera turns toward the left, captures the French bank of the
Rhine and slowly continues panning and traveling in this direction, with the
result that it covers not only the whole width of the river but also its German
bank. The shot, its location fully explained by the succeeding picture of Hitler’s
car moving over a pontoon bridge, leads from the conquered Maginot Line to
Germany in a sustained movement that symbolically annexes Alsace and char-
acterizes the Rhine as a German river. Only a man who passes his possessions in
review surveys in this way. A simultaneous statement merely confirms the shot’s
significance. Thus, a simple transition between two successive events goes far
beyond its immediate duties, in the interest of propaganda.

IV

Many devices are employed to stress the suggestive power of those episodes
that picture excited crowds and are thereby intended to make the audience
participate in the regime. The Nazis excel in organizing masses on the screen
14 8 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

as well as on the street. In the newsreels such crowds appear nowhere with
more magnificence than in the combination of sequences illustrating Hitler’s
reception in Berlin. These sequences cover the following events: Berlin people
preparing for the reception; Hider’s arrival at the Berlin station (Anhalter
Bahnhof ); Hitler leaving the station and walking to his car; crowds cheering
Hitler on his drive to the Reichskanzlei; Hitler and Göring on the balcony,
cheered by immense crowds. Except for the second episode, showing Hitler’s
reception by high dignitaries of the Reich in the station building itself, all
sequences are devoted to one and the same task, that of sustaining a unique
mass demonstration from beginning to end. Ninety-eight shots reproduce
this demonstration, with a thoroughness that depends, of course, upon the
lavish use of well-equipped cameras. Significant in this respect are the various
angles from which Hitler’s entrance into the grounds of the Reichskanzlei has
been shot.
Flags and flowers are the accessories of the grandiose show. Its description
starts with five shots of swastika flags and standards which because of the man-
ner of their representation, acquire a specific meaning. The camera approaches
them closely, with the result that the screen is alternately covered by waving flags
and a forest of standards, reminiscent of the enchanted woods which Lang in his
‘‘Nibelungen” film shaped after Boecklin’s “Great Pan.” The spell of that forest
reinforces the lulling effect of the flags’ undulations. These pictures are an opi-
ate, making spectators submit more readily to the image of the mass.10 Immedi-
ately after the flags a number of girls strew flowers on the street under the eyes of
the. waiting crowd, while the commentator asserts, “The streets from the Anhal-
ter Bahnhof to the Reichskanzlei will be turned into one carpet of flowers.’’ The
propagandistic value of flowers, resulting from their figurative significance, is
supplemented by a few pictures showing this carpet from above. Flowers spread
all over the screen, and it would be difficult to decide whether they are a botani-
cal or a human mass. Thus, the camera forces spectators to associate the impres-
sions of an exalted crowd with flowers. What strikes one first in the cinematic
shape of the mass itself is the constant alternation between the whole and details
of the whole. Distance shots of the crowds and close shots of some face appear in
turn. But this alternation is not in itself so important as the cutter’s endeavor to
shift the attention from the individual to the mass. A closer scrutiny of the
sequences reveals that the depiction of the mass demonstration is divided into a
succession of scenes which almost imperceptibly run into one another. They are
composed in such a way as to determine the course the spectator’s mind has to
follow. One of them, forming the finish of the first sequence, that of preparation
for the reception, begins and ends with a long shot of the mass before the Berlin
station building; between these is a series of four close shots, interrupted by a
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 149

further long shot, detailing the efforts of the S.A. and the police to stem the
mass. Another scene, contained in the sequence of Hitler’s drive to the Reichs-
kanzlei, proceeds in the same way: clips of the huge crowd frame pictures that
pick out raised arms and heads. This cycle, characteristic of all scenes, introduces
a movement leading from the mass to the individual and back to the mass
dimension. The movement’s meaning is obvious: it isolates individuals for the
sole purpose of drowning them in the crowd, thus implying that they are noth-
ing more than its elements.
Other devices, too, aim at depriving the individual of any autonomous value,
and, conversely, attempt to make the mass attractive. The close shots prefer the
faces of women and children to those of men. Many an innocent boy emerges for
a moment from the mass. This predilection is explained by the fact that women
and children are particularly susceptible to the influences of mass excitement;
Hitler himself has called the crowd feminine. One of the furies has a baby on
her shoulder. The camera dwells upon their hysterical faces and never tires of
presenting screaming youngsters and girls in transports. Are they still private
beings? They are part of a delirious crowd. How little concerned the camera is
with maintaining the individual can be seen by the frequency of pictures that
offer diverse parts of human bodies. The head of a woman appears between a
hand and a sharp chin; the legs of a girl try to push away the jackboots of two
S.S. men. These pictures intimate that the individual is not all of a piece—an
assumption buttressed by several close shots of confused mass elements. One of
them shows an inextricable muddle of arms, little swastika flags and heads
spreading over the screen. To complete the impression of the individual’s nullity
the camera always pans and travels while giving details. Its constant movement
denies the independent existence of the man in the crowd. How different from
the classic Russian films! Even though these also indulge in crowds, they man-
age to show that they are a rally of individuals. What remains of the advancing
mass of revolutionary workers in Pudovkin’s “Mother” is the self-possessed face
of the woman heading the procession.
Whereas these close shots blend anarchy and ecstasy, the long shots reveal a
crowd which, in contrast to its elements, affects the audience as an entity. The
bird’s eye view works particularly to this effect. Cameras set far above show the
compactness of the mass and disclose the strange beauty of this enormous and
eternally surging body which suggests comparison with an ocean or an endless
wheat field. Now it becomes dear why the carpet of flowers has been shot to
make it resemble a crowd. Through this pictorial analogy the attractiveness of
the crowd is strongly amplified. It must be added that the cameras pan over the
whole mass as well as over the fragments composing it. Its immensity could not
otherwise be grasped.
150 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

But the mass is not entirely autonomous. It depends upon Hitler. That Hitler
masters the crowd is implied by the organization of the last sequence. It consists of
two scenes, the first of which opens with four long shots of the cheering mass before
the Reichskanzlei and ends with a shot of Hitler surveying the spectacle below from
his balcony. The space between is filled in with detailed shots of the mass. This
arrangement, in leading from the mass to Hitler, clearly shifts the balance in his
favor. The subsequent and concluding scene, which is the climax of the whole, set-
tles Hitler’s relation to the mass by means of a very clever editing device. While the
first shots of the scene picture first Hitler and Göring on the balcony, and then the
ocean-like mass, the last ones show exactly the same objects in reverse order, so that
the scene ends with Hitler. His images encircle those of the crowd, definitely subor-
dinating it to him. The unique sovereignty he thus acquires is sustained by two fur-
ther shots which, mingling with the closeups of mass elements in the interval, like-
wise show him enjoying his triumph. These closeups record almost exclusively the
faces of youngsters. The preference given to them doubtless originates in the desire
to stress the relation between German youth and its Führer.
Of hundreds of thousands absorbed by a crowd, which itself lacks complete
independence, Hitler alone appears as an individual. He is composed; he seems
an end in himself. “Chattering on his balcony with Göring while crowds cheered
him on his return from France, he smiled, but there was no timidity about his
crooked mouth”—this is the impression he made on Howard K. Smith (Last
Train From Berlin) during that mass demonstration. Cinematic expedients help
in idealizing his personality. He is always contrasted with a particularly dis-
torted face or fragment, if not with the mass as a whole. And no sooner do the
incessantly moving cameras light upon Hitler than they come to a standstill. By
stopping momentarily their ceaseless motion they feature him as the true source
and goal of the mass below (New York City).

Notes

1. These measures have been dealt with in the author’s study on “Propaganda and the
Nazi War Film,” Museum of Modern Art Film Library (New York, 1949).
2. These newsreels were made accessible to me through the courtesy of the Museum of
Modern Art Film Library. They are undated. Some of them are in German, while
others have an English commentary and are obviously versions for Anglo-Saxon
countries.
As for the later German newsreels, those from the winter of 1940 on, they con-
tinued as long as possible to advertise bloodless victories and steady advances.
 T he Conquest of Eu rope on t he Screen m 151

Flight Sergeant Bill Orndorff of the RAF who spent seven weeks in Nazi-occupied
Europe, in 1942, tells the New York Post, on November 13, 1942, of a newsreel he
had seen there: “It was a Nazi film about the capture of Rostov—which would have
you believe that the Nazis never lose a plane.” But the more peace faded and the
German death toll rose, the stronger became the criticism in Germany itself of that
kind of film propaganda. According to Ernst Kris (“The Imagery of War,” Dayton
Art Institute Bulletin, October 1942), the Nazi authorities were forced to take these
reactions into account. Since they do not dare to present grave setbacks in place of
easy conquests, or to substitute the now deadly serious soldiers for the former gay
columns, they have reduced the frequency of newsreel showings. And in what is left
they picture more the innocuous and irrelevant sides of life in occupied Europe
than warfare proper or any real problems.
3. The most striking instance of the absence of words is the sequence picturing Hit-
ler’s reception at Berlin by means of about 85 shots. Since the commentator’s two
sentences cover not more than 3 of these shots, that is, 3.5 percent, almost the entire
episode runs like a silent film—except for the synchronized music and cheering.
4. See “Propaganda and the Nazi War Film.”
5. See Erwin Panofsky, “Style and Medium in Moving Pictures,” Transition, no. 26
(1937): 121–33.
6. It is noteworthy, too, that the introductory parts of the two full-length Nazi campaign
films, Baptism of Fire and Victory in the West, are on the whole, nothing more than
verbal reports illustrated by suitable shots. This is a consequence of their purpose. They
have to summarize, from a Nazi viewpoint, the historic events that led to the Polish
and French campaigns. The intent is not so much to portray history as to sketch a back-
ground. The succeeding parts, dealing with the campaigns themselves, proceed like
the newsreels in stressing the visual elements at the expense of commentary.
7. It is an amusing fact that the excerpt drawn from the Armistice treaty in this
sequence deals with the future of the French fleet. The loudspeaker records the
paragraph: “Le gouvernement allemand déclare en outre solennellement et expres-
sement qu’il ne formulera aucune revendication vis à vis de la flotte francais lors de
la conclusion de la paix.”
8. Because of this pictorial continuity particular caution is necessary in including
clips drawn from Nazi propaganda films in anti-Axis films.
9. For a fuller appraisal of such cinematic polyphony, see “Propaganda and the Nazi
War Film.” The question may be raised whether also the above quotation from
“Our Russian Ally” is not connected with its pictorial accompaniment in a contra-
puntal way. But even though the narration in that instance refers to many more
things than the few shoots shown at the same time, the little scene is by no means a
polyphonic composition. Instead of adding to the theme of the pictures a new
theme, so that both can work together upon the audience, the narrator imposes
such a multitude of ideas that under their weight the pictures lose their force. The
contrapuntal method does not all weigh any one theme to push another aside, but
weaves them into a unit in which they are sustained equally.
10. Here the flags have a function similar to that of the beautiful seascapes mentioned
earlier.
 7
The Hitler Image

Monday, January 3, 1944

In the Nazi war newsreels every possible means has been employed to create an
image of Hitler that transforms impassive spectators into fanatic followers. Gros
once painted Bonaparte’s visit to plague-stricken soldiers in a Jaffa hospital in a
manner suggesting that he, like the Christian saints in Italian paintings of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was endowed with the magic power of
healing touch. Taking up this tradition again, one recent Nazi newsreel episode
assigns the traits of a savior to Hitler. He enters a room full of severely wounded
soldiers, and as he strides from bed to bed, his raised arm seems to exorcise all
infirmities, while cripples and invalids look at him with an excitement that
implies their faith in his thaumaturgical faculties. “They live to see the proudest
day of their lives,” the commentary modestly adds.
Hitler’s inspection of the Munich art exhibition in 1940 offered the Nazi
cameraman a gratifying opportunity to reveal that the savior is also a genius.
Having passed along a wall of paintings and admired such items as an old mill
covered with snow or a Dolomite rock glowing in the sunset, the Führer
approaches some sculptures, and here his genius manifests itself. The moment
that he looks at a young marble or plaster woman, her naked body slowly
becomes luminous and shines like the Dolomite rock. The solemnity of the pro-
cess is augmented by an accompaniment of Wagnerian music. It is as if the illu-
minated body miraculously reflected the brightness of Hitler’s inspirational
powers—a phenomenon of transference that reminds one of spiritualistic
seances. This episode seems to be proof of the great degree to which film propa-
ganda can count on the credulity of the masses.
 T h e H i t ler I m age m 15 3

Frequently Hitler appears as the lord of hosts: followed by his generals, he

reviews parades, surveys destroyed fortifications or makes his entrance into a
conquered city. After Hitler’s tremendous military success, it was not difficult to
represent him as the “victorious field marshal,” but it must also be noted that the
German film makers are experts at finding effective pictorial formulas to mag-
nify this role. Close-ups of Hitler’s head and raised arm against a cloudy sky
elevate him above all morals; another shot relates his head to the spire of a cathe-
dral in such a way as to give the impression that Hitler, too, is a towering event in
German history. Whenever themes of mythological significance are to be
shaped, the Nazi film seldom fails to choose the right objects and angles.
Hitler triumphant is never seen without those crowds that have become a
regular institution in Nazi Germany. The background of his relation to them is
unveiled in the newsreel sequence of his train journey to a Berlin feverishly
awaiting the blitz conqueror of France. This record, as well as the subsequent
survey of his Berlin reception, was made at a moment when Germany thought a
victorious peace imminent. Hope and happiness animated people’s faces in that
railway episode, and it was as though, thanks to the prospects opened by the
overwhelming French defeat, the usually prearranged excitement seen in so
many Nazi newsreels had for once given way to a true cordiality. Symptomati-
cally, these pictures focus upon small groups or even single persons rather than
upon huge crowds. Workmen and farmers wave to the passing train, village chil-
dren form an improvised lane along the tracks, and as the car stops in provincial
stations mobs gayly besiege the car. Hitler behaves exactly like a popular movie
star where he smiles down at a blonde girl handing him a bouquet or autographs
pictures of himself and hands them out through the car window. But the signifi-
cant point is that he never leaves the train to mingle with those who, according
to the commentary, offer him “tokens of love, loyalty and gratitude.” The trium-
phant Fuhrer withholds any such gesture of genuine intimacy—an illuminating
fact in a scene designed expressly to show the close contact between him and his
people. Is his reluctance the outcome of fear? It rather reveals his concept of
leadership. The Nazi regime depends upon its ability to manipulate people; in
the interest of self-preservation it must suppress spontaneous feelings in favor of
directed ones. Now the enthusiasm of the people in the railway sequence is no
doubt sincere. But precisely for this reason Hitler cannot join them outdoors.
For by doing so, he would implicitly recognize his crowd as individual people
and thus deny the principles upon which his power is based.
To humanize the idol, an episode shows Hitler in informal contact with his
troops. In this one sequence he walks across a field without any ceremony. “An
old war horse is allowed to share in the breakfast,” runs the commentary. Indeed,
154 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

Hitler approaches a horse and feeds it cautiously. But even though it is a harm-
less, worn-out animal of the kind that is used in theaters, he looks uncomfort-
able in staging this show. His uneasiness is that of a man who keeps all creatures
at a distance and tries for a moment to overcome this habit. Instead of endowing
Hitler with human traits, the scene only succeeds in confirming his unsocial
character. It reminds one of a scene in the Nazi documentary “Für Uns,” where
Hitler comforts some weeping children of fallen partisans by patting them on
their wet cheeks—a caress which fails to produce the intended effects because he
absentmindedly looks in the other direction while doing so.
The intermezzo with the horse is followed by two shots picturing Hitler amid
a multitude of soldiers who greatly enjoy his presence. Two soldiers in the back-
ground take snapshots of him as he smilingly returns to the waiting generals and
cars on the highway. The little scene breathes confidence. “Hitler displays a
familiarity during this visit, which the commentary celebrates with the lyric
words: “The Führer and his soldiers—an insoluble community guaranteeing the
victory of German arms.” Yet the two shots neither suffice to illustrate such pre-
tensions nor do they allow any inferences as to the nature of Hitler’s relation to
the people in general. For soldiers differ basically from people in that they form
organized units subject to the laws of discipline. They are, like Hitler himself,
men in uniform, and in judging them for a moment, the corporal of the last
World War still remains within his peculiar sphere—a sphere strictly separated
from the world over which he rules. This scene does not make him appear more
human or humble, but rather exhibits how knowingly he handles the instru-
ment “guaranteeing the victory of German arms.” Thus, some light is thrown on
the Hitler behind the scenes by his official image on the screen.
 8
Below the Surface
Project of a Test Film

O
ur hypothesis is the following:
A person who tends to accuse a Jew or any member of another
minority of an action which that group, on the basis of its pro-
fessional and traditional background, cannot be expected to commit (at least
not with greater probability than a member of any other group) must be biased
in some way against this group.
The basic hypothesis is as follows:
A person determined by an antisemitic outlook will introduce a relation of
cause and effect between two unrelated parts of a situation.
To explain: the occurrence of the accident, on the one hand, and the being
Jewish of the accused person, on the other hand, are not related either in fact or
perceptually (that there is no perceptual relation is established by the control
experiment in which the accused person, playing the identical role, is Gentile).
The crucial question is whether the person introduces the causal relation
where it does not exist. If he does, this can only be on the basis of an antisemitic
orientation.
If this hypothesis is correct, then the reaction to the film indicates the pres-
ence or absence of an antisemitic orientation in the given situation. The validity
of this inference can eventually be checked against the correspondence between
the reactions to the film and the other data, such as interviews and attitude
scales.
156 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

HYPOTHESES

1. The frequency with which the Jew is judged guilty will vary directly with
the antisemitism of the groups; i.e., the frequency will be higher in antise-
mitic groups than in non-antisemitic groups.
2. There will be significant relationships between the reaction to the film and
the scores on attitude scales.
3. The ambiguous events in the film will be structured in the direction of the
final decision.
4. Upon a second showing of the film there will be a trend to maintain the
verdict previously reached.
5. The minority of the people will be prone to mention the man who reads the
newspaper, and those who do mention him will tend to endeavor to achieve
a most objective appraisal of the situation.
6. The fur-coat lady would get unfavorable reactions from antisemites.
7. In a Jewish audience there will be significant differences of reaction accord-
ing to socio-economic levels; those of lower socio-economic level tending to
exonerate the Jew.
8. The difference between variation II and variation I will be greater in the
antisemitic groups.
9. In the group which shows a higher degree of accusation of the Jew, there will
be fewer refusals to judge and contrariwise. If the refusal is not due to lack of
cooperation in general, the male antisemites will show a certain degree of
lack of cooperation, not the females.
10. Antisemitism is connected with anti-intellectualism in the sense of “sophis-
tication.” Sophistication has a negative connotation with the antisemites.
 Below t h e Surface m 157

Examples of questions which the audience

Will be asked after the showing:

1. Give a short report on what you have just seen. Tell the events without any
commentary.
2. Which were the leading characters? Describe each one of them.
3. List each of these characters according to whom you like best, next-best,
a.s.o. {and so on}, until the one whom you disliked most, and give reason
why.
4. Do you think the crowd designated as guilty the right man?
5. How did the man behave when he was accused by the crowd?
Cowardly Courageously Correctly
6. How did the two nuns behave? Do you think their sympathies at the end
were with the crowd or with the accused man?
158 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

NOTES

We might experiment with the fragment of the picture which ends immediately
after the accident. Therefore, the production should be done in such a way that
we can make a break after the accident and before the talk starts.
Once in a while we might show the picture twice to the same audience in
order to see whether the second showing (without the slow-motion part) has an
influence on the audience’s opinion.
Perhaps it is a good idea to test the difference of reactions if the Jew is repre-
sented as rich or simply average. This could be done very easily. For example, at
the end, when the crowd turns against the Jew, he would raise his hand and a
member of the crowd would say: “Look at that big diamond ring!” This remark
could be left out in other versions.
Another, and even better, way would be for the policeman to ask the man his
business. Then, when he is questioned as to his employer, he answers: “I am the
owner.” The next question concerns the address of the business. When that is
given the policeman inquires: “What floor are you on?” to which the man
answers that the business occupies the entire floor. After hearing the name, the
policeman could even say: “Oh, you are the Mr. . . .”
It should be well understood that we do not expect that any cross-section of
any group would react to the picture in the following way:
The part of the cross-section which will see the Gentile accused would be
expected to say: “The Gentile is not guilty,” and the part, or at least a fraction of
the part, which would see the Jew accused would say: “The Jew is guilty.”
What we expect is that some of the group which sees the Gentile accused will
agree with the accusation. The percentage of the those who see the Jew accused
and agree will be somewhat higher if the group of which the cross-section is
typical is biased to some extent. This bias is not necessarily an expressed one. It
might be that the whole cross-section, when asked, whether the Jews are as desir-
able as other groups, would answer, “Yes.” It is just this latent prejudice which
can be tested by such means as the picture.
 Below t h e Surface m 159

NOTES RE{GARDING} PEOPLE TO BE IN THE CROWD

Either the one-legged man or another character must imitate the Jew.
There should be an old lady having {sic} a dog in a basket and crying: “My
dog, My dog . . .” when the commotion starts.
There should be a child who cries in the panic.
There should be one intellectual with horn-rimmed glasses.
There should be one very elegant lady in a fur-coat.
There should be two shipyard workers, but they should be dirty enough as to
enable the antisemite to say that they look suspicious.
16 0 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

PROJECT OF A TEST FILM

Audience reactions are significant only if they are expressed spontaneously,

involuntarily. The purpose of this test film must therefore be veiled. The interest
of the audience must be diverted from the test proper and concentrated upon
something else; in this case, on the fact that the testimony of eye-witnesses is
nearly always unreliable.
On the other hand, we cannot veil the purpose of the film so that the audi-
ence is completely sidetracked. It would be advisable to insert motifs which keep
alive or even stimulate the more or less latent racial or religious prejudices.
The subject of this film is an accident in a subway car. The accident occurs at
the beginning of the film. This theme has been selected:

(1) to shock the spectators from the outset into identifying themselves with the
characters in the screen;
(2) to arouse the spectators’ emotional reactions from the beginning;
(3) to create argument among the screen characters, a passionate dispute
designed to evoke participation by the audience.

The film should be interesting as a movie. A dull film would weaken the
interest of the audience in the problems involved, thereby reducing the value of
the test.

OUTLINE OF THE PLOT

A subway car stops at a station. Pressing into the The one-legged man is to
crowded car are people coming, perhaps, from a arouse sympathetic feelings
baseball game. Among them, a one-legged, elderly among the audience. He will
candyman, tries to get in. express antisemitic sentiments.
He is pushed aside by an obviously Jewish man.1 This is to arouse a slight bias.
The one-legged man finally gets in. A girl offers
him her seat near the door leading to the next car.
From this place he follows the events, and
eventually becomes the mouthpiece of what seems
the “public opinion” in the car after the accident.
 Below t h e Surface m 161

As the subway starts moving, a man in front of the A slight comic touch is needed
one-legged man is seen reading a newspaper. It to prepare the audience for the
hides his face. shock to come. This character
represents indifference.
A woman with a big parcel containing a vacuum
cleaner is squeezed against the door leading into
the next car. When the train rounds a curve, she
clasps the latch, trying to keep her balance, and
the door swings open.

At this very moment, for unknown reasons, a

violent commotion occurs, involving four men
standing close to the door. One of them is the Jew.
The three others are presumably Gentiles—among
them a rather tough guy. Owing to this commo-
tion or to some other cause, the woman is pushed
out of the door; she seems to slip through the
safety ropes between the cars. The woman
screams. People leap from their seats. A flash: the
lights go out, the subway stops. An isolated
flashlight and occasionally lighted matches allow
the camera to show that the short circuit has been
cause by the vacuum cleaner which has fallen onto
the rails. (An accident of this kind has recently
been reported in the New York Post.) The woman
herself, caught by the safety ropes, is dragged into
the car and cared for by a doctor who happens to
be among the passengers. She is more shocked
than hurt.
We can see immediately that
the accident was not dangerous
after all. This is done to
mitigate the shock effect, so
that the racial prejudices will
not be overshadowed by other
reactions.
The man with the newspaper, undisturbed, makes
a futile attempt to continue reading with the aid
of kitchen matches.
Mass hysteria and a general fight develop.
Suddenly the lights go on again.
162 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

Two cops, accompanied by a subway guard, enter

the car by the door opposite the door of the
accident and push through the crowd toward the
four men. Each of the four men is accused by some
member of the crowd.
The man with the newspaper is seen absorbed
again in reading.
(From this point on the film has to be split into two variants)2
 Below t h e Surface m 163

Variant I: implies that one of the Gentiles is guilty; claiming indemnity, the
hurt woman expresses the definite opinion that she was pushed out of the door
not by the Jew, but by one of the Gentiles—the tough guy. The crowd seems to
adopt her opinion. Only the one-legged man is dissatisfied.

Variant II: implies that the Jew is guilty: The woman loudly claims indemnity,
without being interested in the problem of guilt. The antisemitic atmosphere
predominates. The one-legged man remains the accepted leader.
The film ends, in both variants, with the cops taking down the addresses of
the four men and the eyewitnesses. While they are doing this, the camera pans
over the crowd—an extended shot including a close-up of the one-legged man.
Slow fade-out.
Caption: You, too, have been eyewitnesses of the accident. What is your
opinion?

Now the questionnaires are distributed among the audience. They include many
questions regarding the cause of the accident and each character involved.
One question is:

“Is the suspected person really guilty, and why?”

The purpose of the two variants: Both variants are shown to a sample of the
social group whose racial reactions are studied. But, variant I is shown to a sam-
ple composed of other individuals than the sample confronted with variant II.
The sample shown variant I may be called sample I.
The sample shown variant II may be called sample II.
The degree to which the answers of sample I tend to be fairer to the suspected
man than the answers of sample II—if such a difference can be observed at all—
would provide us with an index of the amount of prejudice.
164 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

BELOW THE SURFACE

A Test Film Prepared for the

American Jewish Committee for
selected showings in connection
with questionnaire.

An impressive view of lower Manhattan, looking down from an elevation. Camera

pans across Broadway, which is relatively empty, and stops close on clock tower as the
hands reach six o’clock. There follows a brief montage of New Yorkers quitting work
for the day and starting home, including:
Office workers getting up from desks—
Looking at watches—
Covering typewriters—
Powdering noses in the washroom mirror—
Slipping on hats and coats—
A factory whistle blows and we see factory workers down tools—
Pick up lunch pails and coats—
Punch out through the time clock—
A close view of the tower clock reveals that it is now a couple of minutes after six, and
as we pan from it to the original scene of Broadway, it is now crowded, with more
people pouring out of offices, bound for a subway kiosk. Dissolve to—
Interior, car of a New York subway express, northbound from lower Manhattan,
evening rush hour. The train is in motion. It is already fairly full of homegoing types,
and the establishing shots will give the impression of average Americans at the end of
the day’s work, tired and slumping, swaying in hard-packed, involuntary contiguity,
each isolated with his or her own reading matters, his or her own thoughts.
A pan of close-ups starts well up towards vestibule with (seated) an old gentle-
man with financial page, on which he has started to check stock reports. Ad
lib, a young stenographer chewing gum and deep in a “Confessions” magazine.
In any case, neither of these will speak or take active part, their value throughout
being only as figures of persistent disinterest.
Camera moves in close to a woman with a vacuum cleaner. She is standing
in vestibule, against end door, the handle of the half-wrapped bundle over her
shoulder and leaning against the door’s pane. She is a mousey, puritanical little
woman, middle-aged, middle-class, clutching her too-big burden with an air of
frustration. As camera moves so close that it excludes everyone else, we begin to hear
her thoughts, as given by her own voice with special effect in re-recording.
 Below t h e Surface m 165

As she unwraps little corner of bundle vacuum cleaner woman’s

and peeks in: thoughts
All right, now it’s repaired. Now I can
get to work tonight cleaning up the
house again. All that dust and dirt,
infection, disease . . . I won’t have them
in my house. Clara always laughs at
me—calls it silly. But it isn’t what you do
that counts—it’s how you do it!
(indicating cleaner) Might start on the
rugs tonight—
Pan to two shipyard workers, standing. They are in work clothes, grimed,
weary. They share a newspaper, but neither really reads it as, with far-away expres-
sions, their voices—via similar technique—give their thoughts.
Both pretend dumbly they are reading first shipyard worker’s
paper. thoughts
Oh, boy, corned-beef tonight—that’s
what she promised. And after that
shipyard all day! But the old Gal won’t
let my stomach down. She knows what’s
what—knows a woman’s place is in the
home—not in the shipyard. She’ll have
it all ready to dish up, smoking hot:
good, chunky, fatty red corned-beef!
First worker goes through elaborate second shipyard worker’s
dumb show of asking whether second is thoughts
through with page. First nods yes. First Spaghetti tonight—out of a can! Don’t
turns page. Both continue gesture of expect anything else. Spaghetti last
reading. night—spaghetti the night before. And
don’t kid yourself, it’ll be spaghetti again
tomorrow. Don’t know what she spends
my money on—certainly ain’t on my
stomach. Rivettin’ all and
then—spaghetti!
Camera moves to a middled-aged woman in fur coat, seated. She is a stout
creature, and the conspicuous mink makes her look even more so. She is looking
around car, much enjoying her lack of enjoyment, her gaze ultimately settling on a
negro youth in a Harlem zoot suit who is standing near.
166 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

As she watches negro: fur coat woman’s thoughts

All that company to prepare for
tonight—and I couldn’t get a taxi home.
Well, we all have to make sacrifices
nowadays—and I’m no snob. I like
people all—like this, mixed together.
Even colored people! Though I must say,
the way that maid walked out on me just
because of tonight’s party . . . After all
I’ve done for her, the dresses I gave her.
No gratitude, Negroes . . . no loyalty.
The minute you treat them like equals—
you just can’t do it! But—she did make
such darling canapes! Do hope I can
manage . . .
Camera moves to a policeman. policeman’s thoughts
O.K., Sadie, I’m on my way home right
now! Kin hardly wait to get there. I’ll be
 Below t h e Surface m 167

negro version

Pan to two shipyard workers, standing. They are in work clothes, grimed,
weary. They share a newspaper, but neither really reads it as, with faraway expres-
sions, their voices—via similar technique—give their thoughts.
Both pretend dumbly they are reading first shipyard worker’s
paper. thoughts
Oh, boy, corned beef tonight—that’s
what she promised. And after that
shipyard all day! But the old gal won’t let
my stomach down. She knows what’s
what—knows a woman’s place is in the
home—not in the shipyard. She’ll have
it all ready to dish up, smoking hot:
good, chunky, fatty red corned beef!
First worker goes through elaborate second shipyard worker’s
dumb show of asking whether second is thoughts
through with page. Second nods yes. Spaghetti tonight—out of a can! Don’t
First turns page. Both continue gesture expect anything else. Spaghetti last
of reading. night—spaghetti the night before. And
don’t kid yourself, it’ll be spaghetti again
tomorrow. Don’t know what she spends
my money on—certainly ain’t on my
stomach. Rivettin’ all day and
then—spaghetti!
Camera moved to a middle-aged woman in fur coat, seated. She is a stout
creature, and the conspicuous mink makes her look even more so. She whisks her
coat away from contact with the jew, and looks around the car, much enjoying her
lack of enjoyment, her gaze ultimately settling on a negro youth in Harlem zoot
suit who is standing near.
16 8 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

making a beeline down the block, and

up the stairs—to where Sadie’ll be
waiting—with a tub o’ hot water that
I’ll put these poor old Staten Island feet
into and just let ’em soak there all
evenin! Good old Sadie! Kin hardly
wait!
Camera moves to close-up of a man’s fat paunch in tight vest, with a gold watch-
chain strung from pocket to pocket. Then to figure of a pickpocket, a slick
ratty little chap, standing next to man with vest and eyeing the watch-chain
intently.
pickpocket’s thoughts
Fat jewelry on a fat man . . . it
depresses me.
Camera returns to the vest of the bystander. The watch-chain has disappeared.
pickpocket’s thoughts
Wonder how many other chances I’ll
have this evening to rebuke society’s bad
taste.
Camera moves on to a dowdy old woman, with satchel on her lap.
old woman’s thoughts
Wanna be home—safe. Something’s
gonna happen. The stars said so for
today. Folks can make fun of it, but
astrology explains a lot of things. I’ll just
set for the evening—safe.
Out of open lid of satchel pushes the snout and cocked eye of a puppy. A kid’s hand
comes into scene—stops before patting puppy. Camera now includes little girl,
gazing at the puppy longingly.
She makes a move to pet dog, but is little girl’s thoughts
restrained by glare from owner. Oh, dear, wish I was going home to a
dog—’stead of just a baby brother. I
think I like dogs better than people.
Look at that. Now, dogs, they wag their
tails and you know they want to be
friends with you. And you can’t scratch
people’s stomachs, mostly, either!
Pan to tough guy. He is a huge, surly brute, Prussian type. He is thumbing
through a collection receipt-book, grim satisfaction on his jaw:
 Below t h e Surface m 169

Turning to next pages: tough guy’s thoughts

Morrisey, two installments, paid—yeah,
they paid all right, all right—sure tried
to get out of it. Greenwald, one install-
ment. Smith—they didn’t get away with
anything, either. That old gag about
meeting hospital bills first—nuts! A
good day’s work.
Shuts book away. A grin of anticipatory And now home to Mama. My ol’ Mama.
bliss: A guy who don’t feel real love and
respect for his parents is a heartless
mut—an’ no American, besides!
His elbow jogs wise guy, a small, wiry, grizzled type with ironical expression,
slightly too good manners, and an evening tie and shirt-bosom visible under his
turned-up light overcoat.
He shrugs—smiles whimsically. wise guy’s thoughts
Everyone else going home except me.
Upside-down me, I go to work.
Still, nothing like work in a nightclub
for getting to know human nature at
a glance.
Eyeing woman in fur coat: Now there’s a sure dollar tip. Millionaires
in subways . . . this is certainly a democracy.
Camera moves with his eyes to woman Uh-uh. Strictly cafeteria!
with vacuum cleaner. He shakes
his head.
His gaze moves on to intellectual. HM! Big shot? Or just wishes he was?
Speculatively:
Close-up of intellectual standing in vestibule corner: a large, impressive,
health-radiating type in good tweeds and ribboned glasses. He glances at some
notes and then looks up, delivering a speech in his imagination.
Then, in quieter vein, intellectual’s thoughts
“Gentlemen, it’s a privilege to speak here
tonight to your distinguished member-
ship of—may I say ‘Doers’!—
businessmen and other red-blooded men
of action.’ ”
Good—they mustn’t put me down as a
freshwater college professor!
170 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

Resuming the speech, in his “Admitted, gentlemen, that’s what I am

imagination: by vocation, yes, but not by instinct! I’m
the first to protest against our colleges’
emphasis on intellectual theory instead
of the solid virtues—There are problems
too important to be understood by the
mind alone. Problems which call for
fewer laws and for courageous leaders,
instead of beaurocrats {sic} . . .*
Seeing soldier further down car: …real leaders, who won’t be afraid to
keep the younger generation in training.
After all, human nature being what it is,
there’ll always be war . . . And military
training makes young folks think about
the important things in life.
During above Camera has centered on soldier’s thoughts (in slow
soldier, a tall, good-looking kid in Vermont twang)
uniform, pfc. {private first class}. She sure has the trimmest ankle . . . and
the rest of her fits the ankle!
In gangly position and melancholy Jimmy Stewart mood, he is looking wistfully
across aisle through gap in standees at:
Close shot cadet nurse. At first she appears to look away, as if annoyed by his
gaze.
But, as the camera comes very close, we see that out of the corner of her eyes she is
looking back at the soldier with an interest that matches his.
nurse’s thoughts
Well, I made him look at me, anyway.
Though, a lot of good it does to have him
look! He won’t try to pick me up . . . the
nice ones never do.
Intercut between them during soldier’s thoughts
following: Look, soldier, don’t be a Vermont jokel
{sic}. How far do you think you could
get with a slick society dame as pretty
as—gee, she sure is, all right, she sure is
pretty! Wish I could show her I
think so!

* [This is spelled incorrectly in the original text. The editors are unsure if the misspelling is intentional.]
 Below t h e Surface m 171

Giving soldier a quiet once-over: nurse’s thoughts

Five foot eleven, I’d say. No extra fat.
Nice straight nose. Won’t go bald before
he’s fifty. But what would he want with
just plain run-of-the-mill Bronx goods
like me? Times Square, Chorus Girl
Land, that’s where he’ll get off.
soldier’s thoughts
Okay, even supposing you did get to
know her . . .
A subway guard enters car at lower end, and comes forging through towards
vestibule.
She has a Red Cross First Aid Manual in nurse’s thoughts
her lap. I—I wish he’s {sic} pick it up. No, not
me, just—it!
The little manual plops to floor.
soldier leans awkwardly forward to
pick it up, but gets his finger caught
under somebody’s heel.
The subway guard swoops up the manual, returns it to the nurse, and passes
on. In vestibule, the woman with vacuum cleaner has to make way for him
to open end door and exit through. As she inches back against door, the handle of
the cleaner over her shoulder catches in the crack and, unnoticed by anybody,
prevents a complete closing of door. Camera back to nurse and soldier.
As she crams manual into pocket: nurse’s thoughts
Of all the cheap tricks—and I played it!
Serves me right.
Sits nursing his finger: soldier’s thoughts
Serves y’ right for thinkin’ she did it
a-purpose! Wonder how good she is at
bindin’ up . . .?
nurse’s thoughts
Wonder if he’d let me bind it?
His eye on his wrist watch: soldier’s thoughts
Gosh, take y’ two whole hours, probably,
to get up nerve to ask her to have
supper . . . that’d be eight o’clock.
172 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

nurse’s thoughts
Doesn’t anything ever happen to—to
anybody, ever?
soldier’s thoughts
9:30 before she’d even think of asking
you home—
nurse’s thoughts
I guess not. Not on a subway, ever.
soldier’s thoughts
—and by the time you really got under
way it’d be midnight, and you’d have to
beat it back to camp.
As she looks reluctantly away: nurse’s thoughts
Well, five foot eleven, I—I guess it’s
goodbye.
Ditto, in other direction: soldier’s thoughts
Well, so long, ankles.
The train clanks on. A resume-shot gives another general impression of the carful as
the shadow mechanism behind window closest to vestibule slows down and indicates
station stop. Through window or door-pane, as vestibule side-door slides open,
group-shot of waiting passengers in cluster around pillar.
One passenger pushes out, the waiting crowd pushes on. Among these, most
prominently, a jew and a club-footed peddler. The jew is stocky, prosperous-
looking, open-faced but slightly over-bearing. club-foot is fairly elderly, tall,
dominant in spite of his affliction, his face a mixture of piety, truculence, and
dormant fanaticism. He is poorly clad, and is having trouble with his peddler’s tray
of shoelaces, pencils, etc. He tries to barge aboard ahead of jew, who, with plausible
indignation, elbows him off and gets there first. As they come onto train:
Jostled aside: clubfoot (aloud)
Look out, where are you—?
Turning in vestibule, with that curt jew (aloud)
constrained politeness of the subway code: All right, I’m sorry.
clubfoot looks up toward intel-
lectual, against whom he has been
pushed. He’s about to apologize, but
intellectual has evidently seen part
of incident and sides with club-foot,
for he volunteers
 Below t h e Surface m 17 3

negro version

soldier’s thoughts
—and by the time you really got
underway it’d be midnight, and you’d
have to beat it back to camp.
As she looks reluctantly away: nurse’s thoughts
Well, five foot eleven, I—I guess it’s
goodbye.
Ditto, in other direction: soldier’s thoughts
Well, so long, ankles.
The train clanks on. A resume-shot gives another general impression of the carful as
the shadow mechanism behind window closest to vestibule slows down and indicates
station stop. Through window or door-pane, as vestibule side-door slides open,
group-shot of waiting passengers in cluster around pillar.
One passenger rushes out, the waiting crowd pushes on. Among these, most
prominently, a negro and a club-footed peddler. The negro is a good-
natured, carelessly mannered chap with too fresh a grin, and is dressed in a Harlem
zoot suit, loud tie, etc. club-foot is fairly elderly, tall, dominant in spite of his
affliction, his face a mixture of piety, truculence, and dormant fanaticism. He is
poorly clad, and is having trouble with his peddler’s tray of shoelaces, pencils, etc. He
tries to barge aboard ahead of negro, who, with gleeful determination, elbows him
and gets there first. As they come onto train:
Jostled aside: club-foot (aloud)
Look out, where are you—?
174 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

white collar version

soldier’s thoughts
—and by the time you really got
under-way it’d be midnight, and you’d
have to beat it back to camp.
As she looks reluctantly away: nurse’s thoughts
Well, five foot eleven, I—I guess it’s
goodbye.
Ditto, in other direction: soldier’s thoughts
Well, so long, ankles.
The train clanks on. A resume-shot gives another general impression of the carful as
the shadow mechanism behind window closest to vestibule slows down and indicates
station stop. Through window or door-pane, as vestibule side-door slides open,
group-shot of waiting passengers in cluster around pillar.
One passenger rushes out, the waiting crowd pushes on. Among these, most
prominently, a white- collar worker and a club-footed peddler. The
white- collar worker is a sallow, somewhat cranky, worried man, bookkeeper
type, distinctly Protestant. club-foot is fairly elderly, tall, dominant in spite of his
affliction, his face a mixture of piety, truculence, and dormant fanaticism. He is
poorly clad, and is having trouble with his peddler’s tray of shoelaces, pencils, etc. He
tries to barge aboard ahead of white- collar man who elbows him petulantly
and gets there first. As they come onto train:
Jostled aside: club-foot (aloud)
Look out, where are you—?
Turning in vestibule, with an ineffectual white collar (aloud)
show of spite: Very well, I’m sorry.
clubfoot looks towards intellec- intellectual (aloud)
tual, against whom he has been “Sorry”—but after he pushed you, of
pushed. He’s about to apologize, but course!
intellectual has evidently seen part
of incident, and sides with clubfoot,
volunteering the ironic comment.
clubfoot
Sure, sneakin’ right in—ahead o’ me—not
mindin’ anything—a gentleman!
white collar has not heard this bitter but quiet comment. However, glancing
down, he notices clubfoot’s affliction and murmurs to himself, as if in under-
standing of the man’s bitterness:
 Below t h e Surface m 175

The ironic comment: intellectual (aloud)

“Sorry”—but after he pushed you, of
course!
clubfoot
Sure, always pushing in first, always
grabbing the profits!
jew has not heard this bitter but quiet comment. However, glancing down, he
notices club-foot’s affliction, and murmurs to himself, as if in understanding of
the man’s bitterness:
jew
Oh!. . .
Looking up, he senses their hostility, but shrugs it off and is soon absorbed in
searching for something in his pocket. Camera returns to club-foot. He has
evidently been encouraged by a sympathetic audience.
club-foot (quiet but ominous)
It’s time folks woke up to lots of things
going on in this country!
club-foot stomps on further into car, using his tray to cleave a passage. In doing
so he grazes against policeman, who winces and nurses his sore feet. Interlude
shots of soldier and nurse sneaking looks at each other, of tough guy
lurching against wise guy as, indicated by swing of upheld newspapers, etc., the
train begins to take a curve.
In vestibule, shot of woman with vc as the door behind her slides back under
leverage of the cleaner handle. Next to her the jew has his wallet out and is searching
for something therein, when the lurch of the train causes him partially to lose his
balance. Now we see a longer shot of lurch and melee, with the movement of people
in foreground partially obscuring the action in vestibule at background. However,
we are able to discern that the jew has lost his wallet as he exclaims:
jew
My pocket-book! Gone!
We see him elbowing about. Then there is a woman’s scream, and we barely glimpse
the vc woman falling—then disappearing through the door’s empty blackness.
There is a small electric flash—then total darkness, as all the train lights go out, and
the train slows down to a quick stop. During this there is a second’s silence. Then:
176 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

negro version

Turning in vestibule, with flip, rather negro (aloud)

offensive cheerfulness: Okay, boss, sorry.
clubfoot looks toward intellec-
tual, against whom he has been
pushed. He is about to apologize, but
intellectual has evidently seen part
of incident, and sides with clubfoot,
for he volunteers the ironic comment:
intellectual (aloud)
“Sorry”—but after he pushed you, of
course!
clubfoot
Sure, pushing in first—nowadays—as if
they owned the earth!
negro has not heard this bitter but quiet comment. However, glancing down, he
notices clubfoot’s affliction, and murmurs to himself, as if in understanding of
the man’s bitterness:
negro
Oh . . .
Looking up, he senses their hostility, but shrugs it off and is soon absorbed in
searching for something in his pocket. Camera returns to clubfoot. He has
evidently been encouraged by a sympathetic audience.
clubfoot (quiet but ominous)
It’s time folks woke up to lots of things
going on in this country!
clubfoot stomps on further into car, using his tray to cleave a passage. In doing so
he grazes against policeman, who winces and nurses his sore feet. Interlude shots
of soldier and nurse sneaking looks at each other, of tough guy lurching
against wise guy as, indicated by swing of upheld newspapers, etc., the train begins
to take a curve.
In vestibule, shot of woman with vc as the door behind her slides back under
leverage of the cleaner handle. Next to her the negro has his wallet out and is
searching for something therein, when the lurch of the train causes him partially to
lose his balance. Now we see a longer shot of lurch and melee, with the movement of
people in foreground partially obscuring the action in vestibule at background.
However, we are able to discern that the negro has lost his wallet as he exclaims:
negro
My dough—pocket book! Gone!
 Below t h e Surface m 177

white collar version

white collar
Oh . . .
Looking up, he senses their hostility, but shrugs it off and is soon absorbed in
searching for something in his pocket. Camera returns to clubfoot. He has
evidently been encouraged by a sympathetic audience.
clubfoot (quiet but ominous)
It’s time folks woke up to lots of things
going on in this country!
clubfoot stomps on further into car, using his tray to cleave a passage. In doing so
he grazes against policeman, who winces and nurses his sore feet. Interlude shots
of soldier and nurse sneaking looks at each other, of tough guy lurching
against wise guy as, indicated by swing of upheld newspapers, etc., the train begins
to take a curve.
In vestibule, shot of woman with vc as the door behind her slides back under leverage
of the cleaner handle. Next to her the white-collar man has his wallet out and is
searching for something therein, when the lurch of the train causes him partially to lose
his balance. Now we see a longer shot of lurch and melee, with the movement of people in
foreground partially obscuring the action in vestibule at background. However, we are
able to discern that the white-collar man has lost his wallet as he exclaims:
white collar
My pocket book! Gone!
We see him elbowing about. Then there is a woman’s scream, and we barely glimpse
the vc woman falling—then disappearing through the door’s empty blackness.
There is a small electric flash—then total darkness, as all the train lights go out, and
the train slows down to a quick stop. During this there is a second’s silence. Then:
jew
My God!
Simultaneously: wise guy
She’ll be run over. Help!
Down the dark car, matches are being voices from all around car
struck by indistinctly milling figures. What’s the matter? Lights! Get away
from me! Here’s a match! etc.
white collar
My wallet! It had money in it. It—
178 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

negro
Lawdy, God!
wise guy (simultaneously)
She’ll be run over. Help!
Down the dark car, matches are being voices from all around car
struck by indistinctly milling figures. What’s the matter? Lights! Get away
from me! Here’s a match! etc.
jew’s voice
My wallet! It had money in it. It—
The policeman is tugging out flashlight. We get his silhouette fitfully against a
series of weird short-circuit showers of sparks seen through open vestibule door.
policeman
As he pushes down through crowd, with Now, now, keep calm, everybody—’n’ off
lighted flash: my feet, besides! Whoa, there.
To intellectual:
You—what’s the trouble?
To jew:
All right, then, you—what happened?
jew
Somebody took my money!
Roughly, to jew: tough guy
Never mind your damn money.
wise guy
A woman. A woman with—
tough guy
Out—like that—out there!
The cadet nurse leaps from her seat, rushes down aisle into crowd. The soldier
is up and after her, gets his lank body ahead and pushes way through for her.
soldier
Gangway!
nurse
Thanks. Officer, I’m a nurse.
 Below t h e Surface m 179

negro version

We see him elbowing about. Then there is a woman’s scream, and we barely glimpse
the vacuum cleaner woman falling—then disappearing through the door’s
empty blackness. There is a small electric flash—then total darkness, as all the train
lights go out, and the train slows down to a quick stop. During this there is a second’s
silence. Then:
jew
My God!
Simultaneously: wise guy
She’ll be run over. Help!
Down the dark car, matches are being voices from all around car
struck by indistinctly milling figures. What’s the matter: Lights! Get away
from me! Here’s a match! etc.
negro’s voice
My wallet! It had dough in it. Ah want
mah—
The policeman is tugging out flashlight. We get his silhouette fitfully against a
series of weird short-circuit showers of sparks seen through open vestibule door.
policeman
As he pushes down through crowd, with Now, now, keep calm, everybody—an’
lighted flash: off my feet, besides! Whoa, there—
To intellectual:
You—what’s the trouble?
To negro:
All right, then you—what happened?
negro
Somebody took mah dough!
Roughly, to negro: tough guy
Never mind your damn dough!
wise guy
A woman. A woman with—
tough guy
Out—like that—out there!
18 0 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

white collar version

The policeman is tugging out flashlight. We get his silhouette fitfully against a
series of weird short-circuit showers of sparks seen through open vestibule door.
policeman
As he pushes down through crowd, with Now, now, keep calm, everybody—an’
lighted flash: off my feet, besides! Whoa, there!
To intellectual:
You—what’s the trouble?
To white collar:
All right, then, you—what happened?
white collar
Somebody took my money!
Roughly, to white collar: tough guy
Never mind your damn money.
wise guy
A woman. A woman with—
tough guy
Out—like that—out there!
The cadet nurse leaps from her seat, rushes down aisle, into crowd. The soldier
is up an after her, gets his lank body ahead and pushes way through for her.
soldier
Gangway!
 Below t h e Surface m 181

policeman
Yes ’m. Stand by.
subway guard reenters car, forges through to vestibule with emergency grappling
apparatus. Ahead of him soldier plunges into pitchy opening and then down out
of sight.
policeman
Atta boy!
To intellectual, as he shoves him Look out, mister.
aside:
Off-scene, shouting: SOLDIER
Here she is.
Ditto: GUARD
Careful. Lift her—
policeman
Back up, everybody. Here. Look out,
soldier—look out for that third rail
stuff.
Dark shot of soldier and guard lifting muffled object back, former down on
ground and unmindful of vacuum cleaner fallen to rails, sizzling and crackling there.
nurse
Anxious for soldier: Oh please. . . .
As vc woman’s body is being hauled
Let me—
in:
Leaping from seat and barging to woman in fur coat
vestibule: Don’t let her down on that dirty
metal—here!
With impetuous motherliness, starts
ripping off her mink coat.

nurse
All right, officer. We’ll take care of her.
Arms spread up over crowd: policeman
Yes’m. ’N’ pipe down, everybody. If you
really want to help, keep your shirts on ’
n’ tell me what happened.
In spite of his efforts, general hubbub. club-foot starts pegging furiously back
toward vestibule. As he passes little girl, who is crying with fright, and the
yelping puppy:
182 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

club-foot
Shut up, you!
Crowd in vestibule closes around policeman, masking the bent-down nurse and
the victim with head in lap of fur coat woman. The soldier is forcing the
circle larger, policeman has his notebook out—is interrogating.
policeman
So what makes her fall out?
Knowingly, as he looks toward jew: club-foot
I’ve got a pretty good idea.
tough guy
Maybe she didn’t. Maybe somebody—
club-foot
Pushed her. That’s it, pushed her!
policeman
To wise guy: Who?
You! What’d you see?
wise guy
Me? Why—nothing.
negro
Me, neither, boss.
clubfoot
Well, somebody did it!
During above the old lady has lighted up with an air of triumphant prophecy.
Abandoning her yelping pup, she leaps from seat, pushed out into vestibule crowd:
old lady
And I know who!
 Below t h e Surface m 183

negro version

policeman
To wise guy: Who?
You! What’d you see?
wise guy
Me? Why—nothing.
jew
Neither did I.
clubfoot
Well, somebody did it!
During above the old lady has lighted up with an air of triumphant prophecy.
Abandoning her yelping pup, she leaps from seat, pushed out into vestibule crowd:
old lady
And I know who!
policeman
Spill it.
old lady
I knew it all along!
policeman
What? Who?
old lady
In the stars for today. It just had to
happen. Exactly like this.
policeman
Like what?
old lady
The way it did. It had to. He did it just—
policeman
He? Who?
184 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

policeman
Spill it.
old lady
I knew it all along!
policeman
What? Who?
old woman
In the stars for today. It just had to
happen. Exactly like this.
policeman
Like what?
old lady
The way it did. It had to. He did it just—
policeman
He? Who?
Pointing wildly at jew: old woman
Him, of course! He was standing right
next to her, and —
Bewildered: jew
Me? I—I certainly did not.
club-foot
You weren’t next to her?
jew
Yes, but—
club-foot
So—you admit it!
jew
Yes—I mean no! I mean—I was next to
her—but I didn’t push anybody!
 Below t h e Surface m 185

negro version

Pointing wildly at negro: old lady

Him, of course! He was standing right
next to her, and—
negro
Me? I—I sure didn’t do no such—
clubfoot
You weren’t next to her?
negro
Yeah, sure, but Ah—
clubfoot
So—you admit it!
negro
Sure—Ah mean no! Ah mean—I was
next to her, yeah, but Ah didn’ push
nobody!
Imitating negro’s action during old lady
accident: Oh, yes, he did. I seen him, officer.
Swingin’ his hands—like so!
With growing alarm: negro
Shucks, Ah—was was jus’ tryin’ to find
mah wallet, that’s all. I felt it—all of a
sudden—it was gone!
intellectual shows a passing interest, but affects scientific objectivity:
intellectual
Ah! So he did swing his hands. Point
one—admitted.
negro
No, only for mah wallet! Listen,
you—all o’ you—Lawdy God, Ah didn’
have a thing to do with it!
Imitating negro’s dialect with coarse tough guy
delight: Lawdy, Lawdy, oh, no—he didn’t done a
thing!
18 6 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

white collar version

old woman
The way it did. It had to. He did it just—
policeman
He? Who?
Pointing wildly at white collar: old woman
Him, of course! He was standing right
next to her, and—
Bewildered: white collar
Me? I—I certainly did not.
clubfoot
You weren’t next to her?
white collar
Why, yes, but—
clubfoot
So—you admit it!
white collar
Yes—I mean, no! I mean—I was next to
her, yes, but I didn’t push anybody!
Imitating white collar’s action old woman
during accident: Oh, yes, he did. I seen him, officer.
Swingin’ his hands—like so!
With growing alarm: white collar
Sure, but I was trying to find my wallet.
I felt it—suddenly it was gone!
intellectual shows a passing interest, but affects scientific objectivity:
intellectual
Ah! So he did swing his hands. Point
one—admitted.
white collar
No, only for my wallet! Officer,
I—absolutely did not have a thing to do
with it.
 Below t h e Surface m 187

old woman
Imitating jew’s action during accident: Oh, yes, he did. I seen him, officer.
Swingin’ his hands—like so!
jew
With growing alarm: Sure, but I was trying to find my wallet.
I felt it—suddenly it was gone!
intellectual shows a passing interest, but affects scientific objectivity:
intellectual
Ah! So he did swing his hands. Point
one—admitted.
jew
No, only for my wallet! Officer!
I—didn’t haf a t’ing t’ do vit it.
Imitating jew’s accent with coarse tough guy
delight: Oi- sure—he didn’t haf a t’ing t’—
old woman
He did, too! The stars don’t lie!
Demanding around group: policeman
I’m askin’ you, not the stars. Anybody
else see him? You? or you?
wise guy
They couldn’t. It went dark.
policeman
Oh—exactly.
intellectual
Easy, don’t make any statement that
might be discredited.
club-foot
We don’t have to see what we know. We
got proofs enough already to—
18 8 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

negro version

old lady
He did, too! The stars don’t lie!
Demanding around group: policeman
I’m askin’ you, not the stars. Anybody
else see him? You? or you?
clubfoot
How could they? It went dark.
policeman
Uh-huh.
clubfoot
But that don’t matter. We don’t have to
see what we know. We got proofs
enough to—
To negro: policeman
Afterwards. Names first. Come on.
negro
With defiant swagger he thrusts forward Me? Yassur . . .
his wrist and shows a gold identification
That’s me—middle name, address ’n’ all.
bracelet:
tough guy
Yeah, solid gold. It would be.
As policeman writes: negro
Ask anybody up in Harlem about me,
boss.
To wise guy: intellectual
Doesn’t sound precisely humble, does
he?
negro
Mah jazz-band’s famous—an’ nobody
pins nothin’ on me, no, sir!
The subway guard climbs aboard again from below, with the blackened,
half-melted remains of the vacuum cleaner in his grappler.
 Below t h e Surface m 189

white collar version

Imitating white collar with coarse tough guy

delight: Absolutely not a thing—oh, no!
old woman
He did, too! The stars don’t lie!
Demanding around group: policeman
I’m askin’ you, not the stars. Anybody
else see him? You? Or you?
clubfoot
How could they? It went dark.
policeman
Uh-huh.
clubfoot
But that don’t matter. We don’t have to
see what we know. We got proofs
enough to—
policeman
Afterwards. Names first.
Takes out gold fountain pen and, at white collar
policeman’s nod, proceeds to write it Me? Certainly. Here, I’ll . . . write it
in notebook. out for you. As head bookkeeper for a
With spiteful glance around: Wall Street firm, I happen to have an
excellent handwriting—
And don’t care to shout my bosses’
business address to the whole world.
Eyeing white collar’s pen: tough guy
Yeah, solid gold. It would be.
With smug complacency, as he writes: white collar
Exactly—and why not? For a twentieth
Christmas bonus?
To wise guy: intellectual
Doesn’t sound precisely starving, does he?
19 0 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

policeman
Afterward. Names first.
Takes out gold fountain pen and, at jew
policeman’s nod, proceeds to write it Me? Certainly. Here, I’ll . . . write it out
in notebook. for you.
tough guy
Yeah, solid gold. It would be.
intellectual
Doesn’t sound precisely starving, does
he?
Overhearing: jew
No, I . . . even though I have been giving
up three days a week to government
work. See?
Ironically: intellectual
Oh, yes . . . I believe there are a great
many—of your people—in the Federal
agencies nowadays.
The subway guard climbs aboard again from below, with the blackened,
half-melted remains of the vacuum cleaner in his grappler.
Halting behind cluster around vc guard
woman: Hurt bad? Conscious?
nurse
Ssh! Not yet.
To policeman: guard
Here’s all about her on this repair tag . . .
what’s left of it.
He hands damaged tag to policeman. policeman
Need any help to get started again?
guard
Could be.
 Below t h e Surface m 191

negro version

Halting behind cluster around vacuum guard

cleaner woman: Hurt bad? Conscious?
nurse
Ssh! Not yet.
To policeman: guard
He hands damaged tag to policeman. Here’s all about her on this repair tag . . .
what’s left of it.
policeman
Need any help to get started again?
guard shakes his head—starts through train. As he opens door to next car sounds
of excitement well up. Turning back to policeman:
guard
But you might try to keep the tourist
trade quiet.
policeman grins—follows guard —disappearing down train. People are
crowding excitedly round group with vacuum cleaner woman.
To clubfoot: soldier
Gosh—give ’em room, folks. You heard
me—fall back!
Bitterly: clubfoot
What? And let him get away with it?
wise guy
Who?
Staring vindictively at negro. Then, clubfoot
appealing to tough guy: Who? Him that did it. Pushed her out.
That dinge there, him. Right?
tough guy
Right, I’ll say—
old woman
He did it, he did it!
192 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

white collar version

Overhearing: white collar

No, I . . . even though I have been giving
up three evenings a week to draft board
work, for instance!
intellectual
Oh, yes . . . Wall Street has undoubtedly
done its part . . . a great patriotic part,
I’m sure.
The subway guard climbs aboard again from below, with the blackened,
half-melted remains of the vacuum cleaner in his grappler.
Halting behind cluster around vacuum guard
cleaner woman: Hurt bad? Conscious?
nurse
Ssh! Not yet.
To policeman: guard
He hands damaged tag to policeman. Here’s all about her on this repair tag . . .
what’s left of it.
policeman
Need any help to get started again?
guard shakes his head—starts through train. As he opens door to next car sounds
of excitement well up. Turning back to policeman:
guard
But you might try to keep the tourist
trade quiet.
policeman grins—follows guard —disappearing down train. People are
crowding excitedly around group with vacuum cleaner woman.
To clubfoot: soldier
Gosh—give ’em room, folks. You heard
me—fall back!
Bitterly: clubfoot
What? And let him get away with it?
 Below t h e Surface m 193

He starts through train. As he opens door to next car sounds of excitement well up.
Turning back to policeman:
guard
and you might try to keep the tourist
trade quiet.
Before following guard, policeman bends over group round vc
woman— asks:
policeman
Managing all right?
nurse’s head appears as she looks up for a moment from ministering to patient. She
nods.
nurse
If we could have a little more room
policeman
OK—back up everybody—don’t crowd!
People ease back, and he exits toward next car from which we again hear irated {sic}
clamour. As soon as he is gone, crowd closes in again.
To clubfoot: SOLDIER
Gosh—give ’em room, folks! Fall back!
Bitterly: clubfoot
What? And let him get away with it?
wise guy
Who?
Staring vindictively at jew. Then, clubfoot
appealing to tough guy: Who! Him that did it. Pushed her out.
Right?
tough guy
Right! I’ll say—
old woman
He did it, he did it!
Crowd’s mood grows distinctly threatening as it tightens around jew. The puppy
adds to the confusion by running wildly around in dimness, yelping at legs, howling
for its mistress. Above the din it makes, people must scream to be heard. Even the
wise guy, coming for a moment to half-hearted, ineffectual defense of the jew,
goes high-pitched and squeaky.
194 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

wise guy
Oh, but . . . I say, after all, we haven’t
really proved it, have we?
tough guy
No?
wise guy
Why, no, not—
tough guy
An’ that proves he didn’t do it—yeah?
club-foot
And you want to testify, is that it?
Against us?
tough guy
Make liars outer us, yeah? You—
His one little spurt of bravery subsiding wise guy
fast as he looks around: Why, er—I didn’t mean—except I
couldn’t say one way or the other, that’s—
old woman
Well, I can!
jew
But I didn’t do it. I tell you I—
clubfoot
Sure, you tell ’em! Tell ’em how you
pushed me before!
The two shipyard workers have been drawn down into the crowd. One of
them, with burly kindness, starts to interfere:
 Below t h e Surface m 195

negro version

Crowd’s mood grows distinctly threatening as it tightens around negro. The

puppy adds to the confusion by running wildly around in the dimness, yelping at
legs, howling for its mistress. Above the din it makes, people must scream to be
heard. Even the wise guy, coming for a moment to half-hearted, ineffectual
defense of the negro, goes high-pitched and squeaky.
wise guy
Oh, but . . . I say, after all, we haven’t
really proved it, have we?
tough guy
No?
wise guy
Why, no, not —
tough guy
An’ that proves he didn’t do it—yeah?
clubfoot
And you want to testify, is that it?
Against us?
tough guy
Make liars outer us, yeah? You—
His one little spurt of bravery subsiding wise guy
fast as he looks around: Why, er—I didn’t mean—except I
couldn’t say one way or the other, that’s —
old woman
Well, I can!
negro
But Ah didn’ do it. Listen, you-all, Ah’m
tellin’ you—
clubfoot
Sure, you tell ’em! Tell ’em how you
pushed me before!
196 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

white collar version

wise guy
Who?
Staring vindictively at white collar. clubfoot
Then appealing to tough guy: Who? Him that did it. Pushed her out.
Right?
tough guy
Right! I’ll say—
old woman
He did it, he did it!
Mood of one faction grows distinctly threatening as it tightens around white
collar. The puppy adds to the confusion by running wildly around in the
dimness, yelping at legs, howling for its mistress. Above the din it makes, people
must scream to be heard. Even the wise guy, coming for a moment to half-hearted,
ineffectual defense of the white collar, goes high-pitched and squeaky.
wise guy
Oh, but . . . I say, after all, we haven’t
really proved it, have we?
tough guy
No?
wise guy
Why, no, not—
tough guy
An’ that proves he didn’t do it—yeah?
clubfoot
And you want to testify, is that it?
Against us?
tough guy
Make liars outer us, yeah? You—
His one little spurt of bravery subsiding wise guy
fast as he looks around: Why, er—I didn’t mean—except I
couldn’t say one way or the other, that’s—
 Below t h e Surface m 197

shipyard worker
Hey, look, brother—
At jew’s confusion: club-foot
He pushed me. He can’t deny it. He
doesn’t deny it. See? Him and his kind,
they glory in it—they’re always pushing!
jew
But, my God—
tough guy
You leave God out of it, you!
clubfoot
Stickin’ together to push all the rest of
us out o’ their way—up! To shove—and
shyster and—get away with it, every
time you can.
Several more passengers have pushed in close behind club-foot, murmuring
agreement.
second shipyard worker
Hold it there, Mister. You better go sit
down!
Other passengers murmur assent to this, aligning themselves against clubfoot’s
faction.
club-foot
Sit down? While his kind get away with
it? Oh, no, I don’t! If that poor woman’s
been killed—
jew
Killed?
tough guy
You heard us!
first shipyard worker (to
tough guy)
Sit down, you too, yu’ scab—
Or do you want me to knock your
block off!
19 8 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

negro version

The two shipyard workers have been drawn down into the crowd. One of
them, with burly kindness, starts to interfere.
shipyard worker
Hey, look, brother —
At negro’s confusion: clubfoot
He pushed me. He can’t deny it. He
doesn’t deny it. See? Him and his kind,
they can get away with anything these
days, sassing back, rioting, mugging—
negro
Lawdy, God—
tough guy
You leave God out of it, you!
clubfoot
Defying all the rest of us to keep ’em in
their place—to preserve ourselves from
their impudence, an’ filth an’ crazy
ways . . . To take our streets an’ houses,
snatch our jobs . . .
Several more passengers have pushed in close behind clubfoot, murmuring
agreement.
second shipyard worker
Hold it there, Mister, you better go sit
down!
Other passengers murmur assent to this, aligning themselves against clubfoot’s
faction.
clubfoot
Sit down? While dinges like him get
away with it? Oh, no, I don’t. If that
poor woman’s been killed—
negro
Killed?
tough guy
You heard us!
 Below t h e Surface m 199

white collar version

old woman
Well, I can!
white collar
Ridiculous! I didn’t do it. I tell you I—
clubfoot
Sure, you tell ’em! Tell ’em how you
pushed me before.
The two shipyard workers have been drawn down into the crowd. One of
them, with burly kindness, starts to interfere.
shipyard worker
Hey, look, brother—
At white collar’s confusion: clubfoot
He pushed me. He can’t deny it. He
doesn’t deny it. See? Him and his smart
kind, they glory in it—they’re always
pushing!
white collar
But, my God—
tough guy
You leave God out of it, you!
clubfoot
Thinkin’ themselves so much better than
us with their bookkeepin’ ‘n’ bankin’—‘n’
jugglin’ their figures to keep us broke ‘n’
get away with it, every time they can!
Several more passengers have pushed in close behind clubfoot, murmuring
agreement.
second shipyard worker
Hold it there, Mister, you better go sit
down.
Other passengers murmur assent to this, aligning themselves against clubfoot’s
faction.
20 0 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

club-foot
Scab?
second shipyard worker
Sure, stooge for the bosses—wait till
we’re on top!
Brandishing fist: club-foot
You don’t have to wait that long!
Murmurs from both factions, as crowd takes sides.
jew
Honest—all I was doing was—
clubfoot
Reaching for your money, sure! For your
dirty money, and not givin’ a damn what
else so long you get it. Shove, hurt, kill—
second shipyard worker
Aw, shut your dirty mouth!
first shipyard worker
I’ll give you ten seconds to sit down.
club-foot
Sit down, sure—and turn it all over to
Reds like you? To Jews and Niggers and
the like of them, the hell we will. There’s
times when us plain, decent, God-lovin’
Christians—us white Americans—has
got to take the law in our own hands and
clean things up. Come on!
During above speech first shipyard worker has begun counting ominously,
while tension and hostility mount within the crowd, emphasized by rising excite-
ment in camera treatment and cutting. Thus, breaking in after first view {sic, few?}
words above comes:
first shipyard worker’s voice
close shot—of group round (grimly)
clubfoot pressing in closer. One—
close shot group aligned with Two—
first shipyard worker also
presses in towards potential opponents.
 Below t h e Surface m 201

negro version

To tough guy: first shipyard worker

You sit down, too—before I knock your
block off!
Murmurs from both factions, as crowd takes sides.
negro
Honest, boss, all I was doing was—
clubfoot
Reaching for your money, sure! For
your Harlem jazz band money, and not
giving a damn what else . . . shove, mug,
razor, kill—
wise guy
Why not let the law handle it?
first shipyard worker
I’ll give you ten seconds to sit down.
clubfoot
Sit down and wait? What for? To turn it
all over the Reds like you? To Niggers
and Jews and the likes of them, the hell
we will. There’s times when us plain,
decent, God-lovin’ Christians—
20 2 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

white collar version

clubfoot
Sit down? While smarties like him get
away with it? Oh, no, I don’t. If that
poor woman’s been killed—
white collar
Killed?
tough guy
You heard us!
To tough guy: first shipyard worker
You sit down, too—before I knock your
block off!
white collar
See here, all I was doing was—
clubfoot
Reaching for your money, sure! For your
dirty money, and not giving’ a damn
what else so long as you get it. Sneak,
shove, outsmart, hurt, kill—
wise guy
Why not let the law handle it?
first shipyard worker
I’ll give you ten seconds to sit down.
clubfoot
Sit down—for what? What for? To turn
it all over the Reds like you? To the Wall
Street bankers and Jews and Niggers and
the likes of them? The hell we will.
There’s times when us plain, decent,
God-lovin’ Christians—
 Below t h e Surface m 20 3

BIG HEAD CLOSE-UP for club- Three—

foot, continuing his speech defiantly,
with mounting emotion.
big head close-up of first Four—
worker, delivering his fourth count of
warning with quiet grimness.
close-up—a hand clenching into a Five—
menacing fist.
close-up—corresponding fist action Six—
of opponent.
close-up—a hand grasps a dinner pail, Seven—
preparing to wield it as a weapon.
close-up—an opposing hand draws a Eight—
knife slowly from pocket.
close-up—a hand smashes bottle Nine—
against opened dinner pail and holds
jagged glass menacingly.
Suddenly the car lights flare on again.
Long-shot of the mob frozen into an ugly, sustained tableau. The antagonists still
stand immobile, hate-bound. Pan to group in protective ring around jew, who is
nursing a bruised forehead.
The train starts again. Its motion relieves the tension of the rooted crowd. Behind
the soldier, a small stir as the nurse rises, chuckling:
nurse
She leans down again, helps vc woman A crime, was it?
to her feet, with fur coat woman’s
Well, here’s your victim—without one
aid:
broken bone—or more than a six-inch
bruise. Come on dear. Dazed? Sure, but—
To soldier: You helped save her.
soldier
Me? Gosh, no, the guard-chains got
there first.
vacuum cleaner woman
I’m all right, really.
soldier
They kept her from slipping through as
neat as—
204 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

Bewildered but regathering wits: vacuum cleaner woman

Thank you, everybody, but I’m fine
again . . . It was God’s decision I should
be spared.
Desperately: club-foot
But who pushed you?
vacuum cleaner woman
Pushed me? Did somebody—?
Pointing to jew: club-foot
Of course they did. Him? Who? You
mean to tell us you don’t—?
soldier
Leave her alone.
The woman looks around for her vacuum cleaner. They show her the sad remains.
She gives a long, dry sigh—stares wearily down the car.
nurse
Don’t worry, darling, the subway people
will give you a new one.
old woman with puppy has recovered her animal and pauses to assure vc
woman.
old woman with puppy
She trundles on, to resume her seat. Unlucky day, that’s what. There’s those
that scoffs at astrology, oh, yes, but—
jew and club-foot exchange a look and move off toward opposite ends of train.
policeman re-enters car.
We hold for brief punctuation on a few people getting on and off. Then Camera
comes close to soldier and nurse.
nurse
Well . . . that’s that.
 Below t h e Surface m 205

negro version

She trundles on, to resume her seat. those that scoffs at astrology, oh, yes, but—
negro and clubfoot exchange a look, move off toward opposite ends of train.
policeman re-enters car.
We hold for brief punctuation on a few people getting on and off. Then Camera
comes close to soldier and nurse.
nurse
Well . . . that’s that.
soldier
Yes, I reckon it is.
Looking around: nurse
Funny, a minute ago everybody was all
excited and—now—
soldier
Now they’re right back where they
started from. Us too. Where we started.
Nodding glumly; neither can think of nurse
anything to say. After an awkward Er—did we? Well, goodbye.
pause:
soldier
Goodbye. Yeah.
She moves off toward seat. He turns in opposite direction.
The train settles down to a steady clanking, the passengers back in the same moods
and occupations they had when first seen. Camera travels slowly among their faces,
past the still absorbed man with the financial page and stenographer
with “Confessions,” picking up their thoughts as before.
tough guy’s thoughts
Well, anyway, Niggers are Niggers—
pretty much alike. Me, I’m glad to be
getting’ home to Mama. . . .
Camera moves successively to following:
He smiles whimsically. wise guy’s thoughts
Home—all going home—while I start
to work!
20 6 l T h e Cali g ari Co mplex

white collar version

She trundles on, to resume her seat. those that scoffs at astrology, oh, yes, but—
white collar man and clubfoot exchange a look and move off toward
opposite ends of train. policeman re-enters car.
We hold for brief punctuation on a few people getting on and off. Then Camera
comes close to soldier and nurse.
nurse
Well . . . that’s that.
soldier
Yes, I reckon it is.
Looking around: nurse
Funny, a minute ago everybody was all
excited, and—now—
soldier
Now they’re right back where they
started from. Us too. Where we started.
Nodding glumly; neither can think of nurse
anything to say. After an awkward Er—did we? Well, goodbye.
pause:
soldier
Goodbye. Yeah.
She moves off toward seat. He turns in opposite direction.
The train settles down to a steady clanking, the passengers back in the same moods
and occupations they had when first seen. Camera travels slowly among their faces,
past the still absorbed man with the financial page and stenographer
with “Confessions,” picking up their thoughts as before.
tough guy’s thoughts
Well, anyway, the smart-allicks {sic}—
the Wall Street hanger-ons—are pretty
much all alike. Me, I’m glad to be gett’n
home to Mama—
Camera moves successively to following:
 Below t h e Surface m 207

soldier
Yes, I reckon it is.
Looking around: nurse
Funny, a minute ago everybody was all
excited and—now—
soldier
Now they’re right back where they
started from. Us too. Where we started.
Nodding glumly; neither can think of nurse
anything to say. After an awkward Er—did we?
pause:
Well, goodbye.
soldier
Goodbye. Yeah.
She moves off toward seat. He turns in opposite direction.
The train settles down to a steady clanking, the passengers back in the same moods
and occupations they had when first seen. Camera travels slowly among their faces,
past the still absorbed man with the financial page and stenographer
with “Confessions,” picking up their thoughts as before.
tough guy’s thoughts
Well, anyway, Jews are Jews—pretty
much all alike. Me, I’m glad to be gettin’
home to Mamma—
Camera moves successively to following:
He smiles whimsically. wise guy’s thoughts
Home—all going home—while I start
to work!
intellectual’s thoughts
This everlasting racial problem!. . . “Face
it, gentlemen, we need strong leaders—
doers, like Henry Ford . . .”
vc woman’s thoughts
That old dust and dirt still won’t get the
better of me! Just take some extra
elbow-grease. That’s not much, to show
thanks for my deliverance. Might start
on the rugs tonight—
20 8 l T h e Cali g ari Co mp lex

first shipyard worker’s

thoughts
Corned beef—juicy, red corned beef!
second shipyard worker’s
thoughts
Spaghetti. I can’t escape it—spaghetti!
fur coat woman’s thoughts
Now I won’t even have time to dress, let
alone fix the flowers . . . that ungrateful
girl!
policeman’s thoughts
Home to Sadie—an’ that big steamin’
tub o’ hot water!
Camera moves to little girl. She looks gravely around at all the rest of the people
in the car—then down towards puppy next to her.
little girl’s thoughts
You see, puppy . . . people are such
children, sometimes!
The train slows to a stop for the next station. Nothing seems to have been changed by
the accident, not even the status between soldier and nurse, for she is still seated
and apparently looking elsewhere as he moves towards exit. The door slides open—a
few people start out . . . soldier among them. But suddenly she rises—moves
toward him. And almost simultaneously he turns—pushes back against the stream
of other people.
Simultaneously: soldier
Look, there’s no law against talking!
nurse
You know, if you’d rather not get off at
Times Square—
soldier
Not if you’re free tonight.
nurse
Free—and hungry.
soldier
Well, of course! Supper comes with the
invitation!
 Below t h e Surface m 209

A lurch of the train brings them closer together.

nurse
You know—if you don’t mind eating in
the kitchen—
soldier
Mind? Say!
In the midst of his enthusiasm he looks suddenly at his wrist-watch.
nurse
Worrying about the time?
He grins happily, shakes his head in soldier
response to her quizzical smile. We’re three hours ahead of schedule
already!
Camera pulls back to full shot of train as we:
fade out

Notes

1. To increase the usefulness of this film as an instrument of detecting (and measur-

ing) emotional reactions, we suggest producing several versions in which the Jew
may be replaced by (a) a Negro, (b) a German, (c) an Englishman.
2. Of course, similar variants have to be provided in the versions suggested in the
footnote, p. 2.
 Part 3
Postwar Publics
(1948–1950)
INTRODUCTION

Under this heading, we collect together here a rather diverse range of texts
penned by Kracauer toward the end of the 1940s, including a couple of essays
intended as magazine articles, a report produced under the auspices of a wider
UNESCO project, and a number of book reviews published in some leading
newspapers and journals. These texts constitute a series of reflections upon the
condition and tendencies of mass media and their audiences in postwar
America. The heterogeneity of the materials themselves, and of the publica-
tion outlets in particular, is highly suggestive of Kracauer’s precarious financial
and intellectual position in postwar New York, as he sought to establish himself
as a regular freelance writer for particular journals and newspapers and secure
long-term positions as a researcher attached to different organizations and insti-
tutions in the wake of the publication of From Caligari to Hitler in 1947.
Together these writings show a sustained concern with critically identifying and
exploring the relationships between different forms of popular media, emerging
consumer culture, and their reception and perception by American audiences in
the context of what Adorno and Horkheimer would term “the culture industry”
in their famous study Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947).
We begin with two reviews from 1948 published in the New York Times Book
Review, exploring recent contributions to understanding propaganda and pros-
pects of denazification measures then being undertaken by the Allied authori-
ties as part of ongoing German postwar reconstruction. Kracauer provides a
212 l Post war Publi c s

brief account of Marshall Knappen’s own advocacy of a “soft program” of Ger-

man reeducation undertaken by churches and community groups on the
ground and the difficulties that hampered such work in the light of the pro-
posed Morgenthau Plan. For Knappen, deindustrialization and the disman-
tling of a modern national economy would run counter to the fundamental
and necessary processes for denazification and the creation of new liberal
democratic Germany. While praising the book as “an honest piece of Ameri-
can self-criticism,” Kracauer remained unconvinced by Knappen’s optimism
that economic growth enabled by the Marshall Plan—the option eventually
chosen—would necessarily guarantee new political attitudes in Germany. It is
noteworthy in this context of reconstruction of postwar Germany that the Kra-
cauers themselves never returned to live in Germany despite the acute problems,
economic and otherwise, that confronted them in America, whereas Adorno
and Horkheimer were back in Frankfurt as early as 1949 to reestablish the Insti-
tute for Social Research in Frankfurt as part of the reeducation, reconstitution,
and rehabilitation of Germany after the trauma of the Third Reich. Kracauer
was not a part of this reeducation program; he and Elizabeth became American
citizens instead.
Six months later, Kracauer reviewed the book Public Opinion and Propa-
ganda, a study by the notable Yale psychologist Leonard W. Doob (1909–
2000), who would publish his famous article “Goebbels’ Principles of Propa-
ganda” in 1950. While Doob’s book is written, not surprisingly, from a
psychological perspective, Kracauer is nonetheless enthusiastic about the
book’s scope and its attention not only to the makeup of individual personality
but also to the formation of public opinion and the specifics of different types
of media, such as press, radio, and film. While providing an “anatomy of propa-
ganda” in terms of its techniques, Doob engages with a set of questions that are
also close to Kracauer’s own long-standing interest—for example, “How are
people made to perceive propaganda, to respond to it, and eventually to follow
its suggestions?” As we have already seen, the complex relationship between
propaganda messages, forms of media, and the receptivity of audiences as a
mass is central to Kracauer’s thesis regarding the impact and efficacy of totali-
tarian propaganda. Kracauer’s description of Doob as a “skeptical humanist” is
perhaps also a self-characterization.
“Popular Advertisement” is rather a puzzling text. Originally intended for
publication in the leading journal Commentary, in which Kracauer’s work had
previously appeared, this essay was never published in his lifetime. Moreover,
while the date given for the text is January 15, 1949, the actual advertisement for
“waterproof coffins” (!) with which Kracauer begins his reflection is dated as
first appearing in 1957.1 What is most striking, however, is that it seems to be his
 Post war Publi c s m 213

only direct engagement with American advertising in the course of his Ameri-
can writings. There are earlier examples and references to commercial adverts in
his newspaper writings for the FZ during the Weimar era. Indeed, this blurring
of news and publicity opens his 1927 photography essay, when one particular
member of the Tiller Girls dance troupe smilingly welcomes the attention of
what today we would describe as the paparazzi. Kracauer’s reflection on adver-
tising clearly resonates with the notion of the culture industry and anticipates
Marcuse’s vision of a “one-dimensional” America published some fifteen years
later. Kracauer highlights three key themes: “conformity,” “youthfulness,” and
“the happy consciousness.” Just as totalitarian propaganda both produces and
relies upon some notion of a homogeneous mass, the disappearance of the
autonomous subject and the uniqueness and idiosyncrasy of genuine individual
personality, so the advertising industry in postwar American advertising pro-
duces images and narratives marked by “insistence on conformity”: “They aim at
eliminating social diverseness and unconventional characters; and they ruth-
lessly regiment taste and manner down to the smallest detail.” The use of “popu-
lar” is key here: whereas Horkheimer and Adorno wish to retain a critical
moment in the term, as a reference to genuine critical impulses in folk and other
cultural manifestations of and for the people, in contradistinction to the con-
cept of “mass culture,” Kracauer seems to use the term “popular” here with
respect to a normative and normalizing set of expectations and social and psy-
chological compulsions. We all crave to be popular, and to be popular is to be
the same. To be the same is to share the taste and values of the multitude of oth-
ers. To be popular is to be no different. Otherness is stigmatized and eradicated.
And this popularity is about being young. Advertising is geared toward a fan-
tasy of youthfulness (especially for those who are no longer youthful!) and
identifies the young themselves (that new emerging category of teenager) as a
particular target consumer group. Popular also means to be happy. The prod-
ucts and services that are promoted through advertising provide compensation
for a life of boredom, repetition, and meaninglessness. The vacuity of our
dispirited and disenchanted times is to be filled by the “joy and glamour” of
fashion and consumption. Kracauer’s essay on advertising is an early critique of
consumer capitalism in the American context. Massification, youthful bodies,
imaginary compensations for lives bereft of meaning—the principles of the
contemporary advertisement are not so far from those undergirding techniques
of propaganda. Kracauer’s conclusions though are less pessimistic: the very
dreamlike quality of the advertisements’ images and delusions may yet come to
have a critical edge when confronted with real-world, everyday experiences that
fail to match up to these visions of harmony and happiness. Dreams can be also
made to question that which is. Psychoanalytically speaking, dreams are, after
214 l Post war Pu bli c s

all, the manifestations of what the world does not yet permit. Walter Benjamin
and the Surrealists were, of course, among the first to see modern commodity
culture as bound up with dreamlike experiences and anticipations. Kracauer
suggests that those who are looking to sell us dreams, even the American dream,
might be playing with fire: the consequences of peddling dreams may not be the
ones that the advertising industry and capitalist culture have in mind.
Coauthored with the journalist Joseph Lyford, Kracauer’s essay “A Duck
Crosses Main Street” reflects upon the fragmented style of contemporary Ameri-
can newsreels and the disparate incidents they deem newsworthy, such as the
eponymous foolhardy fowl. In a manner which recalls the start of Kracauer’s
“Below the Surface” screenplay, the text opens with an American citizen heading
home from work, but instead of boarding the subway train and encountering the
various characters created for the test film project, he misses his connection and
instead seeks comfort at a movie theater to kill time waiting for the next train
home. Kracauer proceeds to give an impression of the montage of disconnected
news items with which he is confronted in the darkness of auditorium. Kracauer
thereby reinforces the key point made in his earlier study of Nazi newsreels: how
totalitarian propaganda seeks to bind otherwise disconnected and diverse images
and episodes into a totality through the use of music and narration in order to tell
a single story. The quick-fire montage of random incidents, in which the serious,
catastrophic, sordid, sensational, comic, and quirky are all treated with the same
indifference, is designed for those seeking mild distraction while they wait. The
American newsreels place few demands on its audience, not even the need to con-
centrate on what is shown. When “A Duck Crosses Main Street” is news, the
newsreel itself has lost any pretense at informing and educating its viewers about
the contemporary social, economic, and political situation. News has become
mere novelty, banal entertainment for the masses. For Kracauer, newsreels seem
able to offer only a miniature “total work of art” (Gesamtkunstwerk) of fascist
propaganda or the consumerist spectacle of fashion and frivolity.
The proliferation of popular advertising and the eclectic assemblage of mov-
ing images in the newsreels contribute to and constitute part of the current “del-
uge of pictures”—the title Kracauer adopts for his 1950 review of Lancelot Hog-
ben’s extensive overview of the history of visual representation, From Cave
Painting to Comic Strip. In a passage highly reminiscent of his 1927 photography
essay, Kracauer critically contrasts the meaningfulness of memory images to the
meaninglessness of photographic images, and he laments the blinding conse-
quences of the veritable blaze of images:

Now pictures surround and besiege us. Through television, they silence our
thoughts in that last and now insecure refuge of introspection, the bar; we
 Post war Publi c s m 215

cannot pick up a printed piece of paper without being faced with an image. We
are flooded with sights and spectacles—not with the originals, not with the
sights and spectacles of nature, but with an intemperate outpouring of repro-
ductions. Nature provides man with one spectacle at a time to which both
intelligence and heart can respond; but man now provides himself with a
mechanical, kaleidoscopic flurry of endlessly succeeding images. Instead of see-
ing clearly, he is almost blinded.2

Hogben’s book, nevertheless, sees positive potential in this multiplicity of

visual material in the modern world. Pictures encapsulate the possibility of lan-
guage that transcends national differences, a kind of optical Esperanto for
communication and mutual understanding between different linguistic com-
munities. Kracauer himself will be drawn to the ideas and possibilities of what
we would now term intercultural dialogue or transcultural communication in
work he was to undertake at the behest of Department of Social Sciences at
UNESCO. But he was unconvinced by Hogben’s wide-eyed enthusiasm for the
potential of images. Kracauer saw little prospect of popular cartoons, for exam-
ple, being anything more than relatively trivial phenomena. Indiscriminate and
uncritical, “The Deluge of Pictures” is more likely to overwhelm us with crass
and crude stereotypes than to create and circulate genuine and nuanced por-
traits of others.
Developed from his 1949 “International Tensions” report for UNESCO,
Kracauer’s study “How U.S. Films Portray Foreign Types: A Psychological View
of British and Russians on Our Screen,” is a clear example of his penchant for
the cinematic medium and his advocacy of its critical potential in reconceptual-
izing and reframing attitudes and perceptions with respect to individuals and
collectives of other nations. While the films he refers to in this study are them-
selves (with one or two exceptions) now obscure, if not wholly forgotten, there
are some interesting points, we suggest, that emerge from Kracauer’s discus-
sion. For instance, his study emphasizes the importance of audience percep-
tions, predispositions, and prejudices—what we might gather under the term
“susceptibility.” Echoing his earlier work on Weimar film in his recently pub-
lished Caligari book, Kracauer focuses on our need to understand particular
forms and patterns of audience receptivity to images and messages. For com-
munications to be effective, Kracauer proposes, they must attune themselves
and at least partially coincide with existing and well-established notions. In
other words, radically new or discrepant messages, or film images radically at
odds with preconceived ideas, are apt to fall flat and fail to engage audiences. To
have the desired impact, film images always need to meet their spectators half-
way. Propaganda does not work in a vacuum, and it cannot ignore the vagaries
216 l Post war Publi c s

and contingences of context, history, and what Kracauer later refers to as the
“total situation.”
.

In the case of English and Russian characters and characterization—the twin

foci of Kracauer’s studies—prevailing ground reception are characterized by
notions of an in- and an out-group, respectively. Relative familiarity with the
English (e.g., in terms of long-standing common cultural traits, heritage, sympa-
thy, and languages) ensure and enable American films to present a wide range of
national and social types including but also extending well beyond the typical
figure of the eccentric aristocratic snob. To be sure, the English are stereotyped
in Hollywood films, but there is a multiplicity of guises and classes on display.
Kracauer argues that this plethora of types enables a more diverse and hence
representative set of “portraits” to emerge, which have some degree of verisimili-
tude. By contrast, Kracauer notes, Russian characters are far less common and
diverse with only the mad Russian appearing as a recurrent figure. As an out-
group, Kracauer contends, the images of Russians are cruder caricatures. Mem-
bers of out-groups appear as unsophisticated stereotypes, as the audience’s level
of familiarity and its expectations are much lower. Kracauer concludes that the
less familiar a group is to typical audiences, the more important prevailing polit-
ical interests are in their depiction: Russian stereotypes changed in accordance
with fluctuating U.S.-Soviet relations. Hostility in the 1930s gave way to more
positive images in the 1940s, which then returned to negative and antagonistic
images in the postwar period. Two points emerge from this analysis. First, the
more familiar populations are to their audience, the more difficult to stigmatize
them in terms of, for example, class, ethnicity, and nationality; propaganda
works best against out-groups. Second, film images—in this case in Hollywood
productions, but in principle in any national cinema—may be seen as a kind of
index or barometer of political relations between different countries. Films and
film characters serve as a means of critically reading fluctuating international
political relations and tensions.

Notes

1. See the editorial notes in Siegfrid Kracauer, Werke, vol. 2.2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 2012), 725.
2. See p. 264.
 9
Re-education Program
for the Reich

January 4, 1948
Review of:
AND CALL IT PEACE
by Marshall Knappen
313 pp.
Chicago, IL, The University of Chicago Press. $3.

This book is a detailed account of German re-education as planned and imple-

mented by the American Military Government. An insider has written it: Mar-
shall Knappen, in civilian life a historian and political scientist at Michigan
State College, was not only on the staff of the original planning unit, but after
Germany’s defeat continued to serve in a leading position. He tells a story of
blunders, frustrated hopes and crippled achievements. And he tells it for a
purpose.
When in March, 1944 a small British-American team assembled in southern
England to draw up an education program for Germany, the three American
members, among them Knappen started from two basic assumptions. First, they
argued, Fascism in Germany and elsewhere must be traced to economic hard-
ship rather than militarist leanings or ultra-nationalism. Secondly, if a group of
people have been handicapped in the past by a poor inheritance, an improve-
ment of environmental conditions will in time change these people themselves.
In the light of such assumptions the hope seemed justified that economic recon-
struction as promised by the Atlantic Charter to the vanquished might bring
about a peaceable and democratic Germany. This optimistic outlook determined
the program. It was a “soft program, based upon the supposition, reasonable in
218 l Post war Pu bli c s

itself that the work of re-education would have to be undertaken by the Ger-
mans themselves. Provisions were made to re-establish schools and theological
seminaries as quickly as possible, to counteract the consequences of denazifica-
tion by energetic teacher training, to encourage the formation of church and
community youth groups on a voluntary basis, etc. The whole breathed a spirit
of indulgence toward German sensibilities.
But even before this well-intentioned program could take effect, it met two
obstacles. One resulted from the inscrutable ways of the Army. Mr. Knappen
exhaustively criticizes the meager understanding of military authorities, except
perhaps on the top level, for educational problems—an acrimonious comment
not only on occasional mistakes but on inherent narrowness. It deals with senior
officers unable to grasp the importance of experts; with the infiltration of the
Military Government by officers not desired elsewhere; with the belief, common
among the brass, that reorientation was a matter of flogging the Germans or
speedily metamorphosing them by ways of magic.
The second and more serious obstacle was the Morgenthau plan, with its
demand for Germany’s deindustrialization, which upset the very foundations of
the education program. No sooner did this plan emerge than Washington
reconsidered its occupation policy, insisting on tougher measures.
The subsequent survey of operations in Germany shows that despite these
aggravating circumstances part of the original program could be carried out in a
relatively short time. Schools were functioning by the spring of 1946; youth
activities were initiated; adult education was revived in the major cities. The best
points of this report on actual achievements are the interviews which Mr. Knap-
pen as head of the Religious Affairs Section had with Cardinal Faulhaber and
several dignitaries of the evangelical church. It is fresh material.
He gives a good account of Pastor Martin Niemoeller’s intricate personality;
and with some disappointment he admits that the pillars of German Protestant-
ism not only advanced nationalistic viewpoints but showed themselves lenient
toward the Nazis. Since, according to plan, outside interference with religious
traditions was to be avoided, the churches were temporarily allowed to do their
own housecleaning. Upon insistence of the Catholics the occupation authorities
also conceded the re-establishment of denominational schools—a compromise
which aroused much animosity among the anti-Nazi population.
However, the potential yield of these efforts was nipped in the bud by policy
decisions from higher up, creating a climate even more unfavorable to reorienta-
tion than the Morgenthau intermezzo. Mr. Knappen takes great pains to attack
the stern handling of denazification, which, in his opinion, thwarted any palpa-
ble solution in the educational field. He also elaborates upon the influence
 R e-ed u c at i o n P r o gr a m f o r t h e R ei c h m 219

exerted by deteriorating living conditions in the wake of the Potsdam Agree-

ment. And, of course, he again brings the Army on the carpet, dwelling at length
upon the corruptive example set by its undiscriminating billeting procedures, its
toleration of black market practices and its immature replacements.
Mr. Knappen’s avowed purpose is to awaken the American people from their
indifference. Prospects are gloomy in Germany, he asserts, and if we really wish
to change the German mind we ourselves will have to change our policy. Or else
history may once more repeat itself.
This book is useful as an honest piece of American self-criticism. Unfortu-
nately, it is crowded with technicalities which sometimes obscure its underlying
views. It also fails to take into account certain recent developments which point
in the direction of the author’s aims. Denazification measures have been modi-
fied. And should the Marshall plan come true, German economy, at least in the
Western zones, would be reconstructed as a matter of course. In any case, since
Mr. Byrnes’ Stuttgart speech “environmental” changes are actually under way,
and they conform exactly to what Mr. Knappen considers a necessary prelimi-
nary to German re-education. The one thing needed, as he remarks at one point,
is “to give the German a job at steady wages which would take his mind off
parading and putsching.” Would it really? For a historian, Mr. Knappen seems
rather oblivious of Germany’s past. We can only hope that a future Germany
will not give lie to his rosy basic assumptions.
 10
How and Why the Public
Responds to the Propagandist

July 4, 1948
Review of: Public Opinion and Propaganda
By Leonard W. Doob.
600 pp. New York: Henry Holt & Co. $5

This book should become a standard work in more than one respect. In it Pro-
fessor Doob of Yale University organizes a vast, amorphous, and fluctuating
body of material so masterfully that it becomes finite, articulate, and firm. What
knowledge we have acquired in these fields is not only surveyed but also ana-
lyzed with a circumspection which owes much to the author’s wealth of experi-
ence. Wartime observations which he made as Chief of the Bureau of Overseas
Intelligence in the O.W.I. lend to many of his statements a color that makes his
book very readable. And since it combines scholarship with a pronounced sense
of human values, it is enlightening beyond its fundamental purpose.
Besides affecting each other in various ways, public opinion and propaganda
have a common denominator: both are modes of human behavior. For this rea-
son, the author approaches his double theme from a psychological angle. He
calls his book an attempt “to extend some of the principles underlying individ-
ual behavior into the sphere of the inter-individual behavior, which is public
opinion and propaganda.”
His psychological outlook determines the route he chooses. The opening
chapters deal with typical behavior patterns. He breaks down the over-all con-
cept of personality into drives, attitudes, habits, etc., qualifying the influence of
these properties on our responses to given stimuli. Here as elsewhere the specific
flavor of Doob’s definitions flows from his acute awareness of their provisional
 H ow t h e Pu bli c Respo n ds m 221

character. His is a kind of precision which never allows you to forget that every
term is wrested from the raw material of life.
In the first major part the author examines, one by one, the factors that make
up public opinion. Its emergence from a variety of social groups, its different
modes of existence, its dependence on our cultural heritage, and its peculiar
reactions to environmental changes and topical issues—all this is considered
systematically. Yet the system is open; it is terra firma reclaimed from an ocean
of possibilities which are permanently in view. The whole culminates in an
exhaustive appraisal of current methods of measuring and evaluating public
opinion. This section appears to me particularly important, because it treats
popular polling techniques with sober caution.
The second major part is an anatomy of propaganda. Unaffected by the bad
reputation of propaganda in Anglo-Saxon countries, Doob, always proceeding
psychologically, stresses its resemblance to education—a resemblance of
underlying attitudes—and then determines its particular nature as a social
force. Intentional propaganda, whether revealed or concealed, is spread by
such specialists as advertising men and journalists; and Doob, in a mood of
relaxation, draws up profiles of them which are as judicious as they are amus-
ing. After an inquiry into the existing methods of seizing upon propaganda
content, he develops his main theme: the numerous devices used in driving
home propaganda messages.
How are people made to perceive propaganda, to respond to it, and eventu-
ally to follow its suggestions? Doob methodically details the spells brought to
bear on prospective believers. Often subpropaganda campaigns must be
launched to induce novices to “learn” what it is all about. Unfavorable facts
must be retouched, adverse attitudes counteracted. Simultaneously with these
preparatory or defensive measures, the skilled propagandist strengthens positive
reactions by evoking “related” responses, drawing on the prestige of the past,
slightly varying ever-repeated appeals, etc. So, it goes on through the whole
gamut of more or less tricky techniques. Doob insists that not all of them are so
devilish as they seem to the naive; for instance, the propaganda device of simpli-
fication is common practice.
The third and last part surveys the media of communication—in particular
the press, radio, and film. These three mass media not only reflect, and help to
mold, public opinion, but are gigantic instruments of propaganda, whether
intended or not. The role each medium plays as such an instrument is traced to
its given characteristics, which, as Doob emphasizes, include a marked tendency
toward concentration of power. Except, perhaps, for the chapter about radio,
this part is not on the level he himself has set. His remarks on magazines, books
222 l Post war Pu bli c s

and plays seem to be made merely for the sake of completeness. And the section
on motion pictures is a loose assemblage of observations. Yet these minor short-
comings are really inevitable in a work of so wide a scope.
His sense of depth shows magnificently in the concluding chapter; in which
he examines the value of his analytical enterprise. It proves itself to be rooted in
a prudent, well-balanced conception of human affairs. “Without analysis,” he
says, “the feeling is likely to emerge that men are fatalistically tossed about by an
irrational, unintelligible destiny. With analysis there is the beginning of self-
control and social control, but neither can be guaranteed.” The analyst, as it
turns out, is a skeptical humanist.
 11
Popular Advertisements

A
coffin manufacturing company specializing in watertight cas-
kets advertises its macabre merchandise by contending: “There’s
deep consolation . . . for those who know the casket of a dear one
is protected against water in the ground . . .” This unfathomable statement is
borne out by two pictures: a technical drawing demonstrating the casket’s
impermeability and the photo of a girl serene in the knowledge that her loved
one will not suffer from the rain to which she is actually exposing herself. The
whole is on a level with Evelyn Waugh’s satire of American funeral rites.
And this nightmarish ad appeared in a weekly that reaches many millions of
readers. Strange things are going on in our immediate surroundings. Let us, for
once, take a look at them.
All popular advertisements try to engage us totally. Not content with inter-
esting us in this or that product and for the rest leaving us in peace, they insatia-
bly encroach on our thought processes and behavior patterns in general. To this
end they more often than not cook up stories entirely unconnected with the
articles they promote. It is as if the advertising agencies were guided by the con-
viction that the average individual will buy coffee or sanitary napkins only if he
has such and such a personality structure. Hence their overwhelming desire for
psychological domination. American ads sneak, octopus-like, into the remotest
recesses of our minds, in a continuous effort to expand their hold on us.
Ours is a competitive society. It would therefore seem natural that the gen-
eral views which, for instance, a soap manufacturer attempts to put over to us
differ to some extent from those of a car manufacturer. Yet actually the con-
trary holds true: economic rivalry goes hand in hand with a complete consen-
sus in the ideological field. The dream of the soap and the car manufacturer are
224 l Post war Pu bli c s

strictly identical. However different their products, a1l advertisers propagan-

dize one and the same Weltanschauung, one and the same outlook on life.
And in spreading this uniform message. (which will be discussed shorty), all
of them urge us to accept it unreservedly. Perhaps the most conspicuous feature
of ads is their insistence on conformity. They aim at eliminating social diverse-
ness and unconventional characters; and they ruthlessly regiment taste and
manner down to the smallest detail. A popular hair tonic ad has it that a boy
with disheveled hair may well estrange his girl from him.” How can a man as
clever as he,” the girl asks gloomily, “be so blind about his appearance?” Fortu-
nately, the worst is averted. Upon her advice he uses the tonic and thus turns
from a maladjusted individual into a regular fellow who reconquers the sympa-
thies he was on the point of losing. In this way numerous ads threaten any freak-
ish dissenter with the loss of love or social status.
Evidently this persistent plea for conformity is bound up with the require-
ments of mass production. Highly standardized goods cannot find sufficient
outlets unless they satisfy highly standardized needs. The souls must come from
the assembly line also, or else they may not absorb what really comes from it. As
the world is shrinking and supply is apt to surpass demand, this tendency to
condition—or, rather, precondition—the buying public psychologically is likely
to increase. We are living in an era in which psychological imperialism super-
sedes political imperialism for the sake of a more intensive market policy.
And what kind of life do the ads hold out to us? It is a life of, by, and for the
young. Most ad characters, I should guess, are below 30, if not plain ‘teen-agers,
including many married couples whom no one would credit with being married
at so adolescent a stage was it not for the lovely children bestowed upon them by
the commercial designers. The sight of these boys and girls is somewhat confus-
ing because all of them look alike—pictorial testimonies to the urge for confor-
mity behind ads. That they are glad to conform can be inferred from the boy in
the above-mentioned hair tonic ad who begins to smile immediately after having
normalized his disheveled hair. He is heretic returned to the fold. Like him
everybody smiles—it is as if the Cheshire Cat had left behind its smile for gen-
eral distribution. And the present owners of the smile, all these beautiful and
healthy young people, radiate a confidence which reveals their ignorance of its
weird origins.
They smile for good reasons.
First, life, as it were, offers them plenty of gratifications. Even the drudging
housewives and gas station attendants manifest a cheerfulness which marks
their seeming chores as veritable Pleasures. And most people are never seen
drudging. If they are not kept busy by such outdoor activities as sports and trav-
els, they usually indulge in the more intimate charms of nature. The scene is
 Popular Advert isemen ts m 225

crowded with loving couples in closeup, after the manner of Hollywood films. A
radio-television unit sets them dancing, and a dental cream stimulates them to a
tête-à-tête as tender as it is hygienic. But perhaps the greatest enjoyment is family
life, what with snapshots being taken of baby, homely fireplaces, folksy Main
Street views, and nationally reputed beverages in the garden. Between porch and
airliner, motionless well-being and utter speed, nothing is omitted in this itiner-
ary of pastimes and diversions.
Secondly, wealth, prestige and power seem just around the corner. Here is
where the middle-aged and old come in, who naturally keep on smiling. A few
less privileged among them, it is true, have grown old only to tell us that a par-
ticular car tire lasts ten years and longer, or that the traditional ice cream Dixies
are still the best. But the rest of them figure in the social register and the high
income brackets—a choice tribe of presidents, vice-presidents and other busi-
ness leaders. They thrive in the rarefied air of country clubs and Pullman suites,
put in a shining appearance on social occasions, and surround themselves with
de luxe secretaries, lords, prominent stars and expensive paintings. This display
of glamor is obviously intended to suggest that it lies in the order of things for
the young to become, in due time, big executives also. Everybody is predestined,
to success. It may sound paradoxical, but even those, who, by an unexplainable
whim of fate, do not precisely get to the top, are in a certain sense as successful as
are the chosen ones. This is demonstrated by the many ads which show vice-
presidents and genuine aristocrats reveling in some commonplace article, thus
giving Tom, Dick and Harry the pleasant feeling that they are actually on a par
with the upper crust. Any bottle of beer does the trick.
Thirdly, all these characters smile, it appears, because they are confident that
nothing will ever interfere with their enjoyments and achievements. They live in
an atmosphere of complete security, inaccessible to rumors of unemployment
and failure. One may object here that, for instance, life insurance ads are bound
to spread this atmosphere in the interest of their sponsors; that it is indeed their
very business to exercise the nightmare of lean years to come by glowing pictures
of middle-aged policy holders who, in a state of perfect contentment, are whil-
ing their time away on the inevitable porch. But other ads with no such obliga-
tions follow exactly the same pattern. Whenever they conjure up the old frontier
spirit—a giant truck meeting a ghost caravan of covered wagons, a mail coach
stopping at a Wells-Fargo station—they usually do so with definite pride in
present-day safety. And they invariably convey the impression that is the busi-
ness enterprises they portray resemble our Constitution in their aloofness from
the ugly vicissitudes of cycles and crises. Occasionally, this impression is deep-
ened by a glorying in successful laboratory research which implies that such tri-
als never entail errors. Ad characters need not even fear.
2 26 l Post war Pu bli c s

And finally, they are justified in believing that their blissful lives are going to
continue forever. The ads create this illusion of a heaven on earth by omitting
death and all that leads up to it. To be sure, undertakers and casket manufactur-
ers want to have their say also. But they interfere only in isolated cases; and the
ad for impermeable caskets, mentioned at the outset of my article, proves con-
clusively that their discretion is as waterproof as are their caskets. For even
though this ad does not conceal the fact that our dear ones sometimes disappear,
it so insistently dwells upon the technical perfection of their future abodes that
we are led to think of their disappearance as a removal to just another and more
comfortable place. It is merely a change of domicile after all. Like the characters
in old epics, those in ads live eternally.
Much as they are privileged, however, they should not be mistaken for For-
tuna’s favorites who reap a harvest they never sowed. Rather, they get what they
get by deliberately reaching out for it. From the moment at which the first snap-
shots of them are taken until such time as they depart for an unmentioned des-
tination, they leave nothing to chance in their pursuit of happiness.
Ad characters are born planners. Here again I do not refer to their conduct
in insurance ads which of course urge them to be prudent and farsighted, but to
the way they scheme and act under less exacting circumstances. An ad for Pull-
man lounge cars lays bare the taut aspirations behind their effortless smile. In
that car a gentleman of distinction and a college boy engage in a conversation
which sets the latter raving soberly: “You meet regular people—your kind—in
the lounge car. Me, I’m on good terms already with this Big Executive who’s
suggested I see him about a job next June: “ These characters never relish an
enjoyable situation without speculating on how to improve further their
chances. Not even the ecstasy of love makes them forget the future in the pres-
ent. It would seem natural for a boy to fall into incoherent stammer while
embracing his girl before moonlit birch trees; instead, he voices in well-set
words his dream of the home they will have and the chests or silver spoons they
will buy.
Yet in being so preoccupied with their own future, these charming go-getters
fulfil a mission transcending them.
They are not satisfied unless they get better refrigerators, milder cigarettes,
smoother cars. Since for obvious reasons ads never mention the less recom-
mendable refrigerators, cigarettes and cars to which they compare the praised
ones, the words “better,” “milder” and “smoother” are left hanging in midair—
comparative which, for being grammatically impossible, all the more connote
the idea of technological progress. In many ads explanatory statements revel-
ing in improvements achieved, corroborate this implication of the fragmen-
tary comparatives. All ad characters are progressive-minded. And they seem
 Popular Advert isemen ts m 227

convinced that anything milder or smoother adds something invaluable to life

in general; that technical progress infallibly results in human progress. Their
conviction of a pre-established harmony between better machinery and better
humanity gives their smile an ideal quality.
This then is, in one summary sentence, the American dream, as told by the
ads in our popular magazines: the happily conforming young aspire to success
and manage to attain it, thereby serving the ideal of progress. The dream sounds
familiar. In fact, the magazine contents themselves resemble so closely the ads
with which they alternate, that we sometimes find it difficult to differentiate
between commercial inserts and pictorial or literary contributions. No Life
reader will be immune to this delusion. It is a legitimate one, for in effect ads
supplement rather than interrupt what popular magazines see fit to print. Com-
mercials and editorials are often interchangeable. Many a Saturday Evening Post
story advertises the very ideas which the interspersed ads narrate in true story
fashion.
To be sure, the dream is a dream; and we do not depend on wild guesses to
reveal it as such. A glance at the nonfiction bestseller list suffices. For a long
time, the two books “Peace of Mind” and “How to Stop Worrying and Start
Living” have succeeded in topping that list. The inevitable conclusion is that the
counterparts in real life of the happy housewives and gas station attendants in
the ads suffer from a lack of peace and do a great deal of worrying. They must be
psychologically dissatisfied, or else they would not be spellbound by the magic
of those book titles. That many of them are living under a mental strain is fur-
ther confirmed by the ever-increasing vogue for psychoanalysis and the wide-
spread concern with psychosomatic medicine—sciences which would hardly
have become so popular were it not for a general want of emotional stability. All
of this gives the lie to the pretended happiness of ad characters.
What are people worrying about? At first glance it seems hopeless to try to
get an answer from the ads themselves, for they naturally deny the existence of
any such worries. And yet it pays to question them. The reason is that effective
mass propaganda must respond to real mass needs. Even Goebbels at his most
fanciful could not manipulate away the vestiges of independent public opinion,
but had to cope with them somehow and somewhere, thus enabling us to draw
reasonable conclusions as to their nature. The same applies to ads: they cannot
afford to pass over reality, however hostile, with a slight of hand, because its
complete neglect might interfere with our acceptance of their propaganda mes-
sages. Of course, they attempt to camouflage real life by oblique innuendos and
powerful suggestions; yet even so it is still present, and its smoldering presence is
bound to affect the dream fabric they are weaving. Beneath this manifest dream
story there runs another, less glamorous story which can be inferred from two
2 28 l Post war Publi c s

problematic features of the dream itself: the ads’ strange preoccupation with
security and their wholesale absorption in the planning of success.
What is strange in their insistence on security is its one-sidedness. Ads are
true products of a system rooted in competition with its inherent risks. One
should therefore expect them to draw on the thrill of high stakes, on that adven-
turous spirit which underlies so many of our achievements. Instead, they feature
a life in which safety prevails over adventure and the motif of contest emerges
only in the field of sports—when some advertiser finds it opportune to refer to a
horse race or a baseball champion. But this reluctance to acknowledge the fact of
competition is inexplicable unless it is traced to a concern with actually existing
mass dispositions. Through their singular bias in favor of security the advertis-
ing agencies betray their awareness that people are harassed by the lack of it. And
their soothing language seems calculated to allay apprehensions.
In the light of this knowledge a new meaning accrues to a special tyro of
ads—the foot ads, with their screaming colors and their giant displays of cuts
of meat, tomato slices, and luscious pies. They are suggestive of an infatuation
with food which often grows out of a state of anxiety or depression. A Canadian-
made documentary film, The Feeling of Hostility, illustrates this familiar experi-
ence through the case history of a woman who, at a certain moment of her life,
gobbles enormous quantities of sweets to compensate for her frustrations.
To be sure, this shrill and oversized victual cannot sufficiently be explained
by culinary excesses in the wake of emotional troubles; but what may once have
been a naive expression of bouncing vitality is now, I guess, being upheld by the
feeling of insecurity that sweeps the masses.
The way ads emphasize the planning of success points to another source of
general disquiet. Ad characters organize their lives with such an incomparable
smoothness that we feel they have no psychological difficulties to overcome in
getting along nicely. Nothing within them resists their upward flight; they seem
devoid of unruly instincts and impracticable fancies. And what originality they
possess is being used up in the process of climbing. Take the Whiskey ads: most
of them appeal merely to the social ambitions of prospective buyers, implying
that they are animated not so much by a genuine passion for Whiskey as the
burning desire to “belong.” Smiling eagerness for careers consumes the purpose-
less; love ceases to be an end in itself, as is evidenced by the ad with the two
would-be lovers before moonlit birch trees. This indifference to self-sufficient
human relations reaches its peak in an amazing ad for a new station wagon
model: standing before the shining vehicle, a young man, possibly its owner,
chats with a radiant young woman, and the caption, underlined in red, affirms:
“The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship:” The delighted reader is led to believe
 Popular Advert isemen ts m 229

that he has finally come across a commercial which extols tender leanings for
their own sake: yet no sooner does he continue reading than he learns that the
beautiful friendship is meant to develop between the car owner and his car.
Alas, the car’s attractiveness outshines the sex appeal of the young woman.
Ad characters impress us as empty creatures. This impression is intensified
by a few exceptional ads which, for whatever reasons, picture the opposite state
of mind—emotional fullness. One of them, an ad for watches, shows an elderly
couple taking leave of each other at an airport; untouched by the stirring bustle
about them, both are visibly under the spell of emotions that evade measure-
ment. They inhabit a universe in which slow growth and inner experience
count more than space-devouring speed and surface glamor. It is the universe
in which music evolves. This probably accounts for the presence of similarly
mellow and cultured people in an isolated radio ad—people who, as they listen
to the music from an expensive radio set, seem to defy the hollowness of chron-
ological time. Stray visitors in the world of the ads, they and the elderly couple
make us acutely aware of the shortcomings of its permanent residents—their
two-dimensional flatness, their futile predilection for time-saving gadgets.
What will the industrious housewives do with the time thus saved? The same
problem is posed by the declared favorites of life insurance ads, those prema-
turely retired policy holders on their porches who represent nothing but infi-
nite boredom.
In emphasizing their characters’ unflinching purposefulness, ads reflect a
widespread, economically desirable attitude. American mass production is,
itself, a matter of methodical planning and calculating; and it naturally works
at full steam only if it is supported by people susceptible to its demands. These
people exist not only in ads; nor are they emotionally more articulate than ad
characters. We know what they are like. Sinclair Lewis has exposed their inner
workings, and John Marquand in his novels never tires of elaborating upon the
atmosphere of emptiness that pervades our society.
Ads cannot help revealing this emptiness. At the same time, they try hard to
minimize it, thus inadvertently admitting that many people currently suffer
from the void within and about them. The dream must be cloudless. Hence the
advertising agencies’ desperate attempt to pass off technological advance as
progress in general, human or otherwise—an equation difficult to maintain in
the era of the atomic bomb. That they nevertheless perpetuate such an obvious
illusion betrays their (presumably unconscious) desire to make up for the mass
frustration from emptiness. The device is simple: people who believe themselves
to be the standard-bearers of “progress” will be less aware of their lack of really
substantial ideals. The idea of progress serves to ennoble the streamlined
230 l Post war Publi c s

efficiency with which they rush ahead of the moment, even the most precious,
in which they are actually living.
At this point the omnipresence of the young, in particular the “teen-agers”
becomes understandable. The gratifications lavished on them in ads make them
appear superficial, if not callous, in comparison with the elderly couple in the
watch ad mentioned above. But youth is justified in behaving this way because it
is still remote from death and because it can acquire experience only by playing
around. A certain emptiness is natural for it. This may strengthen the publicity
agents’ determination to concentrate on youth. In doing so, they not only con-
form to a general trend which is what they want to do anyway, but achieve, prob-
ably without intending it, something more specific—they challenge the public
to identify itself with an age group which need not feel frustrated for temporar-
ily drifting along in a vacuum. The very emptiness which causes many to look
out for books like “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” is thus impressed
upon us as a normal, by no means unpleasant state of mind. The whole amounts
to an attempt to wheedle adults out of their frustrations by making them adoles-
cents once more.
Here arises the problem of accounting for the tremendous impact of ads.
Their flaws show glaringly; and many of their appeals and insinuations are too
silly to deceive anyone in his senses. Yet all this does not prevent publicity agents
from clinging doggedly to such doubtful patterns. And they certainly have the
know-how.
Ads lure the masses for three reasons, the first of which is precisely their
dream quality. But why does this particular dream with its boundless optimism,
its undiscriminating promise of success and its naive outlook on human affairs
prove so attractive? The answer is that it is a left-over from those days which
Coolidge epitomized in declaring that the business of America is business. It is
an obsolete dream, long since discredited by history. This, however, makes it all
the more irresistible, for it caters to popular longings for that time of expansion
and prosperity when, it appears, life was less involved and private initiative of
more consequence. A clever mixture of Main Street mentality and managerial
slickness, current ads look very much up-to-date; yet actually they are the last
stragglers from the era that preceded the Great Depression. And nothing com-
pares in splendor with the nostalgic memory of things irretrievably gone.
Secondly, ads are so effective because they are more than a dream. Their
dream quality is every now and then suspended; their escapism is not consistent
enough to conceal unescapable reality. Ads hint of the truth, if only by implica-
tion. And most people will grasp the truth instinctively. They will realize, how-
ever dimly, that the relation established in ads between planning and emptiness
 Popular Advert isemen ts m 231

has a bearing on their own lives, and that the stereotyped smile of ad characters
is in effect a smile under the stress of insecurity. As they look at ads, people may
be haunted by the vision of the Cheshire Cat taking shape again and reclaiming
the smile from its present owners, those insouciant housewives, gas station
attendants and college students. But instead of disrupting the spell of ads, the
reappearance of this weird animal increases their attractiveness. It causes the
public constantly to waver between the two opposite poles of ads—the dream of
happiness they spread and the pressure of the reality they admit. The psychologi-
cal result is that the dream mitigates that pressure, which in turn makes the
dream seem more palpable. This intermingling of life as it is and life as it might
be having the intoxicating power of a drug.
And thirdly, ads are animated by an almost religious passion for producing
and selling goods. Much as they affect us through their mixture of dream and
reality, the very secret of their impact is this passion, which imbues any hair
tonic or coffee manufacturer with the certitude that he has a gospel to impart,
a mission to fulfil. His is so absorbing a belief in the immense signification of
his particular product that he feels urged to propagandize, along with it, his
whole outlook on Life—a life centering round shampoos or coffee beans. I have
said at the beginning that all ads tend to engage us totally; this tendency must,
at least in part, be traced to the advertisers’ missionary zeal which often stirs
them or their publicity agents to turn into veritable bards. “You’ll be walking
on air,” a piece of authentic poetry reads, “. . . you’ll be dancing with joy . . .
you’ll be feeling smug as silk . . . once you have the body under the slimming,
trimming, smoothing, soothing influence of this. . . . .. girdle or panty-girdle.”
It is the girdle, not the girl wearing it, that kindles this emotional conflagra-
tion. The passion enlivening commercials bears exclusively on merchandise, as
the above-mentioned station wagon ad reveals once and for all through its
express advocacy of responses to goods instead of responses to persons: its cap-
tion, “The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship!” creates the illusion of the car
owner’s concern with his female companion for the sole purpose of driving
home his amorous feelings for the ear.
Yet for all its indifference to human values this impassioned interest in busi-
ness is something promising—a symptom of unbroken vitality, an expression of
the creative energies instrumental in American life. Ads are so impressive
because the vigor of the passion pervading them endows their otherwise prob-
lematic dream of youth and progress with a certain meaning. Besides serving as
a means of escape, this dream manifests a belief in the future which is sustained
by the existence of those creative energies. Why should they benefit only busi-
ness? And the same belief in the future makes the glimpses of reality which ads
23 2 l Post war Publi c s

afford appear less frightening. We somehow feel confident that our vitality will
enable us to overcome both insecurity and emptiness.
Strong stimulants produce strong effects. Through their perpetual emphasis
on conformity ads, along with the other media of mass communication, pro-
mote a state of mind which, should it further gain ground, would give the lie to
that belief in the future. There are, to be sure, times when nonconformist behav-
ior assumes threatening proportions; but at present the graver danger is what I
have called “psychological imperialism”—a tendency, powerful in this country,
to prefabricate souls as if they were houses. Ads belong among its most common
carriers. The kind of conformity they propagandize not only undermines our
creative faculties but helps increase the emptiness about us, thus favoring dispo-
sitions for such substitutes as race bias and authoritarian rule.
Fortunately, propaganda has its limits. Speaking of our press, film and radio,
Harold J. Laski in his book, The American Democracy (New York, 1948,
pp. 622–23), remarks that “the power of those who own and operate these major
instruments of propaganda is always being challenged and is never as effective
as, superficially, it might seem that it ought to be. There is something in the
psychological climate of America which resists any ultimate regimentation of
behavior or opinion. Something always escapes the net which is thrown about
the people. Nonconformity is an element in American life which is always
called into being by the spectacle of conformity.” This statement has been
clinched by the results of the November election.1
Our belief in the future is fairly warranted if we continue to disregard the
gratuitous intimations of polls—or of ads, for that matter. Should this happen,
then I foresee a time in which ad characters will drop their out-to-pattern smile;
for ads not only influence people but are, on their part, influenced by what peo-
ple do and think. Much can be done of which publicity agents are currently
unaware. It seems possible, for instance, to feature a shampoo without contend-
ing that a boy with disheveled hair cannot be loved. It also seems possible to
advertise watertight caskets and yet have death retain its dignity. Someday such
possibilities may materialize. This would be a good sign indeed.

Note

1. Harry S. Truman, candidate of the Democratic Party, won the U.S. presidential
election in 1948.—Eds.
 12
A Duck Crosses Main Street

December 13, 1948

—That’s news for American newsreel cameras, which focus mainly on wars,
monkeys, volcanoes and pretty girls.
It happens at least once to every commuter. Cyrus Fairweather misses the 5:31
and walks into the newsreel theater in New York’s Grand Central Station to
while away an hour before the next train. He also has a vague idea that he might
catch up on what is happening around the world, but as he settles back in his
seat, what does he see and hear for his forty cents?
Kettledrums; a Voice of Doom; grinning, bearded Greeks firing a cannon at
what looks like a mountain. According to the commentator, aggression is being
stopped as Time Marches On in Greece.
There follows the up-to-the-minute news.
The battleship New Jersey is deactivated as granite-faced admirals salute and a
boatswain’s mate dramatically turns off the ship’s ventilation systems;
Somewhere in the USA, a duck crosses Main Street;
A French wrestler, weight 276, grapples with a Belgian with a long, black
beard; Secretary of the Treasury Snyder signs a check for $7.5 billion;
Girls in bathing suits dive from towers; girls in bathing suits parade before
solemn judges; French girls in French bathing suits coyly assume sidewise poses
for the prudish American cameras, while American girls in American bathing
suits put on skis and fall down in the snow.
“The ski’s the limit,” cries the commentator, and Fairweather looks at his
watch. His time is up, and he starts off for his train, his ears still buzzing from
234 l Post war Pu bli c s

assorted squawks and explosions and his eyes watering from the quick shifting
of the scenes.
As he emerges from the theater, Fairweather is little impressed by what he has
seen that he immediately wonders what Mrs. F. is having for dinner.
Like thousands of other Americans Fairweather thinks of newsreel theaters
as convenient places to wait for trains, get out of the rain, or cool off in air-
conditioned comfort. The customer who really expects to see the news is a naive
character.
The average moviegoer is so accustomed to bathing beauties, monkeys, base-
ball games, politicians, etc., that he would probably be mystified by a newsreel
which attempted to give him fifty minutes of significant current events. Since he
raises no effective objection to the status-quo, the newsreel producers are con-
tent to let things ride.
The result of this apathy has been to perpetuate a newsreel format that
hasn’t changed appreciably in the past twenty years. The same old subjects are
given the same old treatment. In covering horse races, animals at the zoo, speeches,
etc., the photographic techniques used by five major newsreel companies (20th
Century-Fox Movietone, Warner-Pathé, Paramount, Universal, Hearst-M-G-M
News of the Day) are as predictable as the days of the week.
As for authenticity, some newsreels are almost as phony as the old staged
photographs of the sinking of the Maine in 1898, which were shown in the
nickelodeons.
However, to attack the newsreel on artistic grounds, or as an agency for dis-
seminating important news, is like hitting a man when he’s down. Even the men
who make them are far from proud of what they turn out. Their attitude is dep-
recating and, instead of plugging their product, they go into long explanations
of why it is no better.
Problem number one is money. None of the newsreel companies makes more
than a moderate return on its investments; at times they show a loss, which must
be absorbed by the parent company in Hollywood. Unlike newspapers, they
have no advertising revenue, and the cost of taking pictures, developing the neg-
atives, making prints, etc., is high.
A second big problem is the difficulty of getting hold of enough spectacular
or important news week after week. One harassed producer complains: “The
Daily News can’t always be bright with a good sex murder; the Times can’t
always be bright with an international situation; and so how in hell can you
expect us to be bright every time some chump sits down in front of a camera
and opens his mouth?”
 A Duck Crosses M ain St reet m 235

Even if important news stories broke every day, limited budgets would make
adequate coverage impossible. Most of the companies operate on a “stringer”-
correspondent basis. Although they pay a few men a regular salary to obtain
material, most of the work is done by stringers, who are paid small fees. This
reliance on half-time correspondents gets half-time results.
In faraway places like China and Japan, the newsreels use a “pool” arrange-
ment under which one cameraman works for several companies. This a cheap
way of getting film, but it discourages imaginative reporting. Another example
of pooling is the non-competitive way in which representatives of the major
newsreel companies often cover a single big assignment such as a national con-
vention. The cameramen travel in a tightly knit group, shoot the same stuff, and
look with a fishy grin at colleagues who attempt to get exclusive stories.
A talk with a newsreel editor is roughly analogous to picking up an empty
vase which you expected to be full; it throws you slightly off balance. The edi-
tors, conscious of the shortcomings of their output, add criticism of their own to
the general uproar. For example, Newton Meltzer of Telenews admits that the
commentary is much too verbose, and hopes that American newsreels will learn
to emulate the European films’ terse, reserved treatment.
For Movietone’s Dan Daugherty, a red-headed newsreel veteran, faces criti-
cism with equanimity. “We have made billions of mistakes,” he agrees, “but
when we do a good job nobody notices. For instance, we told the public about
Hitler, Mussolini and the rest of their gang—filmed thousands of feet of
speeches, parades, planes, and guns—but almost nobody believed us. What the
hell? You show some people the truth, and they close their eyes. But if you miss
something, that’s different.”
Two outstanding critics of newsreels are Bosley Crowther of the New York
Times and the New York Herald Tribune’s John Crosby. M. D. Clofine, editor of
Heast-M-G-M’s News of the Day, blames the term “newsreel” for many of their
adverse comments.
“What the critics don’t see is that the newsreel has got to be more than just a
documentary. As part of a theatre program it has two functions—to inform
and to amuse. Since the entertainment factor has to enter our calculations, we
often use light subjects in preference to a ‘significant’ piece of news that is pic-
torially dull.”
Clofine also points out that the scope of the newsreel is limited by the require-
ments of the individual theater exhibitor, who, after all, is in the business to
make money. Since the main features are the most important revenue-producers
on his program, he allots most of his budget to them; the result is that when the
23 6 l Post war Publi c s

exhibitor gets around to the newsreel he has very little left to spend. This simple
economic fact explains why the newsreels are not as elaborate or as exhaustive as
they might be. The producers cannot afford it.
Economic and technical difficulties may explain many of the newsreels’
weaknesses, but not their editorial shortcomings. Newsreel material about
world affairs, for instance, follows a singularly conventional course and, in most
cases, industriously beats the drum for US foreign policy (Palestine is a possible
exception).
The films are saturated with anti-Communist and pro-military propaganda.
When Cardinal Spellman and President Truman spoke on St. Patrick’s Day, it
was the anti-Communist portions of their addresses that were singled out for
screening. Extensive shots of army maneuvers, diving planes, smoking rockets
and General MacArthur reviewing his troops in Japan are screened while sound
tracks blare do-or-die college marching songs.
On the home front, the newsreels frequently make no bones about being par-
tisan. Labor conflicts are usually treated with ill-concealed bias. During the soft-
coal strike last year, elaborate shots of abandoned mines and joking, idle miners
invited moviegoers to ponder the destructive effects of the shutdown. The cam-
eras did not go into the miners’ side of the story. The newsreels’ way of treating
the packinghouse workers’ strike was to give prominence to signs in butcher
shops proclaiming the rising cost of meat. Occasionally, however, impartiality is
shown. Telenews’ coverage of the Wall Street strike was fair to both sides, and
also told the story in an interesting way.
There is little doubt that US newsreels distort current political events. Yet
these distortions would do so little harm if it were not for the newsreels’ ten-
dency to blunt audience’s critical faculties.
First, there is too much chatter. Newsreel audiences are spoon-fed a constant
stream of words, wisecracks and loaded phrases. These are spoken in overempha-
sized tones of seriousness, despair, triumph or happiness that only the worst
ham actor would dare to employ on stage. Not only is it corny; it is much too
long. The comment in American newsreels takes up 80 percent of the screening
time, while many of the European reels restrict commentary to a third as much
footage.
Again, American newsreel sequences almost always alternate between
disaster (floods, fires) and fun (gorilla eats birthday cake). The emotions of the
newsreel fan are made to bob up and down like a yo-yo, and the effect of this
jerky, kaleidoscopic attack on his eyes and ears is to induce a state of near paraly-
sis. When he finally emerges from the theater, his memory is a hodgepodge of
noises, faces, catastrophes and shifting backgrounds.
 A Duck Crosses M ain St reet m 237

At least one major newsreel company, Telenews, is showing that new tech-
niques can be evolved. In its short existence, Telenews has emphasized the
“trend” approach to significant news stories, featuring intelligent interpretation
of the scenes it records.
An excellent example of Telenews’ reporting was its treatment of the Supreme
Court decision invalidating restrictive covenants.1 The sequence opened with
shots of men picketing the White House in protest against the Negro segrega-
tion in the Army. Then came footage contrasting white and Negro housing in
such cities as New York and Washington D.C. The narrator interviewed the
Negro family which brought the case to the Supreme Court. The disputed por-
tion of the covenant itself was enlarged on the screen, while a background voice
slowly quoted that section of the Fourteenth Amendment which played a cru-
cial part in the court decision. This was superb reporting—thorough, convinc-
ing, and original.
Sloppiness, distortion, and bias are probably unintentional. They may play up
or omit certain topics for political reasons, but it would be preposterous to
assume that they select and manipulate their material with a view to stupefying
their audience. They seem to be indolent rather than totalitarian minded.
There is no valid reason why US newsreel companies should not try to develop
patterns that challenge the intellect instead of blunting it. The newsreel need
not be as bad as it is. The eternal mixture of disasters and silly jokes is not
unavoidable, and even sports events can be depicted in a less stereotyped way.
But the most urgently needed reform is in structure. Commentary should be
limited to essential supplementary information, while the pictures tell the actual
story. The audience would then be in a position to digest material that now
scarcely reaches its senses.

Note

1. Kracauer is referring here to the landmark United States Supreme Court case
Shelley v. Kraemer (334 U.S. 1, 1948), that struck down racially restrictive housing
covenants. On Shelley v. Kraemer and the history of racially restrictive hous-
ing covenants in the United States, see Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A
Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York: Liver-
ight, 2017), 77–91.—Eds.
 13
National Types as Hollywood
Presents Them

H ollywood, and any national film industry for that matter, is both a leader and
follower of public opinion. In portraying foreign characters it reflects what it believes
to be the popular attitudes of the time, but it also turns these often vague attitudes
into concrete images. This process is dramatically highlighted by the treatment
which American films have given British and Russian characters from about 1933
to the present. Our images of foreign peoples result from a ratio between objective
and subjective factors, and Hollywood can make a considerable contribution to
international understanding by increasing the objective factor in its treatment of
foreign characters to the extent that current public opinion will allow.
This study is one of a number of pilot studies undertaken in connection with
the UNESCO project for studying international tensions.
The author is well known, both here and abroad, as a social psychologist spe-
cializing in analysis of the social and cultural implications of films. His analyti-
cal account of the German film, From Caligari to Hitler, was published by the
Princeton University Press in 1947.

UNESCO has begun to inquire into the nature of tensions inimical to

mutual understanding between the peoples of the world. Part of this “Tensions
Project” is an analysis of “the conceptions which the people of one nation enter-
tain of their own and of other nations.”
It seems likely indeed that international understanding depends to some
extent on the character of such conceptions- particularly if they assert them-
selves within the media of mass communication. Among these media the film is
perhaps the most impressive.
If we are to study national images as presented in films, two broad areas for
research immediately confront us. How do the films of any nation represent
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 239

their own nation? And how do they represent others? The first of these two
problems, increasingly dealt with in current writings, can be dismissed here in
favor of the second which seems to me more important for UNESCO’S quest. It
is a new problem, not yet posed in a general way. Along with a whole family of
similar problems, it has come into focus only now that world government is a
possibility and world domination a threat. Only now, in fact, has the goal of
mutual understanding through knowledge changed from an intellectual plea-
sure to a vital concern of the democracies.
The following study is by no means intended to provide a comprehensive
analysis of the various screen images which the peoples of the world have formed,
and continue to form, of each other. It is a pilot study, and merely attempts to
prepare the ground for such an investigation by examining a small sector of the
total subject: the appearance of English and Russian characters in American fic-
tion films since about 1933.1
In the universe of fiction films two types are of lesser importance—films
about the past of the English and Russians, and screen adaptations of literary
masterworks from the two countries. This is not to say that such films are rare.
On the contrary, Hollywood finds Victorian England endearing and Catherine
the Great amusing. Also, it often feels compelled to exchange entertainment for
what it believes to be culture, and thus it eagerly exploits Shakespeare’s plays and
Tolstoy’s novels, trying to make of them entertainment.2 No doubt both these
historical and literary films are well-established genres. And of course, I do not
deny that they help build up the screen images of the foreign peoples to which
they refer. Yet since they deal with remote events, they are decidedly less relevant
to this study than films that have a direct bearing on present-day reality.
It is these latter films on which I am concentrating here—films, that is, which
involve contemporary Russian and British characters in real-life situations. There
has been no lack of them since 1933. I am thinking, for instance, of Ninotchka (1939),
with its pleasantries at the expense of Soviet mentality, and of Cavalcade (1933),
which follows the destinies of a well-to-do English family through two generations.
What concepts the American screen entertains of the English and Russians can
best be elicited from such more or less realistically handled comedies and dramas.

OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS IN

NATIONAL IMAGES

In the cases of individuals and peoples alike, knowledge of each other may prog-
ress from a state of ignorance to fair understanding. It is, for instance, a far cry
240 l Post war Pu bli c s

from what the average American knows about the Japanese to Ruth Benedict’s
recent disclosure of the set of motives that determine Japanese attitudes and
actions. Her study, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, marks progress in objec-
tivity; it challenges us to dispose of the familiar notions and common prejudices
which help fashion our standard images of that people. Generally speaking, any
such increase of knowledge is identical with a closer approach to the object we
seek to penetrate.
This approach, however, is bound to remain asymptotic for two reasons, one
of which lies in the object itself. An individual or a people is not so much a fixed
entity as a living organism that develops along unforeseeable lines. Hence the
difficulty of self-identification. It is true that the successive images a people cre-
ate of its own character are as a rule more reliable than those it forms of a foreign
people’s; but they are not complete and definite either.
The other obstacle to perfect knowledge, alone important in this context, lies in
ourselves. We perceive all objects in a perspective imposed upon us by our environ-
ment as well as by certain inalienable traditions. Our concepts of a foreigner neces-
sarily reflect native habits of thought. Much as we try to curtail this subjective fac-
tor, as we are indeed forced to do in the interest of increased objectivity, we still view
the other individual from a position which is once and for all ours. It is just as
impossible for us to settle down in a vacuum as it would be to fuse with him.
Any image we draw up of an individual or a people is the resultant of an
objective and a subjective factor. The former cannot grow indefinitely; nor can
the latter be completely eliminated. What counts is the ratio between these two
factors. Whether our image of a foreign people comes close to true likeness or
merely serves as a vehicle of self-expression—that is, whether it is more of a por-
trait or more of a projection—depends upon the degree to which our urge for
objectivity gets the better of naive subjectivity.

MEDIA INFLUENCES ON OBJECTIVIT Y- SUBJECTIVIT Y RATIO

The ratio between the objective and the subjective factor varies with the medium
of communication. It is evident that within the medium of the printed word
objectivity may go the limit. In the radio, also, objective information plays a
considerable role, even though it is hampered by various restrictions, most of
them inherent in the nature of this mass medium. Yet for all its limitations the
radio registers any signal increase of knowledge. I do not doubt, for instance,
that the evolution of modern anthropology—resulting from the necessities of
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 241

psychological warfare and this country’s engagements in international affairs—

has been instrumental in bringing about recent radio programs which surveyed
living conditions in other countries, and in particular focused on “the character
and ideals of the Russian people.”3
And what about the film? Hollywood’s fiction films are commercial products
designed for mass consumption at home and, if possible, abroad. The implica-
tions of this over-all principle are obvious: Hollywood must try to captivate the
masses without endangering its affiliations with vested interests. In view of high
production costs, it must try to avoid controversial issues lest box office receipts
fall off. What the latter “must” means for the representation of foreigners is clas-
sically illustrated by the setback which the Remarque film, All Quiet on the West-
ern Front (1930), suffered in Germany after a few Berlin performances, in Decem-
ber 1930. This film; with its emphasis on the anti-war mood of German soldiers in
the years of trench warfare, stirred the Nazis to violent demonstrations which in
turn caused the German government to suspend its further screening.4 Similar
experiences, made with vaguely anti-Fascist films in neutral countries shortly
before World War II, have corroborated the sad truth that foreign peoples are as
touchy as domestic groups, professional or otherwise. The film industry therefore
“remains afraid of portraying characters or situations in a way which will offend
its existing foreign market: why jeopardize a source of revenues?”5
Hollywood, then, is faced with the task of producing films that draw the
masses, in particular the American masses. The problem of how it measures up
to this task has long since been a subject of discussion. Many holds that Holly-
wood, with the support of its affiliated chains of movie houses, manages to sell
films which do not give the masses what they really want. From this viewpoint it
would seem that Hollywood films more often than not stultify and misdirect a
public persuaded into accepting them by its own indolence and by overwhelm-
ing publicity. I do not believe that such a viewpoint is tenable. Experience has
taught us that even totalitarian regimes cannot manipulate public opinion for-
ever; and what holds true for them applies all the more to an industry which
despite its monopolistic tendencies still functions within the framework of a
competitive society. The film industry is forced by its profit interest to divine the
nature of actually existing mass trends and to adjust its products to them. That
this necessity leaves a margin for cultural initiative on the part of the industry
does not alter the situation. To be sure, American audiences receive what Hol-
lywood wants them to want; but in the long run audience desires, acute or dor-
mant, determine the character of Hollywood films.6
The audiences also determine the way these films picture foreigners. The sub-
jective factor in any such image is more or less identical with the notions
24 2 l Post war Pu bli c s

American public opinion entertains of the people portrayed. It is therefore

highly improbable that a nation popular with the average American will be pre-
sented unfavorably; nor should we expect currently unpopular nations to be
treated with condoning benevolence. Similarly, screen campaigns for or against
a nation are not likely to be launched unless they can feed on strong environ-
mental moods in their favor.
Yet its surrender to such moods need not prevent Hollywood from volunteer-
ing information about foreign peoples. It is true that we usually want to under-
stand other nations because of our concern with mutual understanding; but fear
and distrust of a people may no less urgently compel us to inquire into the
motives behind its aspirations. The desire for knowledge, an essentially indepen-
dent inner drive, thrives on both antipathy and sympathy. To what extent do
Hollywood films satisfy this desire? Or, more specifically: what is the ratio
between the subjective and the objective factor in American screen images of
foreigners? And has this ratio been stable so far, or are we justified in assuming,
for instance, that the images of 1948 surpass those of 1933 in objectivity?

HOLLYWOOD’S ESTIMATE OF ITS AUDIENCE

Without anticipating answers, I wish to formulate a principle derived from the

all-powerful profit motive. Hollywood’s attitude toward the presentation of any
given piece of information ultimately depends on its estimate of how the masses
of moviegoers respond to the spread of that information through fiction films. It
seems to me important in this connection that the film industry calls itself an
entertainment industry a term which, whatever it connotes, does not precisely
make one think of films as carriers of knowledge (nor as works of art, for that
matter). There has indeed been a widespread tendency not only to equate screen
entertainment and relaxation, but to consider anything informative an undesir-
able admixture. This entertainment formula, championed as late as 1941 in the
sophisticated Preston Sturges film Sullivan’s Travels, rests upon the conviction
that people want to relax when they go to the movies; and it further implies that
the need for relaxation and the quest for knowledge oppose rather than attract
each other. Of course, as always with such formulas, they characterize the men-
tal climate without being strictly binding. Many a prewar film has defied the
usual Hollywood pattern and has deepened our understanding of the world.
Only since the end of the war have ideological conventions undergone a
change; and again this change must be traced to mass moods. Obviously
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 24 3

inspired by the general desire for enlightenment in the wake of the war, spokes-
men of the industry now advocate films that combine entertainment with
information. “Motion pictures,” says Jack L. Warner, “are entertainment—but
they go far beyond that.” And he coins the term “honest entertainment” to
convey the impression of a Hollywood fighting for truth, democracy, interna-
tional understanding, etc.7 Eric Johnston, President of the Motion Picture
Association, lends his authority to this view. In his statement, The Right To
Know—which is none the less pertinent for referring to fiction films and fac-
tual films alike—he contends that “the motion picture, as an instrument for
the promotion of knowledge and understanding among peoples, stands on the
threshold of a tremendous era of expansion.”8
Whether the American motion picture has already trespassed this threshold
remains to be seen. On the purely domestic scene it has done so—at least up to a
point and temporarily. Attacking social abuses, such films as The Best Years of
our Lives (1946), Boomerang (1947), and Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) reveal a
progressive attitude which undoubtedly owes much to wartime experiences.9
They still play to full houses, even though political pressures have meanwhile
caused the industry to discontinue this trend. Will Hollywood revert to its old
entertainment formula? For the time being, we must remain in suspense.

THE TIME ELEMENT

Such foreign peoples as one does see on the American screen do not appear con-
secutively in films about present-day life. The English were featured in a number
of prewar films succeeding each other closely—among them were the above-
mentioned Cavalcade (1933), Of Human Bondage (1934), Ruggles of Red Gap
(1935), The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), Angel (1937), Lost Horizon (1937), A
Yank at Oxford (1938), The Citadel (1938), The Sun Never Sets (1939), We Are Not
Alone (1939), Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), and How Green Was
My Valley (1941). No sooner did the United States enter the war than the fre-
quency of topical films about Great Britain and her people increased, as is
instanced by Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Pied Piper (1942), Journey for Margaret
(1942), The White Cliffs of Dover (1944), etc.
This vogue broke off immediately after the war. To the best of my knowl-
edge, the British postwar generation would be nonexistent in the cinematic
medium, were it not for The Paradine Case (1948), a murder story without any
bearing on current issues, and the international-minded melodrama Berlin
24 4 l Post war Publi c s

Express, released as late as May 1948. Between 1945 and 1948, there was a gap
spanned only by a few films that focused exclusively on the past—Lubitsch’s
Cluny Brown (1946) which satirized prewar attitudes, fashionable or otherwise;
So Well Remembered (1947), a social-minded chronicle of small-town life
between the two wars; Ivy (1947); Moss Rose (1947); and So Evil My Love (1948).
The last three were mystery thrillers playing in turn-of-the-century Britain, if
not earlier. Though three years may not be a long period, this sustained uncon-
cern for the present still seems a bit strange.
During the ‘thirties, contemporary Russians were less in view than the Eng-
lish, without, however, being wholly neglected. I have already mentioned
Ninotchka (1939). Other films of the period were Tovarich (1937), and Comrade
X (December, 1940). In the war, when Stalin joined the Allies, Hollywood per-
mitted no one to outdo it in glowing accounts of Russian heroism. Mission to
Moscow, Miss V. from Moscow, The North Star, Three Russian Girls, Song of Rus-
sia—a veritable springtide of pro-Russian films—flooded the movie houses in
1943 and 1944. Then, exactly as in the case of the English, the Russians disap-
peared for three years. They disappeared even more completely than the English,
for I do not know of a single, halfway important film since Lubitsch’s resurrec-
tion of Catherine the Great (A Royal Scandal, 1945) which has dealt with their
literature or past. Of course, I discount the “mad Russian,” who reemerged in
The Specter of the Rose (1946); this stereotyped favorite of American audiences—
usually a Russian-born artist having sought shelter in the West—is on the whole
too estranged from the country of his origin to be identified as a Soviet citizen.
It is true that Russians were also rare on the prewar screen, but in those days they
were not featured in other media either. What makes one wonder at the absence
of Soviet Russia on the postwar screen is just the fact of her omnipresence in
speech and print at this time. Between 1945 and 1948, the film alone seemed
unaware of a mass obsession. That Hollywood behaved true to pattern in thus
ignoring the Russians is proven by its equally conspicuous silence about the
Nazis in the years preceding 1939. It is not as if Germany had played any notice-
able role in American films prior to 1933. Yet precisely in the critical years 1930–
1934 two grade-A films turned the spotlight on her—All Quiet on the Western
Front and Little Man, What Now? (1934), a screen adaptation of Hans Fallada’s
pre-Hitler novel about unemployment in Germany. Hollywood, it appears, had
become mildly interested in things German. And what came out of it? During
the subsequent years Hitler was a topic everywhere but on the screen. If I am not
mistaken, only two films with Germans in them appeared in this interval: The
Road Back (1937) and Three Comrades (1938). Both were adapted from novels by
Remarque, whose name meant business, and both were laid in the early Weimar
Republic, which was dead and buried at the time of their release.
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 245

TIMES WHEN SILENCE SEEMS WISE

This temporary withdrawal from certain peoples at certain times can be

explained only by factors affecting commercial film production. Significantly,
prewar Germany as well as postwar Russia provoked impassioned controversy in
the United States. Before the war the country was divided into isolationists and
interventionists; immediately after the war it heatedly debated the problem of
whether the U.S. should be tough or soft in her dealings with the Kremlin. I
believe it is this split of public opinion which accounts for Hollywood’s evasive-
ness in both cases. Hollywood, as I have pointed out earlier, is so sensitive to
economic risks that it all but automatically shrinks from touching on anything
controversial. Germany and Russia were tabooed as “hot stuff;” and they were
hot stuff as long as everybody argued about them and a decisive settlement of
this nation-wide strife was not yet in sight. They disappeared, that is, not in spite
of their hold on the American mind, but because of it.
There has been no such controversy with regard to Anglo-American rela-
tions. Why, then, the scarcity of postwar Britons in Hollywood films? Consid-
ering the impact of mass attitudes on film content, this scarcity may well result
from the uneasiness with which Americans react to Labor rule in Britain. Their
disquiet is understandable, for what is now going on in Britain means a chal-
lenge to American belief in free enterprise and its particular virtues. In the
United States any discussion of British affairs is therefore likely to touch off an
argument about the advantages and disadvantages of the American way of life.
But once this kind of argument gets started you never know where it will lead.
The whole matter is extremely delicate and involved, and it is for such reasons, I
submit, that Hollywood producers currently neglect, perhaps without con-
sciously intending it, the living English in favor of their less problematic
ancestors.10

. . . AND TIMES TO SPEAK OUT

These periods of silence may suddenly come to a close, with mimosa-like shyness
yielding to uninhibited outspokenness. In the prewar era, the years 1938/39
marked a turning of the tide. At the very moment when the European crisis
reached its height, the American screen first took notice of the Axis powers and
their creeds. Blockade (1938), a Walter Wanger production, initiated this trend.
It denounced the ruthless bombing of cities during the Spanish civil war, clearly
24 6 l Post war Pu bli c s

sympathizing with the Loyalist cause which, however, was left unmentioned, as
was Franco, the villain in the piece. Hollywood soon overcame these hesitations.
The Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939), a realistic rendering of Nazi activities in the
U.S., overtly stigmatized Hitler Germany and all that it stood for. Then came
the war, and anti-Nazi films, less realistic than well-intentioned, grew rampant.
During those fateful years 1938/39, other national film industries began to
speak up also. The French released Grand Illusion (1938), which resurrected
World War I in a pacifistic spirit, and Double Crime in the Maginot Line (1939)
whose German characters were indistinct. Even though both these films shirked
any direct mention of Nazi Germany, they effectively conjured up her giant
shadow. A similar device was used by Eisenstein in his Alexander Nevsky, shown
in the U.S. in 1939. In picturing the defeat which 13th century Russia inflicted
upon the Teutonic Knights, Eisenstein—and through him Stalin—warned
Hitler not to try the old game again.
Shortly after the release of Blockade, John C. Flinn, a Variety correspondent,
emphasized Hollywood’s vital interest in its career: “Upon its success financially
revolve the plans of several of the major studios heretofore hesitant about tack-
ling stories which treat with subjects of international economic and political
controversy.”11 This expert statement sheds light on the motives that prompted
the film industry into action. Despite the protests of certain Catholic groups,
Blockade was a success financially; and though Hollywood might have felt
tempted to produce anti-Nazi films even before Blockade, it did so only after
having made fairly sure that they would be accepted on a nation-wide scale. The
appearance of Nazis on the screen was connected with the evolution of public
opinion in the United States. They appeared when, after the debacle in Spain
and Austria’s fall, the time of wavering controversy was practically over. Isola-
tionism, to be sure, persisted; but the whole country bristled with indignation
against the Nazis, and there was no longer any doubt that someday the world
would have to stop Hitler and his associates. Since this conviction also prevailed
in Britain, France, and elsewhere, Hollywood did not risk much in expressing
sentiments so universally popular.
What happened in 1939, repeats itself in 1948: after a lull of three to four
years, Russians now begin to reappear on the American screen as abruptly as did
the Germans. The parallels between The Iron Curtain of May 1948 and The Con-
fession of a Nazi Spy are striking. Like the latter film, this new one is a spy
thriller—a pictorial account of the events that led to the discovery, in 1946, of a
Russian-controlled spy ring in Canada. Both films are based on scripts by the
same author; and both are narrated in documentary fashion. Should these simi-
larities be symptomatic of analogous situations, as I believe they are, then The
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 247

Iron Curtain, with its avowed hostility toward the Soviet regime, would indicate
that American public opinion has come out of the controversial stage in favor of
a tough stand on Russia.

TREATMENT OF ENGLISH CHARACTERS

For a long time, Great Britain and the United States have been entertaining an
alliance founded upon the community of race, language, historical experience,
and political outlook. Interchange has been frequent; processes of symbiosis
have been going on. To Americans the English are an “in-group” people; they
belong, so to speak, to the family, while other peoples—”out-group” peoples—do
not. Where such intimate bonds exist, knowledge of each other seems a matter
of course. American screen images of Britons might therefore be expected to be
true likenesses.
Hollywood has tried hard to justify such expectations. Many American films
about the English are drawn from their own novels or stage plays; and the bulk
of these films are shot on location, involving genuine mansions, lawns, ‘and Lon-
don streets. In addition, there is rarely an important English part in an Ameri-
can film that is not assigned to a native Britisher.
This insistence on authenticity and local color benefits films which cover a
diversity of subjects: middle-class patriotism (Cavalcade, Mrs. Miniver); Empire
glorification (The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The Sun Never Sets, etc.); Anglo-
American relations (Ruggles of Red Gap); upper-class ideology (again Ruggles of
Red Gap, then Angel, The White Cliffs of Dover, etc.); sports (A Yank at Oxford);
social issues, such as the status of physicians (The Citadel) and of coal miners
(How Green Was My Valley), and so on. Strictly personal conflicts prevail in Of
Human Bondage and Rebecca; public school life is featured in Goodbye,
Mr. Chips (1939), a retrospective film. The wealth of themes engenders a wide
range of types. I dare say that, taken together, American films offer a more com-
plete cross-section of the English than they do of any other people. From night
club musicians to Kiplingese colonels and from workers to diplomats nearly all
strata of the population are presented on some occasion and somehow. Frequent
among these types are well-to-do gentlemen and their manservants—a couple of
figures forever illustrating the Lord-Butler relationship, which has been so
delightfully patterned in Ruggles of Red Gap. Incidentally, in any film about for-
eigners the minor characters tend to be more true to type than the protagonists,
because they are less deliberately constructed.
24 8 l Post war Pu bli c s

In short, the English are rendered substantially as befits the prominent place
they hold in American traditions. The result is a fairly inclusive image of their
national traits, an image which for all its emphasis on snobbish caste spirit per-
mits the audience to catch glimpses of British imperturbability, doggedness,
and sportsmanship. The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, which initiated a trend of
cloak-and-dagger melodramas—films playing in an India or Africa faintly rem-
iniscent of the Wild West—points up the frontier bravura of English Empire
builders and their soldiery.12 The Pied Piper in a highly amusing sequence shows
members of a London club indulging in the native penchant for understate-
ment, while German bombers noisily drop their loads.
This many-sided approach further testifies to Hollywood’s concern with the
British way of life. Small wonder that several prewar films succeeded in reflect-
ing it faithfully. A model case of objectivity is Cavalcade, the well-known screen
version of Noel Coward’s play. Before this film with its English cast went into
production, its original director filmed the whole London stage performance of
the play so as not to miss any of those minutiae upon which the impression of
genuineness depends. Such efforts paid: Cavalcade, according to a report from
London, “convinced the most skeptical Englishmen that the American film
capital can on occasion produce a much better British picture than any English
studio has yet managed to achieve.”13
At this point the problem of the ratio between the objective and the subjec-
tive factor arises. Can the latter be neglected in the case of the English? Or,
rather, does experience show that in the long run subjective influences—
influences exerted by American mass attitudes—win out over that urge for
objectivity of which Cavalcade is so impressive an instance? I wish to make it
clear from the outset that all the measures Hollywood has taken in the interest
of authenticity do not suffice to eliminate distortions. A script may be one hun-
dred per cent British and yet materialize in a film imbued with Hollywood
spirit. Nor do views of the Tower or a Tudor castle warrant accuracy; documen-
tary shots, as is proven by many propaganda films and newsreels, can be jux-
taposed in such a way that they falsify the very reality which they candidly
capture. But are not English actors a guarantee for the truthful representation
of English life? They are not, for two reasons. First, the screen appearance of any
actor results not only from his own acting, but from the various cinematic
devices used in building up his image on the screen, and because of their share in
its establishment this image may well express other meanings than those con-
veyed by the actor himself. Secondly, even though an English actor is under all
circumstances an Englishman, he may have to appear in a film so little sugges-
tive of typically English behavior and thought patterns that he finds no
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 249

opportunity of substantiating them. He will be neutralized within such con-

texts. In other words, whether or not screen portrayals of a foreign people are
convincing does not solely depend upon their being enacted by native actors.
What counts most is the whole film’s susceptibility to the characteristics of that
people.

THE SNOB

The influence of American preconceptions shows in the selection of English

character traits. Hollywood films establish a hierarchy among these traits in
which snobbishness, as I have indicated, figures foremost. Inseparable from
class-mindedness, snobbishness pervades the servant’s quarters in numerous
films, confers upon screen aristocrats an air of inimitable superiority, surrounds
as a palpable halo all those Englishmen who by provision of the plots defend
advanced colonial outposts or mingle with Americans and Frenchmen, and
makes itself felt everywhere not only in the manner of speaking but at decisive
turning-points of dialogue. It is the one British characteristic which American
movies never tire of acknowledging, ridiculing, condoning or repudiating,
according to the views expressed in them.
No doubt this trait actually exists. The English writer Margaret Cole, who
is all against snobbishness, nevertheless admits that much in her recent Harp-
er’s article: “The British have a pretty lively sense of birth and upbringing: they
like titles and honors, and they like to know people who have titles and hon-
ors . . . they are, most of them, pretty good snobs.”14 Yet this does not mean
that the English are primarily snobs. Like any other people, they have a com-
plex character structure; snobbishness therefore need not appear as their main
trait. As a matter of fact, it could easily be shown that the films of different
nations have conceived of Englishmen in quite different ways.15 Take the
German cinema: for all their surface similarities, the German and the Ameri-
can screen Britons are by no means counterparts. Such German peacetime
films as dealt with the English at all paid tribute grudgingly to their way of
life. Among the traits featured, however, correctness and decency (e.g. of
British navy officers) were more conspicuous than snobbishness—a trait
whose social implications eluded a people which had never had a society in the
Western sense. And when war came the Germans expressed their pent-up
resentments against the British Empire in films which made no bones about
the ruthlessness of the English and about their alleged hypocrisy. The latter
250 l Post war Pu bli c s

characteristic, passed off as an English cardinal vice by the Germans, is practi-

cally nonexistent in American films.
Any nation, it appears, sees other peoples in a perspective determined by its
experience of them; and, of course, its cinema features those character traits of
theirs which are an integral part of this experience. Hence the emphasis on Eng-
lish caste spirit in Hollywood films. To Americans this trait stands out among
·others because it affected them deeply under British rule. And since nations,
like individuals, tend to build on their early impressions, the mass of Americans,
among them swarms of Irish immigrants, took it for granted that the typical
Briton is essentially a caste-proud snob. They reacted to him in two opposite
ways—a further symptom of the imprint which his conduct, or, rather, their
conception of it, had left on them. On the one side, they condemned British
snobbishness for offending their sense of equality; on the other, they admired
and imitated it. American snobbery contributes much to stabilizing the English
snob on the screen; his recurrent image is both a reflection of and a protest
against native cravings for nobility, Oxford, and authentic manners. This is con-
firmed by Ruggles of Red Gap, which mingles gentle gibes at the foreign idol with
a solid satire of its Middle-West worshipers. Another case in point is Preston
Sturges’ brilliant comedy Lady Eve (1941). Even though this film does not
include any Britishers, it does show a cute American girl who reconquers her
lover by posing as Lady Eve, the daughter of an English aristocrat.
The American screen image of the English is more or less standardized. True
as this image is to reality, as a stereotype it has also a life of its own, a life inde-
pendent of that reality. The English snob, as he appears in Hollywood films, is a
figure which has in some degree drifted away from its original to join those
mythological figures that people the world of American imagination. Whether
angry at him or fond of him, Americans consider this kind of Briton one of
theirs. He “belongs”; like Huckleberry Finn or Mickey Mouse, he is part of their
universe.
This permanent preoccupation with British snobbishness is not the only sub-
jective element in Hollywood’s portrayal of the English. Other influences,
equally instrumental in its composition, arise from changes on the domestic
scene. In prewar days, when relations between the United States and Great Brit-
ain developed along traditional lines, there was no reason why these changes
should interfere with an objective rendering of Britons. Domestic mass desires
asserted themselves merely in the preference given to such film subjects as were
likely to draw American audiences at a specific moment. Cavalcade was particu-
larly well-timed. This film, with its unflinching belief in Britain’s greatness,
appeared at the depths of the Depression, a comfort to all those Americans who
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 251

despaired of the predicament they were in. Many wept when seeing the film, and
more than one reviewer declared it to be a tribute to what is best in all national
spirits. Two years later, Ruggles of Red Gap, a comedy about the molding of a
class-conscious English butler into a free American, struck that tone of self-
confidence which by then filled the air. And so it goes. It would, by the way, be
tempting to inquire into the causes of the enormous popularity which films
about British imperialism enjoyed for a stretch of years. That they had a definite
bearing on domestic issues is evident even in their casting: the elder colonels in
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer and Gunga Din fell to the charge of English actors,
while the young protagonists, heroes or cowards, were played by stars genuinely
American.

BRITISH CHARACTERS IN WARTIME

Once the war was on, national exigencies encroached on the tendency toward
objectivity. American public opinion endorsed the war effort, and Britain was
now an Ally. For these reasons Hollywood could no longer afford to approach
the English in that spirit of impartiality which is indispensable for an under-
standing of others. Rather, it was faced with the task of endearing everything
British to the American masses. The task was not simply to represent the Eng-
lish, but to make them seem acceptable even to those sections of the population
whose pro-British feelings were doubtful.
Significantly, most Hollywood films about Britain at war attempt to
weaken the existing antipathies against English snobbishness, thus reaffirm-
ing American obsession with this trait. Mrs. Miniver, representative of the
whole trend, shows wartime Britain undergo processes of democratization
tending to transform her national character. In this film, as a reviewer judi-
ciously points out, “even Lady Beldon, the aged, local autocrat, finally realizes
that her class-conscious, if gracious, civilization has been forged into the practi-
cal democracy of an entire country united against the enemy.”16 The Pied Piper
features an old English gentleman whose noble impulses increasingly get the
better of his outward standoffishness; The White Cliffs of Dover, a sentimental
retrospect which tries to enlist audience sympathies for British upper-class peo-
ple, ends with hints of their readiness to conform to more democratic standards.
It is not that such motifs had been entirely omitted in prewar films; but during
the war they grew into leitmotifs, coloring all films of the period and serving as
their very justification.
252 l Post war Pu bli c s

Produced in response to powerful domestic urges, these films, I assume,

would have misrepresented English reality even if they had been shot on loca-
tion. To what extent they actually distorted it can be inferred from the criticism
with which they were received in Britain itself. Mrs. Miniver, though recognized
as a laudable American tribute to English war heroism, was nevertheless blamed
for “its faults and frequent air of English unreality.”17 Of The White Cliffs of
Dover the London Times said that it “misses the tones and accents of the coun-
try in which the action passes.”18 And with regard to Random Harvest, another
Hollywood wartime production, a polite reviewer remarked that “Greer Garson
and Ronald Colman act away the frequent obtrusion of error in English detail
and behavior.”19

ABSENCE OF THE POST WAR BRITAIN

The war over, one might have expected Hollywood to resume its relatively
objective approach to contemporary Britons. Yet it preferred, and still prefers,
to ignore their existence. Nothing proves more conclusively the overpowering
effect of domestic influences in the field of screen entertainment. Now that the
English in some respects really live up to the image drawn up of them in all
American war films class mindedness is on the decline and snobbery less dom-
ineering—it would seem natural for Hollywood to acknowledge what it praised
only yesterday. Instead, it resolutely turns its back on Britain, for reasons at
which I have made a guess in earlier contexts. During the war, folks at home
took delight in a Lady Beldon who proved herself a convinced democrat; at
present, the peculiar flavor of English democracy so little pleases many Ameri-
cans that the Lady Beldons are being held incommunicado until further notice.
The meaning of this temporary blackout—all the more striking in view of
the influx into America of English films about postwar life in Britain—is
enhanced by those Hollywood productions which introduce British characters
of the past. They not only reestablish the stereotype of the English snob
(Cluny Brown), but draw on other familiar prewar patterns as well. All of
them could have been made before 1941. In thus combining disregard of the
present with uninhibited rendering of the past, Hollywood follows a rule of
conduct which it has already practiced before. Nor is this treatment of foreign
peoples unknown to other national film industries: at a time when the German
pre-Hitler cinema was completely oblivious of Soviet Russia, it elaborated pro-
fusely on the blessings of the Czarist regime. I have reason to believe that in all
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 253

such cases the emergence of films about the past of a people betrays discontent
with its present state of affairs. What makes these films into vehicles of indirect
criticism is the fact of their appearance at a moment when any direct mention of
that people is strictly avoided. They manifest apprehensions not so much
through their content as their sheer existence. Only occasionally do they come
into the open, picturing past events for the thinly veiled purpose of dealing with
present ones. In Alexander Nevsky the eyes that gleam through the visors of the
Teutonic Knights are unmistakably the eyes of contemporary Nazis.
In sum, the objective factor in American screen images of the English is
extremely vulnerable. Much as the age-old intimacy of Anglo-American relations
favors its growth, the impact of subjective influences invariably tends to stunt it.
Domestic needs and mass desires have on more than one occasion caused Holly-
wood to portray the English inadequately or not to portray them at all, which
amounts to the same thing. There is no progress of knowledge noticeable as these
portrayals succeed each other-in fact, Cavalcade, released as early as 1933, has prob-
ably never been surpassed in objectivity. Everything, it appears, hinges on market
necessities which may or may not permit Hollywood to reflect the English closely.

RUSSIAN CHARACTERS

In their America in Midpassage the Beards mention the success of the first Rus-
sian Five-Year Plan among those foreign events which augmented American
anxieties in the spring of 1933· “Still Russia was far off,” they remark before turn-
ing to the more stirring repercussions of Hitler’s rise to power, “and could be
discounted as a bit oriental in its ways and values.”20
To Americans the Russians are an “out-group” people indeed. There is a pro-
nounced lack of traditions common to both countries, and there has never been
an intermingling of their nationals as in the case of the English. The chasm sepa-
rating the two countries is deepened by the antagonism between their
regimes—an antagonism so laden with dynamite that it predetermines all pop-
ular notions Americans and Russians hold of each other. Unsustained by experi-
ence and inevitably biased, these notions are outright clichés. The average Amer-
ican has incorporated the figure of the “mad Russian” into the collection of his
pet stereotypes; he knows that Russians are fond of music, ballet, and vodka.
And, of course, innumerable editorials and the like have impressed upon him
fixed concepts of Bolshevism as something with collective farms, secret police,
and purges. Most of it is sheer hearsay, however true.
254 l Post war Pu bli c s

Hollywood, always inclined to capitalize on existing clichés, is not in the best

of positions to breathe life into them. For obvious reasons American films about
Russia are studio-made; and because of the scarcity of Russian actors in this
country their native characters are as a rule assigned to Hollywood stars or to
German actors who seem to have a knack for portraying Russians. In The Last
Command (1928) Emil Jannings was a very convincing Czarist general. I have
pointed out that even films with English actors in the cast may misrepresent the
English; conversely, actors in the roles of foreigners need not under all circum-
stances miss the essentials. Nevertheless, it remains true that the reliance on out-
side portrayals in imitation settings thwarts rather than facilitates an objective
rendering of other peoples.
Such scattered Hollywood films about contemporary Russia as did appear
between 1927 and 1934 frowned upon the Soviet Union with an air of grave con-
cern. Most of them were laid in, or referred to, the early days of the Russian Revo-
lution when everything was still fluid. Even though they did not pass over the
disastrous abuses of Czarist rule—how could they?—yet they managed to make
you feel gloomy about the victory of a cause so obviously barbarian. I am think-
ing of Mockery (1927), The Tempest (1928), The Last Command, and British Agent
(1934). Except for Sternberg’s Last Command, each of these films culminated in a
romance between a Russian Red and his, or her, class enemy, which drove home
the humanly destructive effects of Bolshevist class hatred. Forgotten Command-
ment (1932), “a sermon on the evils of Soviet Land,”21 accused Russia of having
forsaken Christianity. Of these productions only the Sternberg film and perhaps
British Agent had some merits. The Beards are right: “Russia was far off . . .”
She did not come nearer after her recognition by President Roosevelt late in
1933. Yet American attitudes changed. After a period of silence filled in by sev-
eral films which involved Catherine the Great, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and
Dostoievsky’s Crime and Punishment (like the current films about the English
past these may have conveyed polite discontent with the stubborn survival of
Russian Communism), this change showed in Hollywood’s transition from seri-
ous criticism to critical comedy. Tovarich, I believe, was the first film to endorse
the fact of political recognition by substituting light skirmishes for heavy
attacks. Hostilities continued, but they adjusted themselves to the improved
relations with the Soviet Union which after all was here to stay. Lubitsch’s
Ninotchka, with Garbo in the title role, also marked a precarious rapproche-
ment. This amusing piece of raillery which showed Marxist-trained Russians
succumbing to the frivolous attractions of the West, viewed Soviet life with the
condescension of an adult who watches fledgelings romp. It was a sort of
shoulder-patting; why not finally grow up, the film seemed to ask. Its success
bred other films in this vein: He Stayed for Breakfast, “a gay spoof of the
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 255

Communistic camaraderie that flourished in Paris before the war,”22 and Com-
rade X which, laid in Moscow, equally jeered at the conversion of a rabid Com-
munist. Released in 1940, both films not only lacked Lubitsch’s finesse, but
struck a tone of poignant aggressiveness absent in his Ninotchka. Of Comrade X,
Bosley Crowther says: “. . . seldom has a film . . . satirized a nation and its politi-
cal system with such grim and malicious delight as does this . . . comedy.”23

THE WARTIME RUSSIAN

The English characters in American war films about Britain still resembled their
predecessors of a few years before, but no such resemblances connected the
intrepid Russian woman fighter glorified by Hollywood between 1942 and 1944
with the yielding Ninotchka so popular shortly before. This was not simply a
shift of emphasis as in the case of the English, but a radical change of scene, with
Stalin becoming Uncle Joe and collective farming a source of happiness. I
scarcely need elaborate on characters and situations in Mission to Moscow, The
North Star, and so on. All these films sprang from the overwhelming desire, on
the part of the home front, to keep Russia in the war. The surprising thing is
their unconcern for continuity: they idolized what had been condemned in
times of peace, or winked at it unashamedly. It was a complete turnabout.
In thus wooing Russia for reasons of domestic self-interest, Hollywood
ignored its otherwise guiding rule of leaving controversial issues untouched.
Opposition against the Soviet regime was too stable a factor of American public
opinion to be eliminated by the necessities of the war. Subdued as it was, it con-
tinued to smolder. This accounts for the criticism which in particular Mission to
Moscow with its indulgent references to the Moscow trials met from diverse
quarters. And about The North Star, which in its opening scenes extolled the
insouciant life of Russian villagers before 1941, the Daily News wrote that this
film is more Communistic “than the Russians themselves who have never pre-
tended that prewar Russia was a musical-comedy paradise.”24

. . . AND THE RUSSIAN OF TODAY

Now that the spell of amnesia from which Hollywood suffered in the postwar
years is over, we are witnessing another turnabout. Gone are the brave Russian
women fighters, the happy villagers, and the democratic allures of the rulers. In
256 l Post war Pu bli c s

their places, somber bureaucrats, counterparts of the Nazis, spread an atmo-

sphere of oppression. This at least is the way The Iron Curtain pictures Soviet
officials—they appear as ruthless totalitarians obeyed by devout slaves. And the
only “good” Russian is a man who so firmly believes in the superior value of
Western civilization that he deserts Communism and betrays his country. Simi-
lar types were also advertised in American prewar comedies; but unlike
Ninotchka, The Iron Curtain avoids any satirical overtones that might weaken
the impact of its accusations. Other current films draw no less determinedly on
the anti-Communist sentiments of American audiences. In The Fugitive (late
1947)—a deliberately fantastic film with exotic settings—humble priests are
wantonly persecuted by all-powerful authorities which everybody is free to
identify as Communists. The Russian black-market racketeer in To the Victor
(April 1948) is no endearing figure either. And we may soon see some more
anti-Soviet films; two or three have already been scheduled for production.
This general insistence on toughness, however, seems to be slightly mitigated by
the fearful prospect of another war: Berlin Express and A Foreign Affair
(June 1948) both laid in Germany, indulge in a relatively amiable approach to
their Russian characters, thus intimating that we should not give up hope for an
understanding after all.

DOMINANCE OF THE SUBJECTIVE FACTOR

All this illustrates Hollywood’s unconcern for Russian reality. Unlike the English
characters in Hollywood films which at least give one a taste, however faint, of
genuine life, American screen portrayals of Russians conform to what Americans
imagine far-away Russians to be like. Even Russian-born actors are strangely col-
orless in plots based upon such subjective concepts; and, of course, Garbo in
Ninotchka always remains Garbo in the guise of Ninotchka. The objective factor
in these portrayals is negligible—they are not experienced, but constructed.
Hence their remoteness from the originals they pretend to portray. Commenting
on The North Star, Archer Winsten, one of the most observant New York film
critics, states that its characters are “single-plane cutouts rather than those deeply
modelled characterizations of the best Russian films . . .”25 He might have added
that the many Russian films shown in the United States have not in the slightest
degree stimulated Hollywood to relinquish its home-bred notions of Russia.
These notions are of a political nature. All Hollywood films about Russia
raise topical issues, and many of them, I presume, would have never been pro-
duced were it not for the purpose of externalizing American attitudes toward
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 257

the Soviet regime. This explains why the characters in them are so poorly instru-
mented. As compared with English screen figures, Hollywood-made Russians
are sheer abstractions. Instead of being introduced for their own sake as are the
English in many cases, they merely serve to personify pros and cons in the ever-
fluctuating debate on Russian Communism. It is as if they were drawn from
editorials. They resemble marionettes, and you cannot help seeing the strings by
which they are pulled.
And finally, these marionettes lack the relative stability of English characters.
The English snob has survived the war, while Ninotchka was popular only for a
transient moment. Her ephemeral vogue is symptomatic of the frequent, occa-
sionally hectic changes which Russian characters undergo in American films.
They succeed each other with a disregard for psychological consistency which
again testifies to their function of conveying domestic views of Russia. In 1941,
when these views changed so abruptly that films in keeping with the latest devel-
opments were not yet available, Hollywood tried to adjust an existing film to the
new situation. Under the, heading: “Whitewashing Reds,” Variety, of Octo-
ber 22, 1941, published the following notice: “Reflecting the changed public
opinion in this country towards Russia, Metro has added an explanatory fore-
word on the film Comrade X to make clear that any spoofing of Russians in the
picture was entirely intended as good clean fun.” Metro simply was loath to
shelve Comrade X, a film released only a few months before Hitler’s invasion of
Russia; yet this grim satire of Soviet life could not be kept in circulation unless it
was made to appear as a meek banter among friends.
Russian characters in American films are projections rather than portraits.
Chimerical figures, they unhesitatingly change with the political exigencies of
the moment. Russia is far off.

CONCLUSIONS

The film industries of other democracies, I assume, behave in much the same
way as Hollywood. Fiction films are mass entertainment everywhere, and what
information they include is more or less a by-product. Any national cinema
yields to the impact of subjective influences in portraying foreigners; these por-
trayals, that is, are strongly determined by such audience desires and political
exigencies as currently prevail on the domestic scene. There are different degrees
of subjectivity, though: peoples intimately connected by common experiences
can be expected to form more objective screen images of each other than they do
of peoples with whom they have little or nothing in common.
258 l Post war Publi c s

In other words, images of “in-group” peoples surpass those of “out-group”

peoples in reliability. But even they are halfway reliable only as long as public
opinion in the country of their origin does not interfere with their relatively
unbiased approach. And under the pressure of alienating developments this may
happen at any moment, as is instanced by Hollywood’s conspicuous neglect of
postwar Britons. On the whole, screen portrayals of foreigners are rarely true
likenesses; more often than not they grow out of the urge for self-assertion rather
than the thirst for knowledge, so that the resultant images reflect not so much
the mentality of the other people as the state of mind of their own. International
understanding is in its infancy.
Or, rather, does it begin to show signs of growing up? I have not yet men-
tioned a new international film trend which seems to justify Mr. Johnston’s con-
tention quoted above that the motion picture is on the point of becoming “an
instrument for the promotion of knowledge and understanding among peoples.”
This trend, a spontaneous reaction to the effects of the war, originates in Europe.
Representative of it are the somewhat sentimental Swiss pictures Marie Louise
and The Last Chance, and the two Rossellini films, Open City and Paisan—
wartime and postwar semi-documentaries much acclaimed by American audi-
ences. In a similar vein is The Search (1948), a Metro-sponsored film about Euro-
pean war orphans which has been made by the producer of The Last Chance and
his associates in collaboration with a Hollywood director. Hollywood seems to
be interested in this genre.
It is by no means a new genre. D. W. Griffith, great innovator as he was,
developed some of its inherent potentialities, and his ideas were followed up by
Eisenstein and Pudovkin in their classic screen epics—masterful blends of
reportage and fiction, matter-of-fact statements and emotional appeals. What
is new in the most recent semi-documentaries is their content: a changed out-
look on the world which, of course, entails changes of cinematic approach. All
these films denounce Fascist lust for power and race hatred; and whatever they
picture—Nazis torturing their enemies, scenes of heroic resistance, abandoned
children, indescribable misery in bombed-out cities—is rendered with pro-
found compassion for the tortured, the killed, the despondent. They are films
with a message. They not only record the frightful encounters of persecutors
and victims, masters and slaves, but glorify the bonds of love and sympathy that
even now amidst lies, ruins, and horrors connect people of different nations.
Their goal is mutual understanding between the peoples of the world.
I do not know a single prewar film which is so deliberately international as is
any of these semi-documentaries. All of them reflect, in loosely knit episodes,
the vicissitudes of the war, featuring chance meetings between soldiers and
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 259

civilians of diverse countries. German refugees join company with a British offi-
cer; an American G.I. makes love to an Italian girl; undernourished French chil-
dren regain health in Switzerland. And most of these figures are fashioned with
a minimum of subjectivity on the part of the film makers. Instead of serving as
outlets for domestic needs, they seem to be elicited from reality for no purpose
other than that of mirroring it. They tend to increase our knowledge of other
nations out of an overwhelming nostalgia for international cooperation.

CAN HOLLYWOOD AFFORD THE INTERNATIONAL TREND?

The whole trend, provided it is one, proves that screen portrayals of foreigners
need not under all circumstances degenerate into stereotypes and projections.
At this point the problem arises of what can be done to improve these images. It
is a vital problem in view of the influence which entertainment films exert on
the masses. There is no doubt that the screen images of other people help weaken
or strengthen popular interest in mutual understanding.
This does not contradict the fact, emphasized throughout my study, that
entertainment films on their part are strongly influenced by actually prevailing
mass desires, latent tendencies of public opinion. Such desires and tendencies are
more or less inarticulate, and do not materialize unless they are forced out of
their pupa state; they must be identified and formulated to come into their own.
Film industries everywhere, as I have mentioned earlier, are therefore faced with
the task of divining audience expectations at any particular moment. Some-
times they miss their opportunities. The response which the Swiss and Italian
semi-documentaries have found in the United States, for thematic rather than
for aesthetic reasons, reveals a disposition in their favor on the part of Ameri-
can audiences which Hollywood has hitherto failed to recognize. On the other
hand, Hollywood films occasionally react to well-nigh intangible emotional
and social constellations with such a promptness that they seem to create desires
out of nothing, especially in the dimension of taste. Characteristically, the trade
has coined the term “sleeper” for films which are believed to be flops and, once
released, prove themselves as hits. Film making involves constant experimenting—
and many surprises.
What matters most in this context, then, is the essential ambiguity of mass
dispositions. Because of their vagueness they usually admit of diverse interpreta-
tions. People are quick to reject things that they do not agree with, while they
feel much less sure about the true objects of their leanings and longings. There is,
26 0 l Post war Publi c s

accordingly, a margin left for film producers who aim at satisfying existing mass
desires. Pent-up escapist needs, for instance, may be relieved in many different
ways. Hence the permanent interaction between mass dispositions and film con-
tent. Each popular film conforms to certain popular wants; yet in conforming
to them it inevitably does away with their inherent ambiguity. Any such film
evolves these wants in a specific direction, confronts them with one among sev-
eral possible meanings. Through their very definiteness films thus determine the
nature of the inarticulate from which they emerge.
Once again, how can screen images of other peoples be improved? Since film
producers, for all their dependence on current main trends of opinion and senti-
ment, retain some freedom of action, it may well be that they will find a more
objective approach to foreign characters to be in their own interest. Hollywood
is presently undergoing a crisis which challenges producers to probe into the
minds of weary moviegoers, and documentary techniques, much-favored in
Hollywood since Boomerang, lend themselves perfectly to objective portrayals.
And has not The Search been a success? There is no reason why Hollywood
should not explore this success and try its hand at films, semi-documentaries or
not, which in however indirect a manner serve the cause of one world. U.S. audi-
ences may even welcome a comprehensive rendering of Russian problems, or of
life in Labor-governed Britain.
Or, of course, they may not. And Hollywood (any national film industry, for
that matter) has some reason to believe that in the long run it knows best what
spectators look out for in the movie houses. I doubt whether it will follow sug-
gestions inconsistent with its estimate of audience reactions. Therefore, a cam-
paign for better screen portrayals of foreigners—portrayals which are portraits
rather than projections carries weight only if the motion picture industry is made
to realize that the broad masses care about such portrayals. This accounts for the
primary importance of mass education. Unless organizations such as UNESCO
can stir up a mass desire for international understanding, prospects for the coop-
eration of film producers are slim. The Last Chance and Paisan come from coun-
tries where this desire was overwhelmingly strong. Can it be spread and sus-
tained? Films help change mass attitudes on condition that these attitudes have
already begun to change.

Notes

1. Films of fact—documentaries and newsreels—will not be considered here, even

though they frequently picture foreigners and events abroad. To exclude them is
 Nat i o na l T y p es a s H o llywo o d P r es en ts T h e m m 261

not to belittle their significance as a means of conveying information, but is simply

an acknowledgment of the fact that all but disappear in the mass of fiction films.
Except perhaps for transitory wartime vogue, films of fact still belong among side-
shows, at least in the U.S.
2. Professor Robert H. Ball, of Queens College, is presently preparing a survey of
innumerable American and European screen versions of Shakespearean plays. In it
he plans to comment on national differences between these versions as well as on
changes have undergone in each country with the passing of time.
3. You and the Russians: A Series of Five Programs Presented on the Columbia Broad-
casting System, a pamphlet issued by CBS. The programs were broadcast in
November 1947.
4. Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German
Film (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947), 206.
5. Leonard W. Doob, Public Opinion and Propaganda (New York: Henry Holt, 1948),
507.
6. For the whole argument, see Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler, 5–6.
7. Jack L. Warner, “What Hollywood Isn’t,” publicity sheet issued by Hollywood Citi-
zen News and Advertiser, 1946.
8. Motion Picture Letter (issued by the Public Information Committee of the Motion
Picture Industry) 5, no. 6 (June 1946).
9. See Kracauer, “Those Movies with a Message,” Harper’s Magazine, June 1948,
567–72.
10. More immediate reasons for Hollywood’s conduct may be found in the “cold war”
between the American and British film industries and also in the gloomy aspect of
life in Britain, hardly attractive to a screen infatuated with glamor. But what weight
these reasons carry accrues to them from the atmospheric pressures on the political
scene.
11. John C. Flinn, “Film Industry Watching ‘Blockade’ as B.O. Cue on Provocative
Themes,” Variety, June 22, 1938.
12. Other films in this vein: The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Gunga Din (1939),
The Sun Never Sets, etc.
13. Ernest Marshall, “Featured Players and Costly Set . . .,” New York Times, April 9,
1933 (quoted from a clipping which does not include the rest of the title).
14. Margaret Cole, “How Democratic Is Britain?,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1948, 106.
15. It even seems that the images which one and the same nation forms of a foreign
people in different media of mass communication are far from concurring with
each other. In American radio comedies, as Mr. Oscar Katz of Columbia Broad-
casting System has informed me, the English are typecast as dull-witted fellows
unable to understand a joke.
16. “Mrs. Miniver’s War,” Newsweek, June 15, 1942.
17. Evelyn Russel, “The Quarter’s Films,” Sight and Sound 2, no. 43 (Winter 1942): 69.
18. Lewis Gannett, “British Critics’ Storm Lashes White Cliffs,” New York Herald Tri-
bune, August 20, 1944.
19. Evelyn Russel, “The Quarter’s Films,’’ Sight and Sound 12, no. 45 (Summer
1943): 17.
262 l Post war Pu bli c s

20. Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard, America in Midpassage, Vol. 3: The Rise of
American Civilization (New York: Macmillan, 1941), 201.
21. “It Isn’t the Screen; It’s the Story,” New York World Telegram, June 4, 1932.
22. Quoted from Kate Cameron’s review of this film in the New York Daily News,
August 3, 1940.
23. Quoted from Bosley Crowther’s review of this film in the New York Times, Decem-
ber 26, 1940.
24. Quoted from Kate Cameron’s review of this film in the New York Daily News,
November 5, 1943.
25. Quoted from Archer Winsten’s review of this film in the New York Post, Novem-
ber 5, 1943.
 14
Deluge of Pictures

January 31, 1950

From Cave Painting to Comic Strip, by Lancelot Hogben (Chanticleer Press,

New York, $5), is a peculiar book in this respect: Its 230 absorbing illustrations
and their captions present a pleasant and temporary barrier between the reader
and Mr. Hogben’s text. Man is the only animal that makes pictures, says
Mr. Hogben; his thought and progress would be impossible without pictures:
numerals—pictures which permit mathematics; and the alphabet—pictures
which permit writing. Man communicates through the visual. The author
would be the first to understand our turning first to the pictures in his own
book.
In deep caves in France and Spain, images of the bison and the reindeer are
still visible on the walls; twenty thousand years ago, man painted them as an
incantation to secure the real presence of these animals when he set forth to
hunt. Later, man sought to give himself an identity through association with the
stars in the heavens, and, here, in pictures of Mesopotamian seals, are the first
Signs of the Zodiac. Man worried about the seasons, felt a need to measure time.
The Pyramids of Gizeh in their east-west alignments permitted the Egyptians to
observe the equinoxes; the stone avenue at Down Tor, Devon enabled the
observer to note the interval (a solar year) between two occasions when the sun
rises at exactly the same point on the horizon; in Peru a sun-tower was hewn
from a single rock. All these are pictured in Mr. Hogben’s pages.
The illustrations show the growth of mathematics—first the abacus, then
the notation of numerals; the growth of the written word—first signs, then the
alphabet. The images came first, then the means of reproducing them, and
264 l Post war Pu bli c s

finally the great presses turning in our cities. Here, too, are the painters discov-
ering perspective in response to the scientific unrest of Europe’s fifteenth cen-
tury. Finally come comic strips. Mr. Hogben takes them too seriously.
The story Mr. Hogben tells, when we leave the pictures for his text, is one of
tragic setbacks, uneventful intervals, and gigantic conquests rendered possi-
ble by the contributions of peoples long since forgotten or sunk into apathy.
He follows closely the developments which led from prehistoric cave paint-
ings, primitive seals, and calendars, to the invention of the printing press and
photography.
Now pictures surround and besiege us. Through television, they silence our
thoughts in that last and now insecure refugee of introspection, the bar; we can-
not pick up a printed piece of paper without being faced with an image. We are
flooded with sights and spectacles—not with the originals, not with the sights
and spectacles of nature, but with an intemperate outpouring of reproductions.
Nature provides man with one spectacle at a time to which both intelligence
and heart can respond; but man now provides himself with a mechanical, kalei-
doscopic flurry of endlessly succeeding images. Instead of seeing clearly, he is
almost blinded.
Mr. Hogben wants us to inaugurate some system of control. What advertis-
ing men call “mass media” are available for the first time in history; Mr. Hogben
thinks that they might possibly be used with some intelligence, and that if they
are not so used our civilization will follow others that have vanished.
Mr. Hogben is not an impassive historian. He is a fervent champion of fed-
eral world government, and very combative about it; he urges us to use the tech-
niques of mass communications to bring such a government into being. Pictures,
historically, came before words; in our present plight, Mr. Hogben thinks we
must depend primarily on the use of pictures. Unless we succeed in establishing
such a pictorial Esperanto, he gloomily contends, western civilization will fall
back into barbarism. That is the fate that befalls people who fail to put the
means of their communication to good use.
It is here that American mass culture comes into focus. Is it to be used to
“coca-colonize” the world? Is it to induce everywhere a gibbering pleasure at the
sight of ever-repeated photographs of dancing legs? Mr. Hogben indicts it for
wasting invaluable energies on sheer entertainment. “If it is a platitude that
America has given the world an object lesson in the popularity of the pictorial
medium, it is also a truism to say that America has not as yet contributed to our
common civilization any outstanding vindication of its potential value.” His
attacks against the American output in general culminate in a criticism of our
comic strips. This excrescence on the body of American civilization delights
 D elu ge o f P i c t u r es m 265

millions of children and adults. Yet Americans have not waited for Mr. Hogben
to worry about it and argue whether or not it leads to crime or simply illiteracy,
and whether it can be used to teach the Bible and world literature. Mr. Hogben
wants to capitalize on the entertainment value of comic strips (to this reviewer
highly overrated) in order to promote educational ends.
This emphasis on the comics results from the book’s thesis, which, rather
arbitrarily, links all of man’s progress to the history of the means, the action and
interaction, through which he communicates his thought. Overemphasizing the
role played by the comics, Mr. Hogben stops too soon. Of this trough in which
we flounder there is more to be said. Contrary to what Mr. Hogben and others
want us to believe, comic strips are at best, or at worst, a minor evil easily recog-
nizable as such. The real danger lies in the uninterrupted use made of pictures
for their own sake. Pictorialization has become a wanton habit. We show pic-
tures to fill space. Many of them are not even particularly entertaining; all of
them seem essentially stopgaps; they either remain unnoticed, like passers-by in
a crowd, or the reactions they arouse are highly confused.
If looked at intently almost any picture will yield valuable information. But it
is as if our picture-makers did not wish us to look at any picture long enough or
with a concentration sufficient for us to pierce its meaning. They present their
material in a manner which effectively forestalls our attempts to grasp its signifi-
cance. When they put captions to their pictures, they tell us what to see in the
pictures; they do not permit, far less encourage, us to look for ourselves. “This girl
is smiling because she has a new automobile or a washing machine, or because she
is brace and life must march on,” the caption says but the girl is smiling because
she has been paid to smile or because the mask of pain is very close to the mask of
laughter. But when we look at her, we obey the editorial injunctions.
Our newsreels, documentaries, and feature films are overcrowded with verbal
statements. The spectator is in a dilemma. If he wants to watch the picture, there
are voices that intrude; if he listens to the voices, then it is the story told, rather
than the story seen that dominates his imagination. Generally, the spectator suc-
cumbs to the insistence of the voice.
As a result, we are submerged by pictures and at the same time prevented
from really perceiving them. The pictures become a veil between us and the vis-
ible world, dulling the edge of our intellect, stifling our imagination. We are so
exposed to them that they blind us to the phenomena they render. Paradoxically,
the more pictures we see, the less we are able or willing to practice the art of see-
ing. We no longer respond; our perceptive faculties threaten to decline. The
incessant flow of visual material from the assembly belt has the soporific effect
of a drug, adding to the drowsiness which our kind mass culture tends to spread.
266 l Post war Pu bli c s

Mr. Hogben loves pictures, believes in pictures, wants us to have even more
pictures than there now are. But he wants them to be the right kind of pictures—
world-federation pictures. He seems to maintain, in the final chapter of this oth-
erwise stimulating and fascinating book, that world-wide visual education will
not only promote international understanding, but also largely reduce the pres-
ent waste of pictures and thus benefit the pictorial medium itself. This is improb-
able, for the simple reason that pictures serve many other purposes than those
considered by Mr. Hogben. How can we assume that by using them deliberately
as elements of a pictorial Esperanto we may succeed in channeling their over-
powering flow? Whatever one feels about the desirability of either world federa-
tion or such an Esperanto, Mr. Hogben’s plan cannot possibly be expected to
become the organizing principle of pictorialization. Mr. Hogben’s program
resembles a publicity man’s dream; he is so completely possessed by it that he
overestimates its beneficent effect on picture-making in general, as well as its
educational possibilities.
Mr. Hogben is a plain rationalist. It is significant that he believes we dissipate
our strength by learning foreign languages and remaining faithful to the irratio-
nal spelling we have inherited. His dream of a uniform world culture omits the
best that culture has to offer: depth.
 Part 4
Cold War Tensions
(1952–1958)
INTRODUCTION

In this section we bring together some key writings stemming principally from
Kracauer’s ongoing work with American governmental agencies and other
organizations in the 1950s, in particular the Bureau of Applied Research at
Columbia University, where Kracauer became a part-time research advisor in
1951. These diverse texts exemplify Kracauer’s approach to the analysis of inter-
national political communication with respect to three particular and pressing
issues: 1), the critical analysis and evaluation of Communist propaganda in
terms of its proliferation and efficacy both within the Soviet bloc itself and along
its margins; 2), a consideration of the prospects and possibilities of the “demo-
cratic” propaganda promulgated by America and the West in response; and 3),
the search for appropriate and optimal methods for the empirical investigation
and qualitative analysis of mass media images and texts.
Kracauer’s own attitude to these studies in political communications is cer-
tainly complex and equivocal. On the one hand, they clearly exhibit a degree of
continuity with the earlier writings from the 1940s addressed in the previous
section and thus may be considered as an extension of his genuine and abiding
preoccupation with the critique of authoritarian regimes. On the other hand,
as Kracauer himself makes clear on a number of occasions in his correspon-
dence, he considered these studies a mere Brotarbeit—that is to say, as driven by
monetary rather than intellectual interests, and, accordingly, experienced as
irritations and distractions impeding progress on his real critical focus, the book
26 8 l Cold War T en si ons

of film aesthetics that would appear in 1960 under the title Theory of Film. How-
ever much Kracauer perceived them as compromised, in our view these texts
nonetheless provided him with an opportunity to develop certain critical ideas
in English. For us, there is a great deal going on between the lines of these texts,
and the critical reader should resist simple, superficial understandings of their
contents. There is much of theoretical interest below the surface.

From 1950 onward, Leo Löwenthal and Paul Lazarsfeld played a decisive role in
the development of Kracauer’s communication research. In 1950, Löwenthal,
then-director of the Evaluation Staff of the International Broadcasting Service
(Voice of America) at the U.S. Department of State, offered Kracauer a post as
research analyst. On November 2, 1951, Lazarsfeld wrote to Löwenthal, asking
him “to form and chair a sub-committee on communications research in the
international field.” As a guest editor and chairman of the Committee on
International Communications Research of the American Association for
Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), Löwenthal invited Kracauer to contrib-
ute to the special issue of International Communication Research for Public
Opinion Quarterly, the issue that included the seminal essays of Lazarsfeld and
Harold Lasswell in the field of political communication. In 1951, Kracauer was
appointed as a part-time research advisor of the Bureau of Applied Social
Research (BASR) at Columbia University (founded by Paul Lazarsfeld in
1944). Throughout the 1950s, Kracauer tried to develop empirical studies of
international communications and propaganda and to organize related research
programs, characterizing his role with a certain degree of irony, if not cynicism,
as a “roving consultant.”
At this point, it is worth recalling how Lazarsfeld earlier ended his collegial
relationship with Adorno, to help us understand the direction of Kracauer’s
study of communication research in an attempt to develop a critical theory of
political communication. In a response to an article by Horkheimer, “Tradi-
tional and Critical Theory” (1937), Lazarsfeld wrote “Remarks on Administra-
tive and Critical Communication Research” in the journal of the Institute for
Social Research in Frankfurt, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science in 1941.
Here, Lazarsfeld strongly recommended that Critical Theory be included in
American communication studies along with his own style of research, which
he termed “administrative communication research.” The term refers to the way
he envisaged the relationship between empirical research in the service of gov-
ernment and mass media institutions and his effort to “build a pluralist bridge
 Cold War T en si o ns m 269

to critical scholarship.” In a move to inject critical thinking into empirical

research, Lazarsfeld invited Adorno to join the Princeton Radio Research Proj-
ect, but, as widely known, their collaboration ended in failure.1 In 1951, Lazars-
feld invited Kracauer to the bureau, based on a similar motivation but with
tempered enthusiasm, which is understandable given his bitter experience with
the members of the Institute.
In this section, we include two exemplary instances of Kracauer’s work for
the BASR, in each case summarizing more extensive research programs. The
first of these is a document from May 1952 marked “restricted” for the Interna-
tional Information Administration’s (IIA) program in the Near and Middle
East, entitled “Appeals to the Near and Middle East: Implications of the Com-
munications Studies Along the Soviet Periphery.” This text summarizes a series
of earlier documents and reports that collectively explored various dimensions
and specific national and regional case studies of then-contemporary propa-
ganda practices and possibilities with particular reference to Voice of America
radio. The second, “Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types in Hungary,
Poland, and Czechoslovakia,” is an overview written in 1955 of a substantial
empirical study entitled Satellite Mentality, coauthored by Kracauer with the
psychologist Paul L. Berkman, which explores the perceptions of recent refugees
from Eastern Europe, as contained in transcripts documenting some three hun-
dred interviews conducted in 1951–1952 with exiles from Hungary, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia. In investigating the attitudes of non-Communists to their
country’s political regimes and social and economic systems, Kracauer and Berk-
man draw attention to the way Communist propaganda quickly dissipated once
the promises of the party failed to materialize and the quality of the daily life
became ever more impoverished. Importantly, the authors highlight the nuanced
and highly differentiated set of categorization and attitudes held by refugees
toward Communist Party members, depending upon reasons for affiliation,
ideological enthusiasm, and life situations. Far from decrying party members as
mere fanatics or functionaries, the interviewees demonstrate a sympathetic
appreciation of varied motives and exigencies at work in these Soviet-dominated
societies. Kracauer and Berkman also explore how the broadcasts of Radio Free
Europe helped shape the perspectives of non-Communists toward their com-
patriots, and toward the Soviet Union, Western Europe, and the United States.
Because these perspectives were frequently unrealistic and even utopian in
character, they could become a potential source for future disenchantment; for
example, when in due course these refugees came to discover that Western capi-
talism was not a workers’ paradise of economic bounty, unrestrained liberty, and
unalloyed justice for all.
270 l Cold War T en si ons

At first sight, these two reports suggest that Kracauer was now extending his
wartime work to interrogating forms of totalitarianism and the possibilities of
individual and collective resistance, and gearing his labors explicitly to the U.S.
Cold War effort. It is legitimate to ask whether in doing so Kracauer, as a
recently inducted U.S. citizen, rather uncritically embraces its ideologies and
values. And so one reads, for example, in the 1952 summary, sentences such as
following: “Contrary to what they [Arab populations] believe, America does
not sustain the status quo but is actually the driving power behind an effort to
improve conditions and illiteracy”; and “Israel stands a fair chance of developing
into a ferment for social and economic progress in the Middle East.” One is left
to wonder if these comments genuinely express Kracauer’s own views. There are
other possibilities, of course. He may well be writing with a degree of a bad faith
for the purposes of appeasing the bureaucrats and functionaries in the state
department for whose attention they were intended. Restricted documents do
not have to be, indeed should not be considered as, the proper vehicle for the
presentation of personal, idiosyncratic views and values. Kracauer would cer-
tainly not welcome their circulation among his Critical Theory colleagues at the
Institute. There is another possibility: that Kracauer is being ironic, or that in
eulogizing the United States he is in some way contrasting its lofty self-
perceptions with the far less rosy reality of 1950s American political and eco-
nomic life. Utopian categories and conceptions become a form of critique of
existing conditions. Kracauer himself suggests the manifold meanings of words
and phrases in the course of his methodological writings, so the reader of Kra-
cauer’s texts would be well advised not to assume that Kracauer is merely endors-
ing American values and ways of life in any simplistic manner.
It is clear from these two reports that Kracauer did have some insights into
incipient political issues that have remained with us in an intensified and exac-
erbated form right up to today. These include the problem of Palestine as the
determining factor of contemporary American and Arab relations, as well as
acute anxieties over American expansionism and imperialism. They also
include critiques not only of American political, economic, and social hege-
mony, but also of American culture. Its superficiality, sexualization, triviality,
banality, and vulgarity as a way of life appeared as anathema to those who
sought to preserve other forms of culture conceived as authenticity, historical
tradition, and profound faith. Kracauer is not unaware of the ironies and con-
tradictions here. While America is frequently lauded as a land of equality and
opportunity, and an enviable standard of material comfort, as the very epitome
of progressive, tolerant, and liberal modern society, it is also castigated for its
 Cold War T en si o ns m 271

shallowness and vacuity. Then as now, it seems that the world loves and loathes
American cultural products in equal measure, something many Americans
themselves still struggle to understand.
The use of what today would be deemed Orientalist language, in terms of
both particular tropes and overall tone, should on no account go unmentioned.
It deserves particular comment, not to excuse it by some complacent appeal to
historical context but rather because Kracauer himself, always so attentive to the
use of language, was perhaps not wholly unaware of it. In the lengthy 1954 paper
“The Social Research Center on the Campus: Its Significance for the Social Sci-
ences and Its Relations to the University and Society at Large,” one finds the
following reflection in relation to work on the “Satellite Mentality” study: “It
is well-nigh inevitable that scientists and researchers should be affected from
within and without by the powerful stereotypes that shape public opinion in the
area of politics” (see page 375, this volume). Academic works themselves, even
critical studies, are not so privileged as to be exempt from the danger of recy-
cling the very clichés they purport to unmask and challenge. Our attention is
drawn here to the inescapably ideological character of language itself and,
importantly, to the figure of the intellectual who stands not outside or above the
conditions of everyday life and concerns of wider communities, but is rather
immersed in and imbued by them just like everyone else. Without wishing to
overstate the case, one might suggest that for Kracauer the Critical Theorist
imagined here is not the trailblazer leading the way for others to follow, but,
rather, always and only with us, one of us, our loyal companion in misfortune.2
It is also worth noting that, although Kracauer’s focus is primarily on radio
broadcasts (in particular, the Voice of America), his discussion does include
other forms of media and interpersonal communication as well. Film is not
ignored in Kracauer’s writing on the IIA paper on the Near and Middle East.
Once again, he emphasizes the importance of receptivity to communications
with respect to existing predispositions of audiences and spectators. Moreover,
this emphasis reflects his “Below the Surface” project more than his Caligari
book. Kracauer is at pains to emphasize that the messages are most effective
when they are veiled or partially concealed. Three interesting observations
result from this. Firstly, the more explicit propaganda is, the less effective it
will be (propaganda conceived as such is not just useless but actively counter-
productive). Secondly, feature films with a strong narrative enabling emo-
tional attachment between audiences and characters are far more powerful
than documentary films with their didacticism and direct advocacy. Finally,
Kracauer underscores the importance of indirectness as a technique and
272 l Cold War T en si ons

method; digression is the surest way to achieve intended goals. In contemporary

parlance, soft power needs to be soft if it wants to be powerful.

As outlined above, it should be clear that Kracauer’s work on communications

in the early 1950s was not lacking reflexivity; it explicitly analyzed different
methods of communication, including the role of language, and how best to
understand the functioning of the realm of ideas, opinions, and discourses. In
short, epistemological and methodological issues were at the forefront of his
thinking in undertaking these empirical social-scientific analyses and evalua-
tions. This should come as no surprise, since Kracauer had long been concerned
with such questions; for example, in his early writings on sociology as a “sci-
ence,” his “ethnography” of Berlin’s white-collar workers, his study of “mass
ornament,” the societal biography of Jacques Offenbach, and also in the inter-
pretive scheme underpinning From Caligari to Hitler.
In the early 1950s, Kracauer’s ongoing concern with method is evident in his
critical response to the BASR’s one-sided focus on quantitative methods, which
leads him to defend the virtues of qualitative techniques such as participant
observation and in-depth interviews. Three essays particularly relevant to this
issue are reproduced here: “Proposal for a Research Project Designed to Promote
the Use of Qualitative Methods in the Social Sciences” (unpublished manu-
script, 1950); “The Challenge of Qualitative Content Analysis” (Public Opinion
Quarterly, 1953); and “On the Relation of Analysis to the Situational Factors in
Case Studies” (unpublished manuscript, ca. 1958). In his “Proposal for a Research
Project,” Kracauer points to the limitations of content analysis as a method for
the critical analysis of textual materials, questioning the usefulness of, for
instance, simply coding and then counting the frequency of a particular word or
phrase in a political speech or radio broadcast. Insisting upon the importance of
contextual and situated hermeneutical readings to capture the actual sense and
full significance of language use, he suggests the value of a study identifying and
exploring the mutual benefits that would accrue such qualitative and quantita-
tive approaches when used in tandem. For Kracauer, overreliance or overempha-
sis on quantitative content analysis leads to a neglect of qualitative research in
communication research. According to Kracauer, quantitative analysis can, at
best, disclose issues in a “roundabout way,” but it often leads to “over-fine” cate-
gorizations and oversimplifications. Highlighting the complementary relation
of the two methods, Kracauer identified some exemplary instances of the fruit-
ful combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in communication
 Cold War T en si o ns m 27 3

research: Leo Löwenthal’s “Biographies in Popular Magazines,” Rudolf Arn-

heim’s “World of the Daytime Serial,” and the essays in Paul Lazarsfeld and
Frank Stanton’s edited book Radio Research, 1942–1943.
In 1958, he completed a twenty-six-page memorandum, “On the Relation of
Analysis to the Situational Factors in Case Studies.” In October 1960, Kracauer
sent it to Adorno under his private pseudonym, Friedel. While thoroughly
reviewing the diverse research perspectives on case studies, Kracauer criticized
the overemphasis on “psychology” and dismissed the hope for generality in a
case study as merely “an illusion.” Kracauer also gave a critical assessment of the
Institute’s project The Authoritarian Personality. In his view, the project should
have related their “personality syndrome” to “situational factors”—that is, the
historical and national contexts in which it was conducted.3 Defending his ear-
lier empirical work as well as Löwenthal’s study of biographies in popular maga-
zines, he foregrounded the significance of the sociological dimension of the case
studies to formulate the situational factors.4 According to Jay, Adorno’s response
was to label Kracauer’s research method as “anti-idealist and ultimately anti-
philosophical” in an article he wrote in commemoration of Kracauer’s seventy-
fifth birthday.5 Adorno was probably partly right when he attributed Kracauer’s
fundamental theoretical debt to Georg Simmel’s sociological impressionism.
Like Simmel, Kracauer was less an abstract philosopher than a critical sociolo-
gist of urban culture, who preferred experiencing the complexities of modern
culture as concrete surface phenomena to theoretically generalizing it.
Our final text, the report “The Social Research Center on the Campus”
(1954), examines “organized research” in social science research centers, or
“social laboratories,” taking the work of the BASR at Columbia as a paradig-
matic case study. In distinguishing between three overlapping areas of activity—
“autonomous research,” “commissioned research,” and research “training”—
Kracauer provides a series of interesting and insightful reflections upon, among
others, three key thematic foci of relevance for our anthology: communications
and opinion formation, politics and political behavior, and methodology in the
social sciences. While the various analyses of mass media discussed here concen-
trate on radio and radio audiences (including Kracauer’s own Voice of America
writings) there is also reference to studies of advertising and marketing, and the
fundamental role of “opinion leaders” (akin to what Pierre Bourdieu would later
term “cultural intermediaries”): “Interpersonal relations,” Kracauer writes, “play
a much larger role in decision making than mass communications proper.” In a
felicitous anticipation of the language of social media today, he speaks of the
need to “locate relevant ‘influentials’ in four areas . . . marketing, movie prefer-
ences, fashions and political affairs.” Given his own intellectual marginal status
274 l Cold War T en si ons

and financial precarity, the institutional and professional ethical juggling of

research led by genuine scholarly passions and that driven by commercial inter-
ests thematized under the rubric of “professional integrity” in this study was, of
course, something that preoccupied Kracauer throughout his American exile
and is acutely relevant for universities and academics today.

Notes

1. On the Princeton Radio Research Project, and the Institute’s relationship to

Lazarsfeld and the Bureau of Applied Social Research more generally, see Thomas
Wheatland, The Frankfurt School in Exile (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2009), 86–94; and David Jenemann, Adorno in America (Minneapolis: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press, 2007), 47–104.
2. Kracauer himself wryly observes: “Even atomic physicists have come to realize that
they are not only scientists but also citizens and that in consequence they owe alle-
giance to two ethical codes which might easily conflict with each other” (“The
Social Research Center on the Campus,” 375).
3. In an unpublished commentary on The Authoritarian Personality, which Adorno
penned in 1948, he essentially agreed with Kracauer’s criticisms here, pointing out
that the predominantly social-psychological methodology of the study would need
to be supplemented by a more sociohistorical approach, in order to fully grasp the
persistence of authoritarianism in modern capitalist societies. This text has recently
been published: Theodor Adorno, “Remarks on The Authoritarian Personality,” in
T. W. Adorno, E. Frenkel-Brunswik, D. J. Levinson, and R. N. Sanford, The
Authoritarian Personality (New York: Verso, 2019), xli–lxvi.
4. For more details about Löwenthal’s work on popular biographies, see note 7 in the
general introduction to this volume. In his memoir, Löwenthal reveals that “On
the Relation of Analysis to the Situational Factors in Case Studies” was written at
the suggestion of the research mangers at the BASR, but the essay “criticized their
research enterprise as lacking a historical or truly political foundation.” Despite his
willingness to stay close to “sociological empirical research,” Löwenthal adds, Kra-
cauer’s message in this essay explicitly shows that “you have to watch out that you
don’t do research in a vacuum but in a concrete political and cultural context.” Leo
Löwenthal, “As I Remember Friedel,” no. 54 (Fall 1991): 13.
5. T. W. Adorno, “The Curious Realist: On Siegfried Kracauer,” New German Cri-
tique, no. 54 (Fall 1991): 159–77; Martin Jay, “Adorno and Kracauer: Notes on a
Troubled Friendship,” in Permanent Exiles (New York: Columbia University Press,
1985), 232.
 15
Appeals to the Near and
Middle East
Implications of the Communications Studies
Along the Soviet Periphery

Prepared for the Bureau of Applied Social Research

Columbia University
May, 1952

PREFACE

The Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research has recently com-
pleted an extensive research study on the general subject of communications
behavior in the Near and Middle East. The results of this investigation have
been presented to the Department of State in the following series of individual
country reports, each giving attention to a particular aspect of the communica-
tions process:

“Greek Attitudes Toward the United States, Great Britain, U.S.S.R, and France”
“Radio Audiences in Greece”
“Mass Media in Greece”
“Information Monopolists in Rural Greece”
“Mass Communications Audiences in Turkey”
“The Radio Audiences of Lebanon”
“Communication and Public Opinion in Jordan”
“Climates of Opinion in Egypt”
“Syrian Attitudes Toward America and Russia”
276 l Cold War T en si o ns

“Partisanship and Communications Behavior in Iran”

“Political Extremism in Iran”

In addition, a special report comparing the communications behavior and polit-

ical attitudes of different social groups of the four Arab countries studied (Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt) has been prepared. It is called, “Communications
Behavior and Political Attitudes in Four Arabic Countries.” The present report,
which is the last of the series, represents an attempt to bring together and codify
those implications of the entire study which seem most directly relevant for the
International Information Administration’s program in the Near and Middle East.
The recommendations which are made grow out of our experience in collecting,
organizing, and analyzing the research data, they should be interpreted in the light
of the manifold factors which must be considered in the formulation of policy.

restricted

contents

introduction—————277
i. mass media and populations————— 279
a. the communications situation————— 279
b. the importance of the lower strata of
population————— 281
c. suggestions for the handling of the media————— 283
ii. significant appeals————— 288
a. suggestions bearing on audience
dispositions————— 288
1. Resentments and inferiority feelings————— 288
2. Distrust of U.S. political intentions————— 289
3. Oriental values————— 291
4. America as land of opportunity————— 294
b. suggestions concerning several u. s.
objectives————— 295
1. Communism and Soviet Russia————— 295
2. Progress————— 298
3. UN and free-world solidarity————— 300
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 277

iii. communicating with the arabs————— 302

a. about regional differences————— 302
b. special treatment of egypt————— 303
c. political argumentation ————— 305

introduction

purpose

The studies of communications behavior along the Soviet periphery, conducted

by the Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University, carry many
implications which might be of interest to the International Information
Administration (IIA). Some of these implications are stated explicitly, while
others still lie dormant in the material.
The report is intended

1. to assemble the former and bring out the latter;

2. to detail and supplement all of them in the interest of their usefulness for IIA.

This means that the report presents a body of proposals for the implementa-
tion of U.S. objectives: the fight against Communism and Soviet expansionism;
collective security; the strengthening of the U.N. More likely than not many
suggestions will only confirm what is already known and practiced.

methodological questions

1. The communications studies—called “studies” in the report—are

based on interviews gathered at different periods: field work in Greece and Tur-
key was done during the last months of 1950; in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and
Egypt in the first half of 1951.
It is evident that the then existing local conditions bear on the content of the
interviews as well as the inferences drawn from them. Should conditions mean-
while have changed, all those inferences palpably affected by the changes would
have to be reconsidered in the light of the current situation.
278 l Cold War T en si o ns

For instance, the recent admission to NATO of Greece and Turkey disposes
of Turkish discontent with the failure of the Western powers to recognize Tur-
key’s strategic position (study of Turkey, p. 49). Also, rural Turkey is said now to
receive many more radio sets than at the time of the interviews a new fact which
calls for revision of what the interviews themselves suggest in this respect.
Wherever possible, changes of consequence are taken into account.
2. Different studies approach their common subject matter—
communications behavior—from different angles; the consequence being that
themes featured in one study are relegated to the background in others.

Attitudes toward Communism and Soviet Russia, one of the main topics of
the Syria study play a negligible part in the studies of Turkey and Egypt. Nor
are the various strata of population treated uniformly, light is shed now on the
existing socio-economic groups (Egypt, Jordan), now on groupings defined by
identical relations to the mass media (Greece Turkey the Lebanon) or identi-
cal political views (Syria); also, Greek, Turkish and Lebanese youth are in evi-
dence, while little is said about young people in Egypt and Syria.
To be sure, this differential treatment has the great advantage of enabling
the social scientist to tackle, one by one, the new problems he encounters in
the field of ’ international communications research. But its undeniable disad-
vantage is that it renders unifications and comparisons difficult. Fortunately,
these difficulties are surmountable in some oases vital to the report. Due to a
plethora of data, the variegated groups of population singled out or con-
structed in different places can be reduced to a common denominator. It
would also seem justified to infer from the actual statements on young people
as to the potential role of youth throughout the Middle East. (The study of
Lebanon, for instance, speaks of the emancipatory aspirations “of women and
young people, particularly young women, in a society where East meets West,”
thus implying that these aspirations may not be confined to Lebanon alone.
Page 53.)

procedure

The report is divided into three parts.

Part I centers around the basic proposition, implied in practically all stud-
ies, that special efforts should be made to reach the lower strata of population
and the youth groups. Based on an appraisal of the whole communications
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 279

situation, this proposition is broken down into a series of suggestions for the
handling of the media along the Soviet periphery.
Part II deals with the content and the presentation of IIA communications,
featuring such appeals as might best be suited to get these communications
across in the Near and Middle East. Some of the suggestions offered bear on
audience dispositions while others concern several U.S. objectives.
Part III develops the thesis that the Arabs should be approached in a differ-
ent manner from the way in which the Greeks and the Turks are approached;
then it concentrates on the problem of how to communicate with the better
educated Arabs. Suggestions for a special treatment of the Egyptian elite are fol-
lowed by an attempt to construct an appropriate line of political reasoning.

i. mass media and populations

Recommendations for a purposeful handling of the mass media along the Soviet
periphery must be based on an appraisal of the communications situation in
that part of the world.

a. the communications situation

The studies reveal that in the whole territory the actual exposure to the mass
media depends upon the educational level of the recipients which in turn corre-
lates highly with their socio-economic status, otherwise expressed, different
socio-economic groups of population can be expected to react to the mass media
in different ways. Since demographic subtleties would only blur the picture, it
may suffice to discriminate between the following three major groups which are
more or less characteristic of all countries under consideration:

1. At the top there is the small group of the elite. It comprises government
officials, the nobility, if any, big land owners and prosperous merchants, army
officers, religious dignitaries, the cream of the professionals, and students. On
an average, these people are well-educated and well-off, if not wealthy; they
aggregate in the towns; and many of them show strong affinities for the West.
The type of westernized intellectual is found exclusively in the elite. He com-
mands one or two foreign languages, has traveled widely, end cannot help
28 0 l Cold War T en si o ns

admiring the West. Turkish state officials are recruited from young men who
have studied abroad; well-to-do Egyptians are at home in the European capitals
and spas. In the Arabic countries proper these “westerners” feel uneasy about the
backwardness of their own peoples (Jordan study, p. 60) and the frequent con-
flict between their affinities for the West and their political convictions. Every-
where the elite are devotees of the mass media which they of all groups of popu-
lation, are best in a position to patronize. Many listen regularly to foreign
broadcasts, read newspapers as a matter of course, and make a habit of frequent-
ing the movie houses. The intelligentsia manifests its cosmopolitan preferences
by turning ·its back on the domestic radio stations and reveling in the riches of
American magazines. In sum, the elite are familiar with the mass media and
highly susceptible to the flow of international communications.
2. The broad masses at the bottom consist predominantly of peasants—
either tenants of absentee landowners or small farmers subsisting on their own
produce. There are, in addition, the nomads and semi-nomads, particularly fre-
quent in Jordan, the service workers, the watchmen, and the groups of plain
laborers and factory workers. Industrialization is only beginning; even in coun-
tries where unions are legalized the workers can hardly be said to form a strong
and class-conscious vanguard, All the more it would seem justified to define
these strata of population as submerged masses. They are illiterate, or at best
near illiterate; their living standards range from poor to destitute. This in part
accounts for their insufficient exposure to the mass media.
Print is inaccessible to them and how could they afford to buy radio sets?
Things are rendered more difficult by an ingrained aversion, strongest in rural
areas, to let the doubtful blessings of civilization interfere with age-old tradi-
tions. The Bedouins reject wholesale the infidels and their devilish inventions.
And except perhaps for the Egyptian farmers, the peasants everywhere accept
radio, if at all, only to the extent to which it confirms their outlook on life. As
illustrated by the studies of Turkey and Greece, they are indifferent to the mov-
ies or even condemn them for being a source of sinful temptations. All in all, the
communications habits of these submerged strata are still underdeveloped. Mes-
sages from the world at large pass above their heads.
However, this applies primarily to the older farmers, laborers or workers.
Their progeny feels a natural urge for evading the strictures of tradition and cus-
tom. Many young people actually yield to the attractions of modern life. The
movies cast a spell over them which stirs their elders to impassioned or elegiac
complaints about the destructive forces of the Western world. In rural Greece,
for instance, the difference in film attendance between the generations is very
striking indeed. It is inevitable that parental authority should often clash with
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 281

youthful determination to enjoy the forbidden fruits; the study of Turkey goes
so far as to speak of a “conflict between generations engendered by movies in
Turkey, as in other Middle Eastern countries” (p. 96). Yet there is some evidence
that the traditional inhibitions and scruples of the old are slowly losing ground.
Ever more young people of the depressed classes learn to read and write, thus
gaining an unassailable prestige in districts marked by illiteracy. A typical case is
the Greek farmer whose 12-year-old son plods through the newspaper for him
(study of Greece, no. 4, p. 13). The discharged Turkish conscripts return to their
villages as pillars of grammar-school wisdom. In Lebanon the poor farm villag-
ers rely on their trained offspring for worldly information. The young educated
peasant there is a mobile type who, during his stays in town, goes to the movies
or lingers in a coffee house listening to the radio. His influence as a news carrier
cannot be overestimated (study of Lebanon, pp. 131–46).
3. The contrast between the urban elite and the rural masses would even
be more outspoken were it not for a variety of groups which somehow fill the
vacuum in between. These middle strata, as they may be called, include such dif-
ferent occupations as taxi drivers, smaller shopkeepers and merchants, coffee
house owners, government clerks, white-collar workers, technicians, teachers in
primary schools, etc., It is a sort of middle class, with a considerable amount of
petty bourgeoisie close to the submerged populations; but of course, transitions
to the elite are fluid. Also, except for near illiteracy within the low reaches, the
educational standards range from elementary school to high school level; living
conditions vary between modest and better off. More urban than rural, these
strata occupy a middle position with regard to their communications habits. Even
though they go beyond the peasantry in availing themselves regularly of the mass
media, yet they do not explore them in the manner of the elite because their
whole outlook is localized and tradition-bound. Whether in coffee houses or at
home, they prefer domestic radio stations to foreign stations and are mainly inter-
ested in news which bears on their immediate concerns or strictly national issues.
The middle groups tend to keep aloof from international communications.

b. the importance of the lower strata of population

Practically all studies point to the possibility of improving the communications

habits of those still unfamiliar with the mass media or not yet fully attuned to
them. Greek villagers would like to learn about events abroad; the radio owners
among Lebanese middle-class people can be defined as potential foreign
282 l Cold War T en si ons

listeners (study of Lebanon, p. 66); and even the Bedouins are not entirely aller-
gic to news from the outside world with its “effeminate” cities. Such facts and
symptoms give rise to the proposition, advanced or implied in several studies,
that long-range attempts should be made to reach not only the better educated
but the lower strata of population as well—strata which, roughly speaking,
extend from the petty bourgeoisie down to the bottom. This basic proposition
involves all media of communication. Diverse International Information
Administration activities seem actually designed to substantiate it: special press
features oater to the needs of worker groups; documentary films are shown in
rural areas, etc. Yet it might be desirable to broaden and intensify these activities
for the following reasons, all of which corroborate the basic proposition:

1. The poverty-stricken masses along the Soviet periphery seem to gain in

political consciousness. Rural Turkey is on the move since the 1950 elections; the
Lebanese villagers, it appears, are at a stage of transition; the discontented Egyp-
tian farmers are undoubtedly aware of’ the need for economic and social reforms.
It is as if inertia were slowly receding. In the Arabic world this desire for change at
the bottom, which inevitably affects the urban middle strata, is fostered by unset-
tled refugees from Palestine, to be sure nationalist passions may prolong the doz-
ing, but their drugging effect is bound to wear off. In short, broad Middle East
populations are about to enter into the political arena. And since an opinion
vacuum is as dangerous as a power vacuum, their appearance on the scene alone
would account for the necessity of establishing contacts with them.
2. Such early contacts are especially needed to immunize the masses
against the potential impact of Communist propaganda. One might object here
that in both rural and urban Greece precisely the less educated nurture the
strongest anti-Russian sentiments and that among the submerged classes in
Syria protestations of indifference to Communist (and American) influences are
fairly frequent. It is also true that Arabic religiosity puts a strain on those
inclined to favor Moscow’s foreign policy. Yet all this does not preclude the pos-
sibility that in times of crisis the very populations which now are anti-
Communist or just apathetic will succumb to Communist insinuations from
without and within. And it is always advisable to try to mold a mind as long as it
is still malleable.
3. Free-world solidarity requires good will on grass-roots level. This more
than anything else makes for a sustained effort to reach the depressed and less
educated. To leave them to themselves would mean not only to increase the
threat of Communism but to abandon the ideas that have shaped the U.N.
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 283

A ferment of change, the youth of the lower strata represents one of the
most important links between these strata and the West. Appeals to young peo-
ple are therefore indispensable for an implementation of the basic proposition.
Without such appeals communications for the bottom layers of ’ Middle East
societies might easily fall flat.
And what does the basic proposition imply for the handling of the mass
media?

c. suggestions for the handling of the media

all media
The studies show that people of the lower strata, both rural and urban, are
particularly eager for communications which bear on local topics and, for the
rest, conform to their traditional style of life. The scope of their interests and
experiences is limited, this also means that they are not conditioned to grasp
information about remote or abstract subjects, such as international meetings
and the like, conveyed to them in highly technical terms. Embedded in their
environment, they are averse to breaking away from it mentally and linguisti-
cally. The farmer in Jordan, lucky enough to possess a radio, elicits from it only
things familiar (study of Jordan, p. 33); the traditional Turk would find it diffi-
cult to generalize the circumstances responsible for his personal situation (study
of Turkey, p. 18).

Suggestions
Messages to these people should be selected and phrased accordingly. When-
ever international issues or themes of a more abstract nature are discussed, it is
helpful to focus on what they may mean to a Greek farmer or Syrian taxi
driver. The language must be concrete and in keeping with local custom. All
this is a matter of course, mentioned only in a systematic interest. It is under-
stood that the adjustments to audience mentality are supposed to work two
ways, they should penetrate the peasant mind and at the same time free it from
its narrow confines. The whole is a dialectic process requiring much discern-
ment on the part of the communicator. Insufficiently adjusted messages will
hardly affect the farmers or laborers, while overadjusted messages will leave
them unchanged.
284 l Cold War T en si o ns

Since less educated people are suspicious of anything foreign, they can be
expected to assimilate communications of a domestic origin more readily than
appeals from plainly outlandish sources. In the Arabic world news from Egypt
has a homely ring. A good way of approaching these people therefore is the use
of local channels authorized to pass off foreign communications as domestic
products. The material need not even be “planted,” but may be prepared by a
local agency with American backing. Such “gray” propaganda techniques greatly
facilitate the task of getting in touch with the lower strata.

radio
PRELIMINARY REMARK: One of the reasons, if a minor one, why inter-
viewees in Jordan and Lebanon prefer the BBC to the Voice of America is the
greater signal strength of the British broadcasts. This argument points up the
need for better voice transmissions to the Middle East.

1. The studies of Greece, Turkey, and Lebanon refer explicitly to the scar-
city of radio receivers in rural areas.
Suggestions would be misplaced, for efforts are being made to fill the gap. For
instance, in Turkey things have reportedly taken a turn for the better since the
time at which the Turkey data have been gathered (see Introduction, Method-
ological Questions, no. 1, pp. 1–2).
2. The VOA is not yet popular in the Middle East, especially in the Arabic
countries it ranges, along with the Moscow Radio, among the least known for-
eign senders, lagging far behind the BBC or 1 say, the Cairo station in this
respect (see studies of Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan). The reasons must be traced to
its poor transmission and the fact that it is a newcomer there.

Suggestions
Pictorial newspaper ads, leaflets, and announcements on local radio stations
currently serve to increase the awareness of voice broadcasts. In the interest of
broader publicity, it would seem advisable to produce a documentary film about
the VOA, vividly illustrating its effects on ordinary people everywhere, such a
film might tell rural audiences the story of the voice in terms familiar to them
and tell it with an intensity unattainable in other media.
3. For obvious reasons public listening is widespread among the lower
strata. Greek and Turkish) villagers assemble around a community receiver or
frequent the home of some isolated radio owner, usually a person of standing
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 285

who may or may not admit everyone. And, of course, there is throughout the
Middle East the institution of the coffee houses where those with time on their
hands cannot help lending an ear to the radio. Most studies emphasize the
importance of both rural and urban coffee houses as places of listening for the
populations at large.
Yet these opportunities are far from being all inclusive. The coffee house is a
male affair; many laborers or poor farmers may have to work when the radio is
playing or people are just too tired to listen in. All this makes for the spread of
information through word of mouth. Listeners relate the news to their families,
friends, and neighbors, who in turn pass it on, until it lands somewhere in a
shepherd’s hut or a desert tent. In the whole area word of mouth is a vital means
of communication.
This situation breeds dangers. Public listening compares unfavorably with
private listening in that it lessens the attention (study of Greece, no. 2, pp. 10–
19). Coffee houses are noisy; the obtrusive presence of crowds interferes with
mental concentration. But even assuming that the news is fully digested, it will
nevertheless be increasingly distorted in the course of its wanderings from
mouth to mouth. Grapevine rumors color the news that has launched them
with the fears and hopes of their carriers.

Suggestions
Indistinct or diffuse communications are bound to increase these dangers.
Accordingly, voice messages to the lower strata should aspire to extreme plas-
ticity so that their salient points can be absorbed and rendered without essential
changes, a striking image condensing an otherwise abstract text will stand out
long in the memory and thus help preserve the substance of that text. Perhaps it
is also for mnemotechnic reasons that the Oriental mind likes to give and receive
information in the form of tales, episodes, and anecdotes. Much may be learned
in this respect from the Arabic story teller who knows how to drive home the
gist of what he is telling in the markets.

print
Among the Arabic lower strata word-of-mouth communications traceable to
radio listening seem to prevail slightly over those originating with newspaper
consumption; in Greece and Turkey the reverse holds true—no matter, for the
rest, whether people do read or are merely read to. Yet such differences are negli-
gible within this context, Since the trend to fight illiteracy, particularly strong in
28 6 l Cold War T en si o ns

the last two countries, is in the long run irresistible, printed material for the less
educated will gain momentum everywhere.

Suggestions
Like radio messages, printed communications to these strata should possess a
plastic quality. Photos, cartoons, and picture books are of course indispensable,
but they will serve the purpose only if selected with an eye to the recipient’s
capacity of assimilating them. This refers to their content as well as their quan-
tity; the pictorial deluge flooding certain western magazines will not do. It
might prove worthwhile to gather some information about the average responses
of Middle East farmers to visual aids. Considering the role young people of the
lower strata are playing, special efforts to supply these shook troops of literacy
with adequate visuals and reading fodder would certainly pay.

film
The lower strata are exposed to the movies less than to radio and newspaper
material. Many are too poor to pay the admission fee; and there is, even more
important, a woeful lack of opportunities. At the time of the interviews, Turkey
had only 275 movie houses, with, in addition, a scanty total of 6 mobile film
units to cover its rural areas; and three quarters of the rural Greek interviewees
said they had never attended a screening.
Cultural and religious prejudices, mentioned in earlier contexts, seem to
hamper any changes in this situation. The prejudices are sustained by feature
films rather than documentaries. In fact, only 56% of the moviegoing Greek
interviewees remember having seen a documentary film and only a quarter of
the workers and farmers in Egypt are acquainted with foreign products in this
vein. (But are not most documentaries of western origin?) In terms of distribu-
tion Hollywood pictures are everywhere in the lead. And as the studies of
Greece illustrate, it is precisely they which arouse serious opposition, thus keep-
ing alive the existing bias against the medium. Older Greeks of all walks of life
worry greatly about the corrupting influence which they believe Hollywood
films with their small regard for traditions, their many scenes of violence and
their shallow lavishness exert on the young generation. Significantly, the less
educated in Greece feel most attracted to them while the better educated prefer
British movies because of their cultural appeals and, morally relevant plots.
It looks as if the situation were not yet ripe for a systematic use of cinematic
communications. Or rather, things would look this way were it not for several
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 287

circumstances which alter the picture. The fact that young people of lower edu-
cation patronize the movie houses decidedly invites an approach to them by way
of films. In addition, the resistance of the older generation to the medium might
yield to mild acceptance, once this age group is made to realize that not all screen
spectacles indulge in frivolous entertainment; Turkish villagers are said to
appreciate documentary showings. The situation is actually in flux. And since
processes of this kind are irreversible, it would hardly be justified to leave the
immense propaganda value of films unexplored.

Suggestions

1. Whatever is done to increase opportunities in rural areas will help

overcome ingrained prejudices. Mobile film units are mental tractors conquer-
ing virgin territory.
2. A study or the impact of Hollywood films on populations in critical
areas is long since due. This study would have to analyze all factors responsible
for the selection of the films, to appraise typical audience reactions to them, and
to discuss the implications of its findings.
3. Experience shows that people not yet adjusted to the cinema are unable
to follow the events on the screen. Cinematic language is still unfamiliar to
them. They may neglect the narrative proper in an unimportant incident remi-
niscent of their everyday life; and they may be utterly confused by flashbacks,
closeups and transitions which an ordinary moviegoer takes in his stride. The
treatment of documentaries for novices in the medium poses problems which
should be studied carefully. To mention only one of them, documentaries will
not yield all the effects of which films are capable if those in charge of produc-
tion rely mainly on verbal communications to make themselves understood.
What counts in a film is its pictorial communications. It is they rather than the
spoken words which affect the spectator’s unconscious and thus subtly sensitize
him to the championed cause. Grierson who considers documentary film a god-
send for propaganda messages once said that “in documentary you do not shoot
with your head but also with your stomach muscles.” And when asked whether
in his opinion the illiterate peasants in India might profit by films popularizing
reforms, Pudovkin used surprisingly similar terms: because it teaches “The film
is the greatest not only through the brain but through the whole body.” To reach
and teach the submerged populations in the Middle East the film maker must
subordinate the commentator’s voice to such camera revelations as they are
ready to grasp.
28 8 l Cold War T en si o ns

4. Much as good documentaries challenge the spectator to participate in

them emotionally, they involve his total personality to a lesser extent than
humanly absorbing feature film. Perhaps the most effective Russian and Nazi
propaganda films are dramas centering around an individual conflict—films
imbuing the spectator’s whole being with the messages entrusted to them. Fea-
ture films, then, might call forth responses of an intensity which films of fact are
unlikely to generate. This is a weighty argument in favor of their utilization.
There is fortunately no lack of suggestive Hollywood pictures apt to strike a
sympathetic chord in traditional Turks or Lebanese farmers; a few random titles
will be named later. It would seem highly desirable to incorporate such pictures
into the film programs for the lower strata.

ii. significant appeals

preliminary remark: ILA communications serve to implement U.S.

objectives. To carry out their task, they must be adjusted to the mentality of the
peoples or the groups of peoples they try to reach. What kinds of appeals are
best suited to get them across in the Near and Middle East? The studies yield a
number of pertinent suggestions.
Some of them bear on audience dispositions in these areas, while others con-
cern several U.S. objectives of interest.

a. suggestions bearing on audience dispositions

1. Resentments and inferiority feelings

In all countries under consideration the elite and the better educated middle
strata resent anything which strikes them as Western overbearance. Greek pro-
fessionals are displeased with American interference in Greek domestic affairs
and the “patronizing” attitude of American advisers on the spot. Before Tur-
key’s admission to NATO college-trained Turks who showed strong sympathies
for America nevertheless reproached the U.S. with neglecting Turkey politically
and economically. In their touchiness these people sometimes suspect insolence
where there is actually none. A Greek law student blames the VOA for callously
elaborating upon UNESCO’s intellectual activities while so many Greeks are
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 28 9

starving (study of Greece, no. 2, p. 36). Throughout the Arabic territory the elite
suffer from feelings of humiliation. Egyptian interviewees of this group are
firmly convinced that the British and the Americans look down on them—the
former because of their all-pervasive snobbishness the latter because of their
equally snobbish bias against those of dark skin. Since the Egyptian elite are
fully aware of their cultural leadership in the Moslem world, they may be par-
ticularly sensitive to symptoms of Western arrogance, real or imagined.

Suggestions
Several interviewees reveal, without intending it, how the problem of dissolving
this inferiority complex can best be tackled. Two less educated Turks are very
proud of America’s respect for Turkish bravery in Korea (study of Turkey,
pp. 50–51). And an Egyptian respondent states that “British troops never
respected us or considered our feelings during the war” (study of Egypt, p. 12).
These answers dovetail to perfection for they manifest both overt pride in
respect and unavowed yearning for respect. Accordingly, all communications in
radio and print should be imbued with respect for those on the receiving end.
Besides being desirable humanly, such an attitude is a major political require-
ment; were it lacking, free-world cooperation would hardly ever materialize. In
the case of the better educated Middle East populations an effort to increase
their self-confidence suggests itself. Greater self-confidence disposes of inflated
resentment. Perhaps they will be more poised psychologically if they are made to
feel that Americans do justice to their difficult in-between position.

2. Distrust of U.S. political intentions

Suspicions as to the motives behind U.S. communications, especially VOA
broadcasts, are articulate among the elite and the better educated middle groups
without being confined to them however. For instance, an unemployed Greek
clerk holds that for all her friendliness America tries to convert Greece into a
military base on the Balkans, and of course not solely in the interest of Greece
(study of Greece, no. 1, p. 82). Similarly, literate Turks on all educational levels
believe voice messages to be motivated by America’s own personal advantage.
“I don’t think that they do it just to please us,” says a manufacturer (study of
Turkey, p. 63). In the Arabic countries there is a tendency among professionals to
differentiate between the voice and the BBC; the former is often considered a
propaganda instrument, while even in anti-British circles the latter is credited
with being impartial and reliable. For the rest, the Arabic elite mistrust not only
29 0 l Cold War T en si o ns

Great Britain as a matter of course, but drop hints that in their opinion the U.S.
is also plotting and scheming. The Egyptians go furthest in this respect, some of
them being convinced that American advertising skills pervade all manifesta-
tions of American politics. Many an Egyptian professional accuses the U.S. of
imperialism and accordingly identifies American aid as a means of bribing poor
but honest nations so that they will be softened up for American business pene-
tration. As a physician puts it: “The United States is trying to control the whole
world by her dollars” (study of Egypt, p. 82).

Suggestions
Since these suspicions are particularly strong among the better educated, voice
broadcasts to them and printed communications should avoid concealing legiti-
mate American self-interest behind protestations of friendship and the like. To
be sure, any communicator will be prone to elaborate exclusively on feelings of
friendship in cases in which friendship itself is a declared political aim; yet the
evidence shows that he would be ill-advised if he did not also point out that the
friendship he is talking about is actually a fusion of altruistic and egoistic
motives. One shade too much of altruism, and audience suspicions of its mate-
rial advantages for the other party are bound to soar. Frankness is good policy in
communicating with these easily vulnerable people. It implies respect for their
intelligence and thus helps remove the psychological causes of their distrust.
Reliability is no less important than frankness—in fact, frankness is one of
the aspects of reliability. People of all walks of life prefer the BBC to the VOA
for a variety of reasons; when asked to indicate them they frequently refer to
their impression, mentioned above, that the British news reports are least tainted
by propaganda, A comparative study of the two broadcasting systems would be
highly desirable; it might bring out those qualities of the BBC which sustain its
unrivaled prestige in the Middle East.1 Meanwhile one is safe in assuming that
listeners there consider reliability a main virtue of foreign broadcasts. How does
the BBC manage to convey the impression of it? The interviews reveal at least
one of the procedures. A Turkish merchant says of the BBC “They are not trying
to shape the facts so that news favors their side. They always give you both sides
of the argument” (study of Turkey, p. XXIV). And several Egyptians agree that
their trust in the BBC is based on the fact that it also broadcasts news unfavor-
able to Britain (study of Egypt, pp. 77–78). Middle-Eastern listeners, it appears,
want to form their own opinion in full freedom and are therefore loath to have
it predigested for them—an insistence on independent judgment which may
well serve as a compensation for their dependence upon foreign powers in real
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 291

life. The implication is that voice messages to these audiences should manifest
the same detachment which seems to radiate from British broadcasts. An occa-
sional bit of news which admits an American drawback or acknowledges a suc-
cess on the other side of the fence will do a great deal of good. Perhaps the best
propaganda in these areas is to seem to make none.

3. Oriental values
Practically all strata of population are imbued with a mentality which for lack of
another expression may be called Oriental—a compound of traits and attitudes
palpably at variance with Western values and preferences. Even the elite cannot
completely rid themselves of it, in spite of their aversion to Koran readings and
their affinity for a more modern style of life. Well-educated Greeks voice con-
cern with their cultural heritage. Part of the Egyptian professionals feel strongly
about their religion. Of special interest is the case of the Judge of Islamic Legisla-
tion in Jordan who is said to be representative of an important minority. He is
aware of being at the crossroads; his sense of moral obligation determines him to
be open-minded about the West, but his emotional and spiritual allegiances
draw him irresistibly back to the fold of tradition (study of Jordan, pp. 85–86).
Within these contexts it will suffice to mention only two groups of typically
Oriental notions, one relating to the meaning of human existence, the other to
the feasibility of social change. Greek interviewees are very outspoken in what
they believe to be humanly significant. Their ideas show in the opinions they
form about the American way of life. Many Greeks who sympathize with the
American people praise not only its generosity and kindness but declare them-
selves greatly impressed by its practical sense and enormous “drive”—qualities
which inspire admiration rather than love and may be found also in less cul-
tured peoples. There is in effect no indication that those favorable to America
would acknowledge her as a wellspring of cultural achievements. Rather, a
strong minority of Greek interviewees object to America’s lack of culture.
Especially the better educated feel this way although it is understood that their
criticism does not interfere with their appreciation of American aid. The critics
characterize Americans as money-seeking, callous, and indifferent creatures
and are fairly convinced that the American “drive” is nothing but a meaningless
bustle resulting in complete standardization and mechanization. Such frenetic
activity, it seems to them, contradicts everything they themselves value highest—
sentiment, spontaneity, leisure. And this leads to the Oriental concept of time.
A student argues that he would not like to live in America because ‘‘there is too
much rush and hurry. . . . for me.” And a teacher says, “I like to waste time once
292 l Cold War T en si o ns

in a while and I like to live on a slowed down Eastern European rhythm” (study
of Greece, no. 1, p. 53). All Middle-Eastern peoples live in a time which cannot
be counted by minutes and hours. Leisure is vital for them. Their meditations
resemble the involved patterns of their carpet weavers.
The other group of Oriental notions centers around the belief that man is not
primarily called upon to change his social environment; spiritual preoccupa-
tions may overshadow his concern with poverty and injustice. This belief which
breeds fatalism in worldly affairs extends beyond the Moslem world, its native
soil. Better educated Greek interviewees said to represent a strong minority,
manifest their disgust at government corruption by simply shunning the radio
news which they say overflows with empty promises; it does not seem to occur to
them that they might do something about the corruption (study of Greece,
no. 2, pp. 29–30). Turkey is in a state of transition accelerated by the 1950 elec-
tions; the Turkish elite embark on social and educational reforms with a zeal
which on the surface is about the opposite of fatalism. On the surface—for their
infatuation with progress and modern life is too pronounced to affect one as
entirely genuine. A middle-aged tobacco executive is quoted as saying that he
would not like to live in Britain or America because these countries are not
modern enough” (study of Turkey, p. XX). Such excessive opinions point to the
possibility that the radicalism of modern Turks grows out of their fear, con-
scious or not, of being again overpowered by the paralyzing influences in their
blood. It is true that many Turks of the lower strata develop a certain restless-
ness, but their progressive ambitions are timid rather than exacting. And the
rural masses still believe themselves to be irrelevant politically. The average
Turkish villager questions the propriety of taking interest in public affairs and
cannot even imagine that he himself should have to decide upon improvements
or changes. The same reluctance to intervene in the social processes pervades the
Arabic countries proper. If in Lebanon the farmers are slightly more eager for
reforms than elsewhere this may be laid to the strong Christian element which
functions as a tonic. The study of Egypt dwells on the impotence of Egyptian
nationalism, deriving it from both political and psychological factors; among
the latter, fatalistic dispositions may well play an important role.

Suggestions
What many Greeks, but not Greeks alone, imagine to be American reality—
frenetic commotion for no purpose other than money-grabbing—bears actually
little resemblance to it. And of course, radio talks to all strata of population
should try, as they presumably do, to revise this picture by emphasizing, say,
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 293

America’s modified capitalism and various slow-pace areas in American life. Yet
Oriental criticism goes further and deeper; it culminates in the conviction that
Americans lack culture. Arabic professionals speak of the alleged mistakes of
U.S. foreign policy with a condescension which implies that not too much
should be expected of people who have no sense of spiritual values and intricate
contexts. The problem of how to refute such opinions is well-nigh insoluble. Any
attempt on the part of the communicator to inform Oriental audiences of
America’s cultural possessions and endeavors will make them think he is talking
or writing about commercialized culture, this counterfeit of the genuine thing.
For if they know anything they know that culture is a mode of existence not a
commodity which can be advertised. Sales talks about cultural accomplish-
ments are a sure means of convincing the critics that their verdict is justified.
The same Greeks who complained about the uncultured conduct of Americans
ware favorably impressed by this country’s decision to take up arms against the
Korean aggressor. America’s readiness to fulfill her promises is an invaluable in
their eyes. It is also an asset which does not lose significance for being communi-
cated. All of which tends to suggest that it might be wisest to feature in messages
to the Middle East such merits as are demonstrable and let culture speak for
itself. True culture has a way of radiating silently. In view of the little radio time
and the fact that criticism mainly originates with the better educated, printed
statements on values are preferable to verbal messages, they also permit the com-
municator to meander, unhurried through the world of meanings.
The dire necessity of social changes in the Middle East calls for a long-range
campaign against the existing fatalistic tendencies. These are rooted in psycho-
logical depths inaccessible to direct appeals. Nevertheless, to penetrate them
such a campaign would have to work by indirection. Examples of active self-help
are most likely to touch off mimetic processes in the audience—provided of
course they do not seem to impart a moral. Also, they should present success
through action on so modest a scale that they cannot possibly be mistaken for,
and rejected as, illustrations of American drive. Anecdotes and biographical
sketches in this vein which captivate the reader’s or radio listener’s imagination
may stimulate him to ward off spells of inertia. Because of their impact on the
unconscious films are particularly fit to affect established behavior patterns.
Take Buster Keaton’s The Navigator or one of the better Harold Lloyd comedies:
it is quite possible that the hilarious resourcefulness of their heroes acts as an
antidote against Oriental passivity. These films are understood by everyone and
they have the additional advantage of illustrating American awareness of the
dangers inherent in mechanization. The better educated in the Middle East are
prone to voice suspicions of government corruption, politics and politicians, but
294 l Cold War T en si o ns

their distrust, certainly well-founded in many cases, remains just a grumbling of

no consequence. It might prove worthwhile to acquaint these more sophisti-
cated audiences with films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Born Yester-
day which feature American initiative in fighting political abuses. There is at
least a slim chance that such films. along with similar communications in radio
and print, will canalize energies which otherwise disintegrate without leaving a
trace.

4. America as land of opportunity

It is true that people of all classes admire and love America as a country where
the dream of human freedom seems to have materialized; and it is equally true
that the Egyptian elite feels attracted to the West for cultural reasons. But the
studies make it unmistakably clear that the lower strata are fascinated mainly
by the glittering material advantages which they believe America offers people
like them; the America they care about is a land of wealth and opportunity
where jobs and riches can be had for the asking. A poor Greek maid servant
says, “Living conditions are better there. They have refrigerators, washing
machines. . . .” A Greek customs agent who spent a short time in the States
holds that “there are limitless opportunities for everybody in all fields” (study
of Greece, no. 1, p. 50). A Turkish manufacturer chimes in “I would like to live
in the United States. . . . anybody who works enough can make a decent life for
himself ” (study of Turkey, p. 51). Even the proud nomads are not entirely
immune against dreams of what money can buy in countries tainted by Jews; a
rich Bedouin in Jordan concedes that he might be willing to settle down in
America ‘‘Because they are rich. If I go there I can open a ranch and keep thou-
sands of sheep and horses” (study of Jordan, p. 16). Lebanese interviewees of
the middle strata. express their crude materialism with disarming candor. “I
can become rich in America,” volunteers an officer in the government. And a
chauffeur is pleasantly tickled by this very prospect “I hear people who go to
America become rich. . . . I hope I can go there” (study of Lebanon, pp. 77–78).
To Egyptian white-collar employees America is alluring because of its job
opportunities. An Egyptian worker elaborating on the theme falls into out-
right daydreaming: “I heard that the workers are well paid there and they can
lead a good life like big employees in Egypt” (study of Egypt, p. 197). It should
be added that this picture of America which to all appearances is firmly estab-
lished everywhere owes much of its glamor to letters from relatives and compa-
triots who either have been a success in America or do not want to admit their
failure there.
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 295

Suggestions
The situation is somewhat embarrassing. Unequivocal support of these self-
centered notions would not only reflect on U.S. ideology but run the risk of pro-
ducing boomerang effects in the form of resentments against American opu-
lence. Greek objections to the lavishness of Hollywood films reveal a sense of
frustration. On the other hand it cannot be denied that emotional attachments
to the U.S. profit greatly by the image of America as a terrestrial paradise where
kin of the Lebanese chauffeur or the Egyptian worker pursue happiness in cars
of their own. The communicator is faced with a dilemma: should he feature the
material aspects of American life or had he better suppress them? A practicable
method of overcoming this difficulty is applied in voice broadcasts; they men-
tion opportunity, but do not mention it for its own sake, References to it are
frequently interwoven with comparisons between America and Russia or hints
of America’s free-world activities, thus challenging the listener to forget his ego-
centric views in meditations of a more ideological nature. It should be possible
to kill two birds with one stone by systematically combining the theme of
opportunity with the motif of self-help. Even though most interviewees assume
that work is prerequisite to wealth in America also, they nevertheless seem
secretly convinced that wealth is one’s share there, anyway—a miracle ingratiat-
ing itself with the Oriental mind. Emphasis on the fact that in America material
success is the result of strenuous efforts and unrelenting initiative may make
these people realize that self-help is indispensable for prosperity everywhere.

b. suggestions concerning several u.s. objectives

1. Communism and Soviet Russia

The populations along the Soviet periphery have only the vaguest notions of
Russia. There are no immigrants to Iron Curtain countries who would write let-
ters home; nor is the flow of Soviet communications comparable to that of
Western communications. ln both Greece and Turkey numerous interviewees of
all classes protest their ignorance of Russia or declare they have no opinions on
the subject, whereby it is understood that some of these noncommittal answers
may be inspired by the fear of revealing Communist affiliations. Much the same
holds true in the Arabic countries. Many a professional there complains that he
has to base his views of Russia on conflicting or distorted information. Among
the less educated with their predominantly domestic concerns even such
296 l Cold War T en si o ns

knowledge as comes from foreign broadcasts is absent. Lower-middle-class peo-

ple in Jordan insist that Russia is a complete mystery to them and even those
scattered Lebanese interviewees who admit sympathies for Russia are either
unaware of Moscow’s Arabic radio program or cannot afford the luxury of a
radio. This lack of contact with what is going on behind the Iron Curtain pro-
duces the phenomenon of “psychological distance:” nearby Russia is felt to be far
away while America beyond the seven seas seems to lie just around the corner
(see study of Lebanon, p. 111). In Syria, where living conditions continue to be
primitive, information about Russia is spread by word of mouth; its source is
obviously the domestic Communist Party which has a certain following among
Armenians, Orthodox Christians and Kurds. If this “internal” propaganda
does not succeed in luring the submerged classes out of their indifference, it nev-
ertheless promotes pro-Russian sentiments in diverse other quarters. It is a
rumor propaganda which has the undeniable advantage of being disseminated
by friends or acquaintances and supplying wishful thinking with appropriate
food. On the other hand, people can never be sure of its truth; and the doubts
they presumably nurture will be increased by rumors from the opposite direc-
tion. Be this as it may, the fact that Russia now tries to reach the Arabic coun-
tries through the conventional radio channels may well indicate that it does not
place too much trust in the effectiveness of sheer hearsay information.

Suggestions
Since so little is known about Stalinism and Soviet Russia, communications in
all media and for all strata of population should discuss these central themes
with great caution so as to avoid stirring up curiosity where there is perhaps
none. It would seem best not to give more information than the current situa-
tion requires. And in passing the information on, the communicator should
always be aware that the Arabic elite especially are inclined to interpret any-
thing he says against Russia as a propaganda maneuver designed to manipulate
their minds. An Egyptian student holds that news from the West about Russia
is mostly biased (study of Egypt, p. 69). A lawyer in Jordan declares: “American
and British propaganda. . . . have depicted Russia as an aggressive country seek-
ing to drive the whole world into a ruthless and exterminating war to serve its
own interests and welfare. . . . Who do you think in the Arab world believes
American or English propaganda?” (study of Jordan, p. 96). This ingrained dis-
trust, pointed up already in earlier contexts calls for sobriety in references to
Russia. Anti-Communist intelligence will not get across in the Arabic world
unless it is well-authenticated and restrained rather than exuberant; the surest
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 297

way of thwarting its effect is to revel in black-and-white contrasts. (Remark for

the voice: The Howard Mayer commentaries, likely to be explosives in Satellite
countries may prove duds in the Middle East).
All this is to say that information about Russia should be strictly adjusted to
the opinions held of it. For instance, the Greeks have a strong sense of freedom.
Recalling the Civil War, a shepherd says: “We are free. . . . we are ready to fight
anyone for this. Russia tried to enslave us through her bandits” (study of Greece,
no. 1, p. 31). These sentiments, strongest among the less educated in both rural
and urban areas, induce many Greeks to conceive of Russia as the land of fear
and oppression. Anti-Russian messages which play upon such apprehensions
stand a good chance of striking home. Incidentally, since the Greeks still have to
put up with a Communist underground, they may endorse propositions on
Communism which the Arabs would most certainly discount as Western pro-
paganda. In the Arabic countries positive and negative images of Russia inter-
mingle on all educational levels—a muddle increased by the Egyptian elite’s
readiness to view Russia with a friendly eye out of spite for Great Britain. (At the
bottom of their hearts they presumably know that nothing could harm them
more than an advance of Communism.) There is in various groups of population
a tendency to praise Russian policy for its non-interference in Arabic domestic
affairs; some middle-class interviewees in Jordan even toy with the idea of Russia
as a possible ally. But these favorable comments also seem to be largely deter-
mined by the fact of Western interference in Palestine. More genuine is undoubt-
edly the belief, not infrequent among people of the lower strata, that Russia helps
those in distress. As a credulous Lebanese village housewife puts it: ‘‘They give
houses and money to the poor” (study of Lebanon, pp. 117–18).
For messages to the Arabs it is not enough to invalidate these opinions by
pointing, for instance, to Russian expansionism (of which the elite in Jordan
are quite aware) or to the rule of inequality in Iron Curtain countries rather,
information about Russia will find response only if it succeeds in reinforcing
the existing aversion to the Communist way of life. Hence the need for empha-
sizing such Russian characteristics as are incompatible with Oriental traditions
and notions. The Arabs are individualists; this inspires information to the
effect that Communism means a definite threat to their personal indepen-
dence. Much more important, the Arabs are so deeply involved in religion that
many of them dislike Russia for its anti-religious attitude. “They have no reli-
gion,” objects a Lebanese farmer (study of Lebanon, p. 118). Even those who
argue in favor of Russia do not know how to reconcile their political prefer-
ences with their religious loyalties. They are under a strain. News about Russia
should exploit their ambivalence. But in keeping the Moslem world posted on
29 8 l Cold War T en si o ns

oases of religious persecution in Russia and the Satellite countries care must be
taken to present these cases as a matter of political expediency rather than the
outcome of ideological consequence. The Arabs might prove sensitive to Com-
munist intolerance if they get the impression that it is a variant of their own
fanaticism. Tolerance is a virtue of civilization which they are hardly in a posi-
tion to appreciate at least for the time being.
Because of the Arabs’ gift for imagining propaganda traps, it is further advis-
able to proceed like the buyer in an antique shop who cunningly avoids mani-
festing a special interest in the object he covets. Statements which treat Russia in
a casual way are likely to meet less resistance than the same statements made up
as major revelations. In voice broadcasts such communications will immedi-
ately assume a more incidental character if they are tied up with, and subordi-
nated to, positive incentives bearing on the West. For instance, information
about agricultural collectives in Iron Curtain countries may emerge as an after-
thought in a report on U.S. farmers. The voice actually takes advantage of this
device.
Printed material should alert the Arabic elite to the game Moscow is playing
and the risk they themselves are running in favoring the enemies of their “ene-
mies.” The odds are that they will be least suspicious of matter-of-fact literature
which aspires to a fair exposure of the conflicting views.—A good way of sus-
taining or arousing anti-Communist moods through documentary films is to
insert in them such footage from Soviet films as is apt to impress Middle-Eastern
audiences unfavorably. It would be difficult for any spectator to deny the authen-
ticity of these self-portrayals. The method has been successfully used in the Nazi
war documentaries and the American army morale films.

2. Progress
The study of Syria, which deals mainly with political attitudes, reaches the con-
clusion that Russian influence is strongest among the minority of those rank-
and-file Syrians who are intense and active psychologically. They may be found
at the extreme left as well as the extreme right; and this implies that they are
impressed not so much by the Russian brand of Communism as by the radical-
ism of Russian practice. What makes them look to Russia is her enormous
drive—one more reason, by the way, for not playing up Communist intransi-
gence in messages to Arabic audiences (see pp. 30–31). Conversely, it is the mod-
erate, emotionally lass intense Syrians who show sympathies for America. The
bulk of them belongs to the middle strata; they outweigh the pro-Russians
numerically. Unlike the latter, these people prefer slow reforms to abrupt social
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 299

changes. Theirs is a middle-class spirit; if they are progress-minded they are so in

a conservative way. All this amounts to saying that in the eyes of the Syrians
America is more or less representative of the status quo while Russia appears to
them as the symbol, if not carrier, of revolutionary events, welcome or not. It lies
in the interest of the energetic radical minority to deepen the image of the U.S.
as a stabilizing power so that palpable social changes will be laid to Russian
rather than American influence. But social changes are needed and bound to
come.

Suggestions
The example of Syria indicates that many people in the Middle East tend to mis-
interpret America’s role in international affairs. Contrary to what they believe,
America does not sustain the status quo but is actually the driving power behind
efforts to improve conditions in all areas of economic distress and illiteracy, and
that the U.S. refrains from interfering in Arabic politics certainly does not mean
that it would side with absentee landowners against poor farmers. Since the
existing tendencies to associate America with stagnation or reaction involve
grave political dangers, it would be important indeed to try to check them. There
is a real need for establishing in the minds an America which favors progress and
initiates change.
Progress means different things to different strata of the population; among
the better educated Greeks cases of apathy caused by disillusionment with
politics are fairly frequent—a fact which makes one suspect that the political
climate there does not precisely encourage progressive ardor (see study of
Greece no. 2, pp. 29–30). In the Middle East proper the necessity for social
reform is generally recognized but the upper strata feel ambivalent about it,
except for Turkey where the leading circles seem genuinely progress-minded.
The Arabic ruling class shies away from sacrifices, financial and otherwise;
and the Arabic professionals have not yet developed a mature sense of social
responsibility, this is illustrated by the Egyptian elite: they combine national-
ist aspirations with a certain interest in economic questions, the result being
that the concerns tend to weaken each other (study of Egypt, pp. 57–59).
Communications for the upper strata should appeal to their instinct of self-
preservation, that is, stress the argument that their chances of survival depend
largely on their willingness to support and carry out measures in behalf of the
submerged populations.
To the lower strata technical; economic and social progress is synonymous
with higher standards of living. Their views of America reveal that they crave
30 0 l Cold War T en si o ns

relief from their hardships but take it by and large for granted that any such
relief is due to outside opportunities rather than efforts of their own. This is a
further argument in favor of the earlier suggestion that messages to them should
feature the theme of self-help (cf. pp. 23–24, 26). The established practice of
referring in radio and print to labor union activities in America and elsewhere
may help sensitize farmers, laborers or workers to the inexorable truth that noth-
ing will change unless they join forces and put up a fight, yet something in them
resists this truth. People of the lower strata are animated by the fear that the
Western concept of progress entails a way of life which jeopardizes their most
cherished traditions and beliefs, Religion and industry seem all but incompati-
ble to them. Prodding is therefore not enough. Or rather, it will be more effec-
tive if it is supplemented by the proposition that progress need not destroy extant
values, nothing is more important than to alleviate the fear of industrialization.
The communicator may utilize examples from American everyday life which
testify to a continued interpenetration of religious convictions and progressive
endeavors. A pamphlet in simple language on this theme would seem desirable.
The impact of modern technology on backward cultures is incomparably pic-
tured in the late Flaherty’s full-length documentary, Louisiana Story. Flaherty
was in love with these cultures. He believed them to be the last remnants of
unspoiled human nature and he was deeply concerned with what would happen
to them after their inevitable exposure to Western capitalism. Since his Louisi-
ana Story holds out the promise of a reconciliation between man and machine,
primitive attitudes and technological requirements, it should be shown through-
out the Middle East. The film is located in the Bayou region, and its hero is a
native youth who by and by comes to terms with a freshly imported oil derrick.

3. U. N. and free-world solidarity

Knowledge about the mechanics of the U.N. and the diverse agencies imple-
menting the American aid program is found exclusively among the elite who
keep track of international news. In the middle strata information of this kind is
rare and foggy. And the poorly educated rural masses have only the faintest idea
of where the radios or tractors they get come from. This state of things, docu-
mented by all studies, must be laid to the existing communications habits as well
as the actual character of the communications themselves. Judging by a small
sample of fairly recent voice broadcasts to Greece, Turkey, and the Arabic
countries, radio information about, say, the World Health Organization or the
Point Four Program seems as a rule to be couched in terms which transmit just
the bare facts on a highly abstract level. It is true that the small amount of radio
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 301

time and the obligation of completeness call for short outs, but it is equally true
that even a trained listener will sometimes find it difficult to realize the practical
consequences of negotiations, decisions end measures imparted to him in such a
way.

Suggestions
Since collective security depends to a large extent on the morale of ordinary
people, systematic efforts should be made to bring the message of free-world
solidarity and America’s tremendous share in it down to the Greek shepherd and
the Lebanese farmer. What counts is to explore the emotional appeal of this
message so as to further the growth of allegiances which go beyond narrow
nationalism. It is a task which demands that the communicator concretize inter-
national cooperation in all media. Nearly all studies insist that concreteness is a
“must” for communications to the lower strata; and of course, the same applies
to communications designed to involve the better educated emotionally. There
is rarely a sample of voice programs that would not include colorless news
items or an indifferent press survey, no doubt choice information is preferable to
such mechanical completeness. Why not weed out the ballast and insert instead
occasional talks which make the U. N. a living affair and the E.C.A. something
people can really grasp? For instance, case histories which follow up a seemingly
lofty decision of an international body from the council chambers to the benefi-
ciaries of that decision in remote villages and suburbs will draw significant
activities out of their anonymity and give the populations at large a sense of
belonging. Incidentally, it would perhaps pay to test the appeal of Walt Whit-
man’s passion for the whole world; the Arabic voice programs seem to indulge
so exclusively in Arabic poems and songs that even the Arabs might welcome a
sample of “Leaves of Grass” for a change—not to speak of the less biased Greeks
or Turks. Pertinent biographical material in radio and print is another means of
enlivening abstract concepts and contexts. To be sure, films are regularly used to
these ends; yet it must also be mentioned that many U. N. and E. C. A. docu-
mentary suffers from oververbalization, an unbearably extroverted commenta-
tor drowning all pictorial appeals that might get under the skin (cf. pp. 13–14).
One of the best E. C. A. films is Adventure in Sardinia which pictures the fight
against malaria.—To sum up, all communications in this line should imbue
plain people but certainly not them alone, with the heart-warming feeling that
free- world solidarity is a palpable reality affecting their everyday lives. Thus,
pale notions of it may develop into deep-rooted beliefs which in turn may make
that reality ever more real.
30 2 l Cold War T en si o ns

iii. communicating with the arabs

a. about regional differences

Indications that different countries require a different approach are already

found in the preceding pages. Of enormous consequence in this respect is the
following difference between the Arabs, on the one hand, and the Greeks and
Turks, on the other. The latter two peoples are favorably disposed toward U.S.
policy regarding their countries while the Arabic peoples, with the sole excep-
tion of Lebanon, are opposed to it.
In Greece the U. S. is very popular. Sympathies for America and the Ameri-
can people thrive in all strata of population, though not in all of them with the
same intensity; the better educated criticize Americans for their lack of culture
and their devotion to materialist values (cf. p. 20). Attitudes toward U.S. for-
eign policy are likewise positive, the sole difference between upper and lower
strata being that the professionals endorse that policy with more reservations
than, say, the farmers (cf. p. 15). Since U.S. firmness in Korea has influenced these
attitudes in a favorable sense, the admission of Greece to N.A.T.O. is likely to
work in the same direction. There is a definite correlation between the image the
Greeks have formed of the American people and the attitude they entertain
toward American policy. And this would justify the assumption that any change
of the image provokes a similar change of attitude; that is, the communicator
will all but automatically improve on the latter if he succeeds in deepening
Greek attachments to the American people (study of Greece, no. 1, pp. 17–19).
A comparison between the studies of Greece and Turkey suggests that in
Turkey pro-American attitudes are slightly more pronounced and slightly less
qualified than in Greece. They are shared by a majority of interviewees on all
educational levels. Only a small minority of Turks voices unfavorable opinions
about America and the Americans, but even these critics are inclined to think of
U.S. policy in positive terms —an attitude which, as in the case of the Greeks,
has certainly been strengthened since Turkey’s incorporation into N. A. T. O.
The prevailing political pro-Americanism, then, goes hand in hand with wide-
spread sympathies for America, and exactly as in the case of Greece, one feels
tempted to assume that an increase of these human sympathies will affect the
political preferences accordingly. In both countries the parallelism of political
and human loyalties lends itself to being exploited by U.S. communications.
Unlike the Greeks and Turks, most Arabs are hostile to U.S. foreign policy.
The difference is complicated by the fact that many better educated Arabs—the
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 30 3

only group to be considered here—show a split in their allegiances. This applies,

for instance, to the scattered voice listeners among the Lebanese elite; all of
them identify themselves with the American character or feel like cultivating
existing bonds between themselves and the U. S., yet their pro-American senti-
ments do not prevent them from criticizing America’s behavior in world affairs
(study of Lebanon, pp. 50–60). In Jordan the same conflict is experienced not
only within the elite but by middle-class people as well (study of Jordan, pp. 68–
71). Or take the few Egyptian professionals who are sufficiently well-balanced to
acknowledge American generosity: in spite of this concession they indulge in
the same political anti-Americanism which characterizes the rest of the Egyp-
tian elite (study of Egypt, pp. 80–81). The facts available warrant the general
statement that most of those better educated Arabs who manifest sympathies
for Americans are nevertheless as opposed to U.S. foreign policy as Arabs lack-
ing such sympathies—perhaps even more so because of their difficult psycho-
logical condition. Their inimical attitude toward America as a political power is
at variance with their friendly image of America as a people. It is therefore
doubtful whether attempts to increase Arabic affinity for the American way of
life will by themselves alone suffice to reduce Arabic hostility to America’s polit-
ical conduct.
In sum, messages fanning good will toward Americans are likely to benefit
political pro-Americanism much more in Greece and Turkey than in the Arabic
countries—always provided, of course, that political conditions do not change.
For instance, in Greece as well as in Syria and Lebanon existing attachments to
America were strengthened by personal contacts with relatives and compatriots
who have settled down in the States. Documentary films about the Greek and
Arabic element in America would certainly vivify these contacts for the native
populations, but the Arabic films should not be expected to improve the Arabs’
political moods. The two country blocs must be treated differently. In commu-
nicating with the influential Arabic elite, adequate political reasoning is the
thing that counts most.

b. special treatment of egypt

To get political arguments across in the Moslem world, these arguments must
strike home with the Egyptians because of Egypt’s leading role in that part of
the world (cf. p. 16). To many Arabs Egypt is something like the promised land.
Two Syrian interviewees praise it for its glamorous civilization, and a Lebanese
304 l Cold War T en si ons

housewife is awed by the high development of its artistic culture (study of

Egypt, pp. 14–15). Political adversaries will be affected only by arguments which
play upon their particular fears and hopes. Hence the necessity of adjusting rel-
evant reasoning to the outlook of the Egyptian elite—especially in communica-
tions for use in Egypt. These people admire the West and are quite aware that
their country depends upon Western know-how for years to come; at the same
time, however, they suffer from the obsession that the West reciprocates their
admiration with unbearable loftiness. And this disregard, real or not, offends
them all the more since they feel it cheapens their exalted standing in the Mid-
dle East, thus reflecting on the whole Arabic cause. Even though the Egyptian
elite do not believe the Americans to be as snobbish as the hated British, they
nevertheless reproach them with being prejudiced against colored people (cf.
p. 16). ‘‘Would my dark color be a handicap to me there?” asks an interviewee
whose misgivings in this respect dampen his desire to live in the US” (study of
Egypt, p. 13). The tribute a woman doctor pays to America’s economic and scien-
tific standards adds to the bitterness of her criticism: “What I cannot under-
stand about them is that they go on talking about human rights and they vio-
late these rights by their marked attitude or hostility toward the colored in
America—especially the Negroes” (ibid., p. 31). Under the impression of West-
ern contempt many Egyptian professionals live in a state of frustration which
accounts for their self-doubts and never-dying suspicions. This shows in their
emotional instability. On the one hand, they are all aglow with Pan-Arabic aspi-
rations on the other, they crave complete westernization— an urge which often
inspires them to learn to speak English fluently, the unadulterated English the
British are speaking, so as to convince the others and themselves that they actu-
ally match those who think they are superior to them (study of Egypt. pp. 21–
23). It is inevitable that this wavering between extremes should lessen their will
power. Their nationalism and their admiration of the West tend to neutralize
each other (cf. pp. 22, 33).

Suggestions
As matters stand, the Egyptian elite will not be inclined to accept American
reasoning unless the communicator succeeds in reducing their sense of frustra-
tion. What has been said in earlier contexts about the need for respectfulness
(pp. 16, 18), applies in particular to this group. All messages reaching the better
educated Egyptians should therefore imply that the U.S. acknowledges Egypt’s
cultural leadership in the Middle East. Since Egypt enjoys prestige all over the
Arabic world, little harm would be done if hints of this kind occasionally
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 305

emerged in the Arabic voice programs. A good place for them is of course the
re-broadcasts to Egypt via Salonika. Favorable reviews, if possible, of Egyptian
achievements in the fields of art and science might help relieve wounded pride.
There is also a change that historical talks about medieval Arabic culture and its
influence on the West will do something for Egyptian self-confidence. Any
communication which thus confirms the Egyptians as Arabs is useful, it cau-
tions them, by indirection, against the danger of alienation inherent in excessive
westernization. Most messages in this line should be entrusted to print rather
than radio for three reasons. First—the familiar argument— voice broadcasts
are limited in time and crowded with obligations; second, Egyptian profession-
als are to all appearances assiduous readers; and finally, not everything told them
need be spread about. What they know about American race bias hurts them
deeply. It would seem advisable to place extensive literature on the American
Negro problem into their hands. This might flatter the Egyptian elite as a symp-
tom of trust in their understanding and also inform them of various efforts to
fight prejudice in the U.S. Perhaps the recent Hollywood films against anti-
Negro bias will lend force to the pamphlets and books, though it should be
added that they lag behind The Quiet One, a full-length documentary about a
Negro boy, in seriousness of intention. Speaking of films, another Hollywood
picture; Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), seems pre-destined to be shown to advanced
Egyptian audiences. It is a comedy which confronts British caste spirit with
American freedom, ridiculing, along with that spirit, the awe it inspires in rich
Middle-Western “socialites.” Everything ends happily, for the English butler,
this incarnation of snobbishness, turns out to be a jolly good fellow.
To say it once more, only in trying to remove the inferiority feelings of the
Egyptian elite can the communicator hope to make these people who are so
influential in the Arabic orbit more amenable to political argumentation.

c. political argumentation

Arabic hostility to American foreign policy is of recent date. Except for the pro-
Russian extremists among the Syrian interviewees, most Arabs trace it to the
odious fact that the U.S. championed the cause of the Jews in Palestine. (It
should be noted in passing that Great Britain’s anti-Jewish policy in those days
seems to have left a much weaker imprint on the Arabs.) A better educated
Egyptian interviewee says: “All the nations of the East loved the Americans, but
after that case (Palestine) they became in doubt of it” (study of Egypt, p. 30).
30 6 l Cold War T en si o ns

And a clerk in Jordan declares that “the United States was very good before,” the
emphasis being on “before” (study of Jordan, p. 68). The hostility, then, has a
temporary rather than enduring character.
Not satisfied with harping upon America’s Palestine policy, many better edu-
cated Arabs condemn the U.S. for having developed into an imperialistic power,
whereby it is not quite clear whether they also interpret that policy itself as an
outcome of imperialism. Be this as it may, they invariably hold that America has
taken a turn for the worse since Palestine. A Ministry of Education official in
Jordan derives the growth of anti-American sentiments among the Arabs not so
much from America’s partiality for the Jews as from her imperialistic drive (but
the two trends may well be identical in his eyes): “The U.S.A., is becoming and
working to be an imperialistic state and thus are losing the love and respect they
had in the hearts of men” (study of Jordan, p. 99). A lawyer, also in Jordan has it
that America’s behavior in world affairs is dictated exclusively by its own inter-
ests which, he feels, “are becoming more Imperialistic than those of Great Brit-
ain itself ” (ibid.). And this leads straight to the suspicion, voiced by many an
Egyptian intellectual, that the U.S. has evolved its whole aid program for the
sole purpose of conquering the international markets (cf. p. 17).
In spite of such verdicts, good will toward America survives from pre-
Palestine times as is illustrated by the numerous Arabs who show sympathies for
Americans while opposing the U.S. politically. Previous remarks on this point
(pp. 39–40) may be supplemented by the observation that the sympathies are
mainly aroused by American kindliness—the qualities of the heart rather than
the brain. As a college-trained interviewee in Jordan puts it: “Americans are very
sincere and simple hearted and to be sincere is too bad because they follow their
hearts and not their heads and as a result they do many foolish actions” (study
of Jordan, p. 100). Some of his less educated compatriots advance similar views,
stressing both their belief in American good heartedness and their disapproval
of America’s political course (ibid., pp. 68, 70). It is the generosity of the Ameri-
can people which attracts the Arabs even now that they are little disposed to
admit such a weakness.
The continued ·existence of these smoldering sympathies accounts for the
widespread opinion that Americans are not intrinsically bad like the British but
act as they do because of their inexperience or immaturity. When for instance a
bank accountant in Jordan says that “the United States are very fresh in world
politics,” he obviously says so out of a rational desire to explain the bad behavior
of people whom he otherwise believes to be likeable (study of Jordan, p. 100).
Explicit references to America’s youthfulness are not infrequent. A Lebanese
voice listener calls the U.S. a “young child” and adds that “it has not been
 Appeals to t he N ear an d Middle East m 307

taking the right steps” (study of Lebanon, p. 59). This notion appears to have
gained foothold among middle-class people in Jordan; a clerk there declares that
Americans ‘are baby politicians so far,” and a less optimistic goldsmith predicts
that they “will always remain children as compared to the British or Russians”
(study of Jordan, p. 69). The goldsmith’s opinion falls into line with several
statements to the effect that the Americans are the dupes of the British master-
minds. In forming this image of America as a sort of adolescent who has been
led astray by a wicked and more experienced friend, the Arabs evidently assign
to themselves the role of old and wise people versed in the ways of the world. Yet
their very condescension indicates that they do not completely dismiss the case.
Except perhaps for the gloomy goldsmith, they seem to cherish the secret hope
that the juvenile delinquent might reform after all.

Suggestions
In view of the fragile situation, political reasoning should conform closely to
Arabic ways of thought. A few preliminary studies are likely to facilitate the
necessary adjustments. It might prove useful, for instance, to inquire into the
political opinions held by Arabic U.S, residents or citizens. Assuming their
opinions on topical issues represent an amalgam of innate Arabic concepts and
half-digested American concepts, much can be learned from them about such
intricate matters as how to twist an argument to make it work and where exactly
to put the emphasis. The study of Egypt advocates an analysis of current politi-
cal writings in the Arabic countries; there is no doubt that this undertaking
would pay dividends. The same holds true of the repeatedly submitted proposi-
tion that the Koran be scanned for fitting quotas and adequate methods of
approach.
Political argumentation itself is primarily faced with the tasks of setting the
Palestine issue in the right perspective and invalidating the Arabic saga of
American imperialism. It has been shown previously that efforts in this direc-
tion would gain little by too heavy a reliance on Arabic sympathies for the
American people (pp. 39–40); many Arabs, especially the better educated among
them, concede that they entertain such sympathies and yet continue to chide
U.S. policy. What counts is to proceed within the political dimension. Instead
of humanizing politics, the communicator should try to convert the human fac-
tor into a political asset. This he might achieve by a line of reasoning which, for
the sake of argument, accepts the Arabic viewpoint that politically Americans
behave like adolescents. Adolescents may commit blunders, but at least they usu-
ally act from generous impulses. Again, it is the Arabs who speak of American
30 8 l Cold War T en si o ns

generosity. Yet if they experience America this way they might as well follow up
the, implications of their experience. One of them is that generosity is some-
thing genuine with Americans. In keeping with their own premises, the Arabs
will have to admit that generosity is one of the essential motives behind U.S.
policy—no matter, for the rest, whether this trait is thought of as interfering
with American self-interest or forming an integral part of it. Once the Arabs
admit that much, they are bound to go a step further and realize two things—
that America’s Palestine policy must also be laid to her generous compassion for
a tormented people and that the talk about American imperialism does not
make sense. Imperialism results from adult passion for power rather than youth-
ful generosity. For Arabs to denounce American aid, including the help to Ara-
bic refugees, as an imperialist maneuver is not only illogical but hardly compat-
ible with their own generosity. Nor can the Arabs, versed in the ways of the
world as they are, possibly mistake expanding business for political expansion-
ism. There still remains the basic objection, however, that the U.S. has grossly
blundered in supporting the Jews against the Arabs. Has it really? Granted that
juvenile impetuosity is sometimes slow in grasping the views of other people and
thus hurts their sensibilities, which is a blunder indeed, yet such rashness need
not be without political vision. Contrary to what a wrathful Egyptian teacher
says—that “Israel is a cancer in the body of the Middle East” (study of Egypt,
p. 60)—Israel stands a fair chance of developing into a ferment of economic and
social progress in the Middle East. This would meet a need recognized by the
Arabs themselves, to be sure, under the present circumstances it is difficult for
the Arabic elite to envisage a modus vivendi with the new state, but even now
their old political wisdom will perhaps tell them that tiny Israel might become a
valuable ally in their fight against Communist infiltration, and here is where
their interest coincides with American interest. It is understood that this sketchy
argumentation is only for background use. Its main purpose is to stimulate
discussion.

Note

1. Something in this line is actually under way—a report on a small sample of VOA
and BBC broadcasts to Greece, which is being prepared for the program Evalua-
tions Branch of the Voice.
 16
Attitudes Toward Various
Communist Types in Hungary,
Poland, and Czechoslovakia

B
ureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia University.
*A paper read at the Annual Meeting of the American Socio-
logical Society held of Urbana, Illinois, September 8–10 1954.
This paper represents one segment of a larger inquiry into the political atti-
tudes and propaganda susceptibilities of non-Communists in countries behind
the Iron Curtain. The segment was selected for presentation here because,
among other things, its findings illuminate an opinion area of Soviet Satellite
life which has generally been neglected in the literature on the subject. They are,
moreover, considerably at variance with the kind of inferences that most Ameri-
cans would probably draw from hitherto available facts about Satellite Commu-
nism. They indirectly demonstrate the danger of imputing to members of
another political milieu the accepted norms of our own political climate.
Specifically, it is perhaps safe to wager that most people who know anything
about the evils and sufferings associated with Satellite Communism would
almost automatically assume that the non-Communist sufferers share inimical
attitudes toward all adherents of their nation’s Communist Party; for it is the
Party, after all, that has been the immediate indigenous instrument of so-called
Popular Democracy in Eastern Europe. But this assumption is proved fallacious
by the data at hand, the data being three hundred intensive interviews with
escapees from Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia. The interviews were con-
ducted abroad by International Research Associates, Inc. (INRA) in late 1951
and early 1952.
Before proceeding further with substance, a few words about method.
Although systematic, it was qualitative in character, supplementing a basically
quantitative study of the same material undertaken by INRA. (1) The
3 10 l Cold War T en si o ns

qualitative portion focused primarily on those responses which were inadver-

tently and disparately evoked, which were not readily amenable to statistical
manipulation, and which bore on five major issues of critical interest:

1. How do the captive non-Communists view both their Satellite regime and
its Communist Party adherents?
2. What are their primary complaints about the regime in action, and con-
versely, are there any Communist accomplishments for which they concede
a measure of admiration or respect?
3. Which are the Communist propaganda themes that appear to have been
most successful, which have proved impotent or self-defeating, and how do
captive peoples defend themselves against Communist propaganda
influence?
4. What are the state and prospects of anti-Communist resistance?
5. How does their basic hope of liberation structure the non-Communists’
perceptions of Western policy and of Western radio reportage of this
policy?

Almost anyone with an interest in foreign affairs would be able to hazard

relatively correct answers to some of these questions. Or, stated otherwise, the
interviews confirm a number of fairly common notions about Satellite life–
especially about the attitudes of non-Communists toward their regime as such.
Whether materially or ideologically motivated, for example, they hate and fear
it. They blame it for a host of economic deprivations. They recognize its system-
atic exploitations of human life. They identify it with an atmosphere of terror
and total insecurity. And they tend to perceive their countries as colonies occu-
pied by Moscow, with the indigenous Communist Party–that is, the regime—
acting as a traitorous tool of the alien Soviet power.
Given the determination of these attitudes, it would superficially seem unrea-
sonable to make an issue of attitudes held toward individual members of the
Communist Party. Ordinarily, it is probably safe to assume that at least the
direction of intensely held monolithic and disciplined group as the Communist
Party will hold firm with reference to most people belonging to that group. And
perhaps the issue would never have arisen were it not for the discovery that so
many respondents un-wittingly alluded to personal friends who were Commu-
nist Party members or to similar friendships back home. This stimulated an
intensive examination of all other interview evidence bearing on the subject.
And the conclusion is that Satellite Non-Communists clearly discriminate
among several types of Party members.
 At t i tudes Toward Various Co mmun ist T y pes m 311

The first breakdown is between “real” or convinced” Communists on the one

hand and nominal Communists who only pretend to Party conviction and loy-
alty on the other. Incidentally, there is substantial evidence that, numerically,
the nominal types predominate in the Party, although to what extent it is impos-
sible to estimate.
Attributes ascribed to the real Communist include a sincere belief in the
Communist gospel as interpreted from Moscow, unconditional loyalty to the
Party, ruthlessness in the performance of Party duties, and complete immersion
in activities that serve the interests of the regime. This is the kind of Communist
that centers in the “hard core” of the Party; and the respondents emphasize that
the captive populations hate him, just as they do the regime itself. Toward the
secret police this hatred is filled with overtones of impotence and dread. An
intelligent Hungarian kulak speaks for many other escapees when he says:
“Nobody knows when a police truck will stop outside his house and arrest the
members of his family. At the beginning only the intelligentsia and the rich
farmers feared this; now, however, this fear concerns all classes.”
The nominal Communists do not constitute a single type, but rather, four
subtypes. Toward each of them, characteristic attitudes are manifest.
The subtype most closely resembling the real Communist in outward behav-
ior is the sheer opportunist, the calculating and unscrupulous careerist motivated
exclusively by self-aggrandizement. Intent upon ingratiating himself with the
powers that be, he is zealous, unprincipled, and persistent in the performance of
the Party work—as long, that is, as there appears to be no real threat to the
regime. But he is a potential turncoat and, according to several respondents, had
already in 1951 begun to hedge against a future fraught with the possibility of
war and Communist defeat. Along with the real Communist, he is both hated
and feared; but he is treated with a kind of loathsome contempt for having “sold
himself to the regime out of vile selfishness” and for his willingness to “denounce
anybody simply to strengthen his position or to get ahead.”
Now we come to those types of nominal Communists who evoke judgements
so at variance with superficial and uncritical expectations. Adopting the lan-
guage of the respondents, we have called them the jobkeeper Communist, the
forced Communist, and the disillusioned Communist.
The jobkeepers, a fairly frequent topic in the interviews, are defined through-
out by three distinct traits. First, as the name implies, they either want to keep
the job they hold or to get one simply for the sake of survival above subsistence
level. They are motivated by reasons of self-preservation and the well-being of
their families. When referring to them, respondents generally agree that they
joined the Party “only in order not to lose their job” or “only to provide daily
3 12 l Cold War T en si o ns

bread for their families.” Second jobkeepers are unanimously characterized as

people who, like the great majority of non-Communists, detest the regime in
whole or part and long for liberation. The testimony is filled with such state-
ments as: “They have the same views as the rest of the nation . . . and wait for
liberation.” Third, while paying formal allegiance to Communism, the jobkeep-
ers restrict their Party activity to a bare minimum: “They are very passive. Once
a week they go to meetings. From time to time, they will shout ‘Long live Stalin’
and carry a Red banner. Then they have a week to rest and don’t take interest in
anything.”
The forced Communist is identical in all respects to the jobkeeper type except
that he joined the Party not to keep or get a job, but under such duress as the
threat of arrest or the withdrawal of ration cards.
The disillusioned Communist is the idealist who originally joined because he
accepted at face value the Party’s professions of faith. Now, with his ideals
betrayed and his expectations shattered, he shares most of the grievances ani-
mating the non-Communists.
The remarkable thing about non-Communist attitudes toward each of these
three nominal Communist subtypes is the lack of animosity displayed. It would
seem natural for escapees to castigate the jobkeeper and the forced Communist,
especially the former, for having yielded to exactly the pressures they themselves
resisted up to the very last. Yet what happens is practically the opposite: in spite
of their intense animus toward the regime, almost all respondents who advance
the subject accept as relatively valid and defensible the reasons that prompted
the jobkeeper and the forced Communist to join the Party. Rather than accus-
ing him of weakness or lack of character, they point to the dilemma he had to
face and show sympathetic understanding of the way he resolved it.
As for the disillusioned Party member, respondents give the impression that
they react to him not only with the tolerance shown the jobkeepers and forced
Communists, but with a sort of camaraderie and respect as well. Jobkeepers,
they seem to feel, should be excused for having made inevitable adjustments;
whereas disillusioned Communists deserve a measure of indulgence for their
original idealism, as well as for their personal integrity which makes them real-
ize and admit what is so profoundly disturbing to any non-Communist–that is,
the frightful discrepancy between promises and practices of the regime. As a
Social Democratic Czech mechanic explains it. “Formerly they were perhaps
convinced Communists. However, they did not become victims of Communist
propaganda preserving for themselves an unbiased judgment and thus realizing
that the Party has deceived them, not fulfilling its promises. They have remained
with the Party only because they are forced to. But as far as their personal
 At t i tudes Toward Various Co mmun ist T y pes m 313

convictions are concerned, they already belong to the anti-Communist camp.”

In the words of another Czech, “now they are just like us.”
Unfortunately, the interviews provide no completely satisfactory explanation
for non-Communist tolerance of nominal party membership. But they do sup-
ply a few clues that would be worth pursuing in any future escapee studies.
First, there appears to be universal awareness that the regime, whenever in its
interest, is determined to make individual economic survival hinge on Party
membership. “If a non-Communist works in a better position, they importune
him politically until he joins the Communist Party: or if he won’t do it, the
remove him from his position and send him . . . to a worse one says a young
Czech. Another recalls that “after February 1948 (when the Communists seized
power in Czechoslovakia) a radical change took place in the average family: the
father was forced to join the Communist Party in order to keep his former occu-
pation.” And a Hungarian small-town musician avers that “Party membership is
decisive . . . even in the field of entertainment . . . Musicians who were Commu-
nist Party members got most of the bookings.” That the respondents are con-
stantly preoccupied with this theme can be inferred from other statements of
this sort as well as from the image–or rather, counter-image–they have of Amer-
ica. Many define the United States as a country where “participation in politics
is not a prerequisite for people’s being able to succeed and to support their fami-
lies,” where “Party membership gives no advantages,” where there is no need for
the worker to join a party and to say things that the party makes him say.” In
short, the terrible lurking alternative of having to turn into a Communist or
being condemned to virtual economic subsistence continues to haunt escapees.
And perhaps their absorption in it moves them to sympathize with friends and
acquaintances who, on the horns of this crucial dilemma, eventually preferred
external adjustment to life in distress. They can afford the sympathy since their
own virtue is intact.
Second, such understanding, feeding on friendships with nominal Commu-
nists, may be vitalized by another, very private experience: more likely than not
various respondents themselves felt tempted to become jobkeepers on occasion.
Actually, only one respondent refers directly to this experience, but since the
interview circumstances did not favor the admission of questionable intentions
his statement may be more representative than its isolated occurrence would
seem to indicate. The respondent in question is an intelligent, twenty-nine-year-
old Pole, who prior to his escape had been “in charge of the stores in a textile
combine.” He is forthright enough to tell about his one-time susceptibility to
Communist allurements. “Ever since 1948,” he recalls, “the members of the fac-
tory council strongly advised me to join the Party. They motivated their advice
3 14 l Cold War T en si o ns

by saying that I was young, capable, and would achieve something. But some-
how, I kept refusing—although I must admit I frequently wanted to join. Only
my wife stopped me. I wanted to join in order to prove the living condition of
my family. I’m married and have a five-year-old child.” Several others mention
situations in which they were encouraged to become party members, in some
cases seeming to protest too much their immediate repulsion of the idea.
Third, it is clear that many of the current non-Communists were themselves,
like the disillusioned idealists, at one time impressed with the lofty rhetoric and
promises of Communism. Indeed, there is considerable stress in the interviews
on the appreciable impact of Communist propaganda during the period imme-
diately subsequent to the Party’s seizure of power. More or less typical is the fol-
lowing statement by a Hungarian worker: “Until 1949 the people still believed
the Communists sometimes. Life was relatively good then and some people
could have thought that even the communists worked for a good-cause.”
Another goes even further when he says that “a great part of the people believed
that Communism would bring good to them.” But references to the initial suc-
cess of Communist propaganda are inevitably followed by assurances that “it
has no influence any more” or that “this belief doesn’t exist anymore.” In short,
people are painfully aware that they have been let down and betrayed by the
regime, just as the disillusioned Communists; so they are in a position to appre-
ciate the latter group’s original motivation as well as its current embitterment.
Fourth, there appears to be general recognition that once committed to the
Party, its members are virtually trapped. A typical remark is: “Once you join the
Party there is no way out.”
Finally, there are two Hungarian-voiced suggestions that tolerance of the
nominal Communists may owe something to the influence of Satellite-beamed
Western radio broadcasts. A railway worker recalls that “plenty of workers
joined the Party when Radio Free Europe advised them not to throw away their
daily bread.” And a knowledgeable businesswoman, herself an ex-member of the
party, says: “From my own experience I know how important it would be if the
Voice of America would sometimes address the well-intentioned Party members
in the way Radio Free Europe already does. This would not only reassure them
but would also encourage them secretly to give much more help to those who are
persecuted.” Even though no other respondent mentions a Western radio in this
vein, it is not improbable that other Satellite radio listeners may have interpreted
something said by Radio Free Europe in the same sense—thereby arriving at the
conclusion that their nominality at least partially excuses some Party members
from the stigma of their formal label.
 At t i tudes Toward Various Co mmun ist T y pes m 315

Each of the above clues offers room for considerable speculation, but their
relative importance can only be gauged by further studies designed to shed light
on the problem of the nominal Communist.
A word in conclusion. Ordinarily, a qualitative study of the kind reported
here is concluded with a deferential bow to precise methods of quantification.
The fashionable thing to say is that of course qualitative studies are only valuable
as a preliminary to rigorous quantitative conclusions. In this case, however, we
feel that in all honesty only a slight and formal bow is necessary. In a sense, the
present study is roughly quantitative; we can say, for example, that of the escap-
ees in our sample who said anything spontaneously about the jobkeeper, the
forced, or the disillusioned Communist, nearly all tolerated or condoned their
behavior. And for any practical conclusions that may be drawn from this par-
ticular finding, that degree of quantification is probably enough.

Reference

1. Richard C. Sheldon and John Duktowski discuss several phases of the project in “Are
Soviet Satellite Refugee Interviews Projectable?,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 16 (Winter
1952/53): 579–94.
 17
Proposal for a Research
Project Designed to Promote the
Use of Qualitative Analysis in
the Social Sciences
i. premises

The ideal of exact science—to arrive at laws and predictions by way of experi-
ment and measurement—has been adopted by many social scientists. Whether
they investigate minority problems, group attitudes toward some topic, or com-
munication contents, they invariably formulate hypotheses enabling them to
break down their material into quantifiable elements. Applied social research is
largely a matter of coding, scoring, counting and tabulating, with much thought
given to statistical technicalities and the reliability of the procedures. Since
social phenomena differ from the subject matter of exact science in that they are
historical entities and as such carriers of unique values and qualities, we may also
define the current major goal of our social sciences as follows: they aim at trans-
forming quality into quantity, at revealing unchanging nature behind ever-
changing history.
Much can be said in favor of this approach. The continuum of social phenom-
ena ranges from cases of highly individual behavior to cases of uniform mass
behavior, and whenever we concentrate on the latter we move through a region
ruled by the law of averages, a region in which many problems of interest lend
themselves readily to quantification and statistical elaboration. And there seems
to be no reason why the same procedures should not be applied as well to the
analysis of intensive interviews, propaganda communications and other more
individual phenomena at the opposite end of the conditions. They too include
characteristics that may profitably be measured and computed; it all depends on
the questions we pose, on the answers we expect. Quantitative analysis is a legiti-
mate attempt to establish a body of strictly objective knowledge in fields where
 Proposal for a Research Project m 317

theory has for a long time indulged in unverified speculations and apparently
uncontrollable, if perhaps cogent, descriptions. It is inevitable that the expo-
nents of a science aspiring to the status of exact science should reject wholesale
what they vaguely call the “impressionist” approach. They indict it for relying on
untouchable “intuition” rather than rational probing, on appropriate evalua-
tions rather than estimates in clear-cut figures.
All this is justified in a way. However, there is sufficient evidence that the
course our social sciences are taking, leads them ever farther away from basic
problems and relevant questions. In their eagerness for statistical accuracy they
lose sight of the driving powers behind our social life, leaving it to the historians
or political scientists to survey expanses in which they themselves are seized
with agoraphobia. Their preoccupation with ever-refined breakdowns makes
them disregard or even overlook anything that cannot neatly be pigeonholed.
Sheer technique threatens to become an end in itself. This shows distinctly in
the treatment of social phenomena conspicuous for their individual features and
approached with a view to bringing them out. It is the kind of job assigned to
content analysis. Take a sample of voice of america broadcasts to some for-
eign country: what matters much is their structure; for instance, do they capital-
ize on the effects that may be produced through an appropriate linkage of the
successive bits of the news they convey? Such effects obviously deepen the impact
of the news items themselves. But because of their involved nature these struc-
tural qualities of the material resist the mechanics of coding and, hence, cannot
be processed in content-analysis fashion. Only qualitative analysis, however,
decried for its alleged “impressionism,” might be able to capture them. In other
words, content analysis is even in this relatively simple case not in a position to
isolate, and account for, vitally important content. Its seeming objectivity is
bought at a price; its very goal prompts it to strip social entities of their individ-
ual fullness. It is certainly no coincidence that current social research deals
largely with problems arising from managerial concerns. How are we to handle
groups or masses for this or that purpose, in this or that situation? In tackling
these problems on the level of collective behavior, quantitative analysis is in its
element, for it need not inquire into the situation or the purpose itself, nor
appraise any of the qualitative factors which emerge on more individual levels.
Quantifying techniques conform perfectly to managerial techniques.
In short, our social sciences are in a critical condition. Their insistence on
emulating exact science threatens them with starvation. Yet the only alternative
left to them would seem to be their surrender to the very impressionism of which
they are trying to rid themselves. Is there a way out of this dilemma? The time
has come, it appears, to take a good look at the foundations of the social sciences.
3 18 l Cold War T en si o ns

We therefore propose a research project reconsidering the conceptions currently

held of quantitative and qualitative analysis. This project should be based on the
following two hypotheses.

ii. hypotheses

First Hypothesis: the breakdown of individual wholes into quantifiable ele-

ments involves a series of subjective considerations which inevitably color the
ensuing measurements, qualifying their objectivity. To verify this hypothesis it
seems advisable to examine the customary procedures of content analysis
because of its special concern with highly individual material. We submit that,
in processing much material, the content analyst is time and again bound to
make assumptions and decisions which cannot deny their “impressionist” ori-
gins. He may happily count the number of times the word “America” occurs in
an editorial, but in doing so he presumably neglects various indirect references
to the concept “America”; evidently, his predilection for the computable must be
traced to the “impressionist” assumption that it is more relevant to the meaning
of the text than those uncomputable references. Or he may decide to score an
attitude under the heading “very favorable” instead of “favorable,” but he would
be blind to qualities indeed were he not, in so deciding, haunted by some of the
scruples inseparable from the “impressionist” approach. Even the tiniest element
challenges the analyst to review the infinite contexts to which it belongs. Each
waterdrop contains a universe.
This is rarely acknowledged, though. Content analysts are not accustomed to
think in terms of qualities, and they follow rules and directives which farther
prevent them from going astray. Yet despite these protective habits and conven-
tions which, of course, make for high reliability, “impressionist” evaluations and
preferences actually persist all down the line. The objectivity of applied social
research and in particular content analysis imitates rather than equals that of
exact science. It is always an exhilarating spectacle to watch rows of tidy figures,
complete with decimals, floating like little islands in an ocean of doubts and
pretending to unattainable exactness. This is said not so much to deprecate
quantifying techniques as to point to their limits. They are extremely valuable
when applied to social phenomena sufficiently primitive and widespread to
admit of quantification without a noticeable loss of quality; they fail to yield
results when applied to highly individual textures.
 Proposal for a Research Project m 319

Second Hypothesis: Qualitative analysis—a convenient designation of her-

meneutic techniques in these fields—is more reliable, more scientific, than the
champions of content analysis are inclined to believe. But having made a bogey
of the “impressionist” approach, they naturally throw the baby out with the
bath and refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of any breakdown that cannot be
presented in tables and charts. It is unfortunate that under the impact of their
preferences, increased by the aversion of most exegetes to concern themselves
with quantifications, qualitative methods have rarely been applied and never
systematically cultivated. There is a palpable lack of pertinent examples: they are
found in scattered books, papers and reports, and till now little attention has
been paid to their far-reaching implications. In the interest of our hypothesis we
will have to study these few existing models. For the moment all that can be said
in its support are the following considerations. Exactly like content analysis,
qualitative analysis proceeds to break down a given whole into small elements or
units; thus enabling us to disentangle the fabric of its qualities and compare
them with those other, similar wholes. But unlike content analysis, it is not pri-
marily interested in matters of quantification. Some of the elements at which it
arrives may be quantifiable and therefore should by all means be coded, scored
and computed; others, as has been exemplified above, obstruct any attempt at
numerical formulation. What counts alone in qualitative analysis is the selec-
tion and rational organization of such small elements as are expressive of the
essentials of the whole.
But how can we find out about these essentials without collapsing into plain
subjectivism? The danger is not so great as it appears. For even though such sub-
jective factors as the analyst’s philosophical viewpoints, political convictions,
etc. unavoidably influence his conception of the whole he is analyzing, they will
to a large extent be naturalized in the process. Whether or not he states them
overtly from the outset—he should indeed—they are bound to leak out anyway.
And once the cards are on the table, these influences and their distorting effects
can in a measure be controlled and discounted. For the rest, access to the essen-
tials of social entities depends upon familiarity with anything that might have
contributed to their emergence, a sense of history, a flair for ideological currents,
and some experience of human behavior—not to forget the greatest virtue of all:
circumspection in weighing and balancing against each other the various data
assembled.
We submit that these abilities can be taught to the degree to which they are
needed for the purpose at hand, and that it is equally possible to train students
in the successive operations that lead from the first rough scheme of analysis to
3 20 l Cold War T en si ons

its satisfactory completion. The skills involved in carrying out mental experi-
ments or imagining possible alternatives are as teachable as are the skills of a
flyer. No “intuition” of the kind dreaded by content analysts is required to trace
and make evident the structural characteristic of voice of america broad-
casts, despite their allergy to statistical procedures; nor is it likely that different
qualitative analysts will account for them in different ways.
In fact, we contend that on many occasions the evaluations of qualitative
analysis exceed the measurements of quantitative analysis in reliability and pre-
cision. The reason is that the latter, in its desire to reach the haven of statistics,
often simplifies or obscures aspects of the material which are a genuine concern
of the former. But how can we ascertain the validity of qualitative findings?
Qualitative analysis insists on making evident any of its results; it aims at inclu-
sive objectivity, the very objectivity which is aspired to in the humanities. To be
sure, it does not, and can not, provide the evidences of exact science; yet this
kind of evidence is unattainable to content analysis also.

iii. suggestions

At this early stage a detailed blueprint would seem premature. We prefer to

offer, for further discussion, a few scant hints concerning the execution of the
planned project and its specific aims.
The first step, we suggest, is to assemble and analyze existing examples of
qualitative analysis, with a view to codifying the methods used in them. In a way
it is a preparatory step.
We suggest that research itself be conducted in close connection with a large-
scale project involving diverse quantifying techniques, especially content analy-
sis—a project of the kind carried out by Columbia’s Bureau of Applied Social
Research and similar institutions.
From beginning to end an intimate working community should be estab-
lished between the staffs of the two projects, thus affiliated, so that the research-
ers engaged in qualitative pursuits are in a position continually to compare notes
with those in charge of quantifications.
Finally we suggest a staff which, if possible, does not exclusively consist of
social science students. It might be a good idea to include a historian and per-
haps a psychologist.
Provided research is organized in this way, we shall be able
 Proposal for a Research Project m 321

1) to examine, step by step, quantifying procedures from the angle of qualita-

tive analysis and, perhaps, to define their inevitable limitations;
(Some pertinent problems: Is there a point beyond
which the measurements of content analysis turn
out to be meaningless? What portion of the
material lends itself to statistical elaboration
and what portion does not? Etc.)
2) to undertake a qualitative analysis of each parts of the material as demon-
strably elude the grasp of the affiliated project;
3) to train the staff, prior to and during this undertaking, in qualitative tech-
niques for the purpose of testing out contention that they are teachable;
4) to study, in collaboration with the staff of the affiliated project, the method-
ological and practical implication of this whole experiment—in particular
the problem of how qualitative and quantitative analysis might complement
each other in future social research.
 18
The Challenge of Qualitative
Content Analysis

Q
tions research.
uantitative analysis has many limitations. In this paper, Siegfried
Kracauer proposes that qualitative analysis may be a more
fruitful procedure in some stages of international communica-

Siegfried Kracauer, formerly a prominent journal editor in Germany, has

published widely in the field of communications research. He is presently com-
pleting a book on the aesthetics of the film.
This paper submits three propositions regarding the significance of qualita-
tive exegesis for communications research:

1. One-sided reliance on quantitative content analysis may lead to a neglect of

qualitative explorations, thus reducing the accuracy of analysis.
2. The assumptions underlying quantitative analysis tend to preclude a judicious
appraisal of the important role which qualitative considerations may play in
communications research. Hence the need for theoretical reorientation.
3. The potentialities of communications research can be developed only if, as
the result of such a reorientation, the emphasis is shifted from quantitative
to qualitative procedures.

QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS MAY REDUCE ACCURACY

Overemphasis on quantification tends to lessen the accuracy of analysis. Con-

tent analysis is frequently obliged to isolate and process the more intricate
 Q ua li tat i v e Con t en t A na lys i s m 323

characteristics of a sample; and whenever this happens it runs the risk of treating
them inadequately. Quantitative analyses for example, commonly attempt to
determine the “direction” of a communication, i.e., the extent to which it is
“for,” “against,” or “neutral” in regard to a given subject. In such instances cod-
ing is often performed on the basis of a graded scale which defines a continuum
ranging from “very favorable” to “very unfavorable,” from “very optimistic” to
“very pessimistic,” or the like. Some quantitative analysts admit, however, that
despite such scales, direction “is not always easily analyzed in an objective fash-
ion.”1 The actual rating of a given unit of the communication on one or another
step of the continuum still involves qualitative considerations which may bear
on the whole of the communication. Unless the communication is a peculiarly
one-dimensional affair, these assessments require a great deal of circumspec-
tion and delicacy. In quest of reliability, the quantitative analyst may—and fre-
quently does—therefore introduce elaborate directives, to permit selected cod-
ers to arrive at highly reliable decisions. Such a breakdown of a complex
direction continuum into relatively elementary scales inevitably invites simplifi-
cations apt to blur the picture. They render arbitrary, for example, the real gap
between “very favorable” and “favorable”; and they place under one uniform
cover (e.g., “favorable”), a great variety of treatments whose differences are per-
haps highly relevant to the purposes of the analysis.
At this point the objection may be raised that it is possible to attain any
degree of precise distinction by introducing sufficiently subtle scales in sufficient
number. Coders might be trained, for example, to distinguish between matter-
of-fact neutralism and well-balanced neutralism. Yet even the most refined tools
of measurement may not enable the analyst to reconstruct the direction of the
original communications. His rigidly atomistic data are likely to preclude infer-
ences as to the way in which the data are interrelated. Significantly, it is this very
interrelationship which often contributes largely, and sometimes definitively, to
determine the direction of the overall text. Gestalt psychologist or not, any liter-
ary critic knows that, due to their organization, communications often move in
a “direction” at variance with what a computing of the directions of their ele-
ments would yield. In such cases precise quantification, used alone, will actually
encourage inaccurate analysis.
Of course, it is theoretically conceivable that the content analyst might suc-
ceed in quantifying the interrelationships between the “plus” and “minus” units
of the communication, and so be enabled to measure direction correctly. But
such a procedure would necessarily involve categories in such number and of so
refined a nature that the incidence of their use would often be minute. Since,
with the decrease of sizable frequencies, qualitative appraisals play a larger role
324 l Cold War T en si ons

in interpretation anyway, there is no reason why such cumbersome quantitative

techniques should be preferred to qualitative exegesis proper. At best they would
lead, in a very roundabout way, to what the latter could disclose without unnec-
essary complications. Quantitative analysts in fact recognize the danger of
“over-fine” categorization, and continually caution against it. And yet to avoid it
is to run the risk of oversimplifying the more intricate characteristics of many
communications.
Direction is by no means the only contextual characteristic which resists a
breakdown into easily countable components or even the development of “indi-
cators” that permit the unambiguous, let alone exhaustive, identification of such
components. Suggested procedures are often inadequate. Berelson, for example,
suggests that “sophistication” can be quantitatively analyzed by “the indicator of
the amount of qualifications appearing in the content (‘on the other hand,’ ‘how-
ever,’ ‘although’).”2 Even granted that the indicator “qualification” is an adequate
index of the particular form of sophistication in the given text (and certainly this
could not be true for all texts), the number of qualifications still need not indicate
the degree of sophistication, which might rather depend, for example, on the intrin-
sic nature of the qualifications themselves. The analyst might, of course, break
down their “nature” itself into quantifiable elements, but such a procedure would
lead straight to the dangerous complications already discussed.
Since most communications include intricate characteristics, and since many
of the hypotheses which prompt analysis cannot help drawing on them, it would
appear that many quantitative investigations include frequency counts which
rest on uncertain ground. Yet once the figures are secured from the material,
they are as a rule taken for granted; in fact, the analysis often uses them as a base
for statistical elaborations. Probabilities are calculated; correlations are estab-
lished and interpreted. Since these operations evolve on a mathematical plane—
that is, without further recourse to the content analyzed—it is possible that
their results are more inaccurate and oblique and less truly representative of the
communication than are the doubtful counts from which they take root.

THE ASSUMPTIONS OF QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS PRECLUDE

QUALITATIVE CONSIDERATIONS

Among the assumptions underlying quantitative analysis two are of special

interest in that they tend to preclude a judicious appraisal of the role which qual-
itative consideration might play.
 Q ua li tat i v e Con t en t A na lys i s m 325

There is first the basic assumption that, due to its quantifications and counts,
quantitative analysis is the only possible objective systematic and reliable analy-
sis of content. Many researchers consider this as axiomatic.3
The second assumption which is relevant restricts the meaningful application
of quantitative techniques to communications whose manifest content does not
lend itself to being interpreted in different ways. Berelson, for example,
proposes:
“If one imagines a continuum along which various communications are
placed depending upon the degree to which different members of the intended
audience get the same understandings from them, one might place a simple news
story on a train wreck at one end (since it is likely that every reader will get the
same meanings from the content) and an obscure modern poem at the other
(since it is likely that no two readers will get identical meanings from the con-
tent). . . . The analysis of manifest content is applicable to materials at the end of
the continuum where understanding is simple and direct, and not at the other.
Presumably, there is a point on the continuum beyond which the ‘latency’ of the
content (i.e., the diversity of its understanding in the relevant audience) is too
great for reliable analysis.”4
These assumptions put communications research, particularly applied com-
munications research, in an awkward position. While it may be able to avoid
obscure poems, it is much concerned with texts in which latent meanings not
only pervade the manifest content, but also are intricately related to the objec-
tives for which the analysis is undertaken. Such latent elements may strongly
resist quantification, and occasionally the quantification is actually foregone.
For example, the Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia University
bases its recent studies of communications habits along the Soviet periphery on
interviews which involve the respondents’ total life to such an extent that practi-
cally no word in the interview record is free of multiple connotations. Accord-
ingly, the studies do not confine themselves to quantitative measurements but
also analyze, in purely qualitative terms, the intrinsic essence of certain inter-
views, the possible significance of deviant attitudes, etc. That these qualitative
explorations are often touched off by statistical accounts should not blind one to
the cases in which they expose unique characteristics without regard for fre-
quencies and the like. All in all, the nonquantitative part of the studies enjoys
relative independence, in keeping with the character of both the interviews and
the various hypotheses bearing on them. Analysts of international communica-
tions have likewise often found themselves in need of qualitative procedures.
When an area specialist, for example, is asked to estimate the presumable effec-
tiveness of certain themes and of the devices employed to get them across, he is
3 26 l Cold War T en si o ns

forced to focus on characteristics and interrelations which it would be meaning-

less to count because of their highly individual nature.
It is inevitable that the champions of quantitative analysis should regard such
nonquantitative explorations as precarious adventures in uncontrollable intu-
ition rather than procedures of verifiable research. The common objection to
these procedures is that they are “impressionistic,” “unobjective,” and lacking in
“verifiable evidence.” Such criticism follows logically from the basic assumptions
of quantitative analysis. But what about the assumptions themselves?

THE ASSUMPTIONS EXAMINED

There is little doubt that quantitative analysis is meaningful if it keeps to com-

munications at the extreme end of the continuum defined by descriptions of
train wrecks and similar events. There intricate characteristics hardly enter the
picture; should such a category as “direction” be needed at all, it would have to
cover only the most elementary pros and cons. And their frequency counts are of
major importance. Within this border region quantitative analysis is indeed the
only objective, systematic, and reliable procedure of analysis. (It is not, however,
necessarily exhaustive. If, for example, the content is set in historical perspec-
tive, its “latency” will immediately increase so that quantitative procedures no
longer suffice to describe it adequately.)
Yet quantitative analysis does not confine itself to inquiring into these
extreme cases. It is often applied to content somewhere along the continuum,
content which, though not as obscure as the modern poem, is nevertheless more
involved and allusive than the reports at the opposite pole. In addition, such
investigations may seek to trace attitudes and interests of population groups, to
determine the psychological states of persons and groups, to discover stylistic
features—purposes which force the investigator to examine characteristics
rarely found in the train-wreck region. But if quantitative analysis expands
beyond the confines set up by one of its underlying assumptions—thus running
all the risks discussed in the first section of this article—then the other basic
assumption that it is the only objective and reliable analysis of content cannot be
upheld either. As currently practiced, quantitative analysis is more “impression-
istic” than its champions are inclined to admit. All of them, incidentally, readily
grant the need for qualitative reasoning in the initial stages of category forma-
tion.5 They more rarely admit, however, that the quantification processes
 Q ua li tat i v e Con t en t A na lys i s m 327

themselves often require much conjecturing which is not in actuality tied to

objective, impersonal definitions.
A recent “quantitative” analysis of Voice of America and BBC broadcasts
classifies the “style” of contextual units as “matter-of-fact,” “mildly emotional,”
and “highly emotional.” Granted that this particular classification was labelled
as experimental and the data as merely suggestive, it is nevertheless significant
that the quantitative analysts made the classification “mainly with reference to
value-laden terms,”6 the emotional intensity of which they attempted to assess.
Certainly no procedure could be more impressionistic. In addition, quantifica-
tion by this particular indicator promotes a peculiarly fragmentary view of
style. For certainly the very absence of value-laden terms in, for example, a
sober announcement of the fall of a city, an army, or an individual may consti-
tute a “matter-of-factness” which is in effect highly emotional.
The example is not unique. Numerous quantitative analyses are similarly
threaded with impressionistic judgments. And these judgments may in fact be
more unaccountable than those found in communications studies of a predom-
inantly qualitative nature. For within the framework of quantitative analysis,
qualitative exegesis is condemned to playing a black sheep role. Recognized
mainly as a means to arrive at suitable quantifications, its use in analysis proper
is regarded as shameful, and may in fact be pursued with guilty haste and lack
of discipline. This explains why the qualitative considerations on which most
content analysis studies must draw for classification so often fail to penetrate
the given text. Being no end in themselves, they threaten to turn into opinion-
laden short cuts. The reproach of impressionism which determined quantita-
tive analysts direct against nonquantitative insight thus tends to boomerang.
Quantitative analysis is in effect not as objective and reliable as they believe it
to be.

POTENTIALITIES OF THE QUALITATIVE APPROACH

Since quantitative analysis proves to be inadequate to describe more involved

communications, it would seem advisable to inquire into the prospects of an
analytical approach which emphasizes qualitative rather than quantitative pro-
cedures. Can we assume that such an approach is more adequately descriptive?
And, if so, what of its scientific relevance? Will its “impressionism,” its “inevita-
ble lack of objectivity,” nullify the advantages it may otherwise offer?
3 28 l Cold War T en si o ns

Before considering these questions, it should be emphasized that the terms

“qualitative analysis” and “quantitative analysis” do not refer to radically differ-
ent approaches. Quantitative analysis includes qualitative aspects, for it both
originates and culminates in qualitative considerations. On the other hand,
qualitative analysis proper often requires quantification in the interest of exhaus-
tive treatment. Far from being strict alternatives the two approaches actually
overlap, and have in fact complemented and interpenetrated each other in sev-
eral investigations.7
Qualitative analysis by definition differs from quantitative analysis in that it
achieves its breakdowns without special regard for frequencies. What counts
alone in qualitative analysis—if the verb is permissible in a context which defies
counting—is the selection and rational organization of such categories as con-
dense the substantive meanings of the given text, with a view to testing pertinent
assumptions and hypotheses. These categories may or may not invite frequency
counts. In order to demonstrate the greater adequacy of qualitative analysis to
communications which exceed straight reporting, these two possibilities will be
dealt with separately.

QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS AND FREQUENCY COUNTS

In the case of categories which do invite frequency counts, there is no real differ-
ence between the qualitative and quantitative approaches. In theory, both might
produce identical classifications. And yet the odds are that the qualitative ana-
lyst will be the less inhibited of the two in discovering countable characteristics.
As Berelson points out, qualitative studies usually focus not so much on the con-
tent of a communication as rather on its underlying intentions or its presumable
effects on the audience; “quantitative analysis” on the other hand, “is more likely
to focus first upon the straight description of the content itself, if for no other
reason because of the amount of energy devoted to the counting procedure.”8
The more involved communications, however, reverberate with so many latent
meanings that to isolate their manifest content and describe it in a “straight”
manner is not only almost impossible, but can hardly be expected to yield sig-
nificant results. Such a focus on manifest content everywhere implies a naive
extension of the limits implicit in the assumption, per se legitimate, that quanti-
tative techniques are meaningful at the train-wreck end of the continuum. This
explains why the qualitative analyst is in a better position than the quantifier to
trace relevant characteristics which admit of frequency counts. Free of any
 Q ua li tat i v e Con t en t A na lys i s m 329

biasing prepossession with manifest content, the qualitative analyst explores the
whole of the content in quest of important categories. And since he devotes all
his energies to this quest, he stands a good chance of coming inadvertently across
frequency categories which might have eluded his grasp had he been preoccu-
pied with quantifications at the outset. People often find in passing the very
things they have sought in vain.
Examples bearing out these observations are extremely rare because practi-
cally no texts have been subjected to independent analyses of both the quantita-
tive and qualitative type. It is perhaps relevant, however, to note that although
quantitative analyses have occasionally attempted to employ categories dealing,
at least experimentally, with presumed effects, such categories have dealt almost
exclusively with manifest aspects of atomistic units of the texts. The previously
cited category of “style” in international communications is a case in point.
Qualitative analyses of similar material have also framed quantifiable categories
dealing with the “structure” of the text as a whole, i.e., the linkage, manifest or
latent, which makes the atomistic units a Gestalt. Such freedom to seek and use
quantifiable categories of latent content has, at least to date, been almost exclu-
sively characteristic of qualitative exegesis.
Thus, qualitative analysis steals a march over quantitative analysis in fields
common to both—i.e., in regard to categories which do invite frequency
counts. But by virtue of its ability to use non-quantifiable frequencies, qualita-
tive exegesis also penetrates textual dimensions which are completely inaccessi-
ble to quantitative techniques. An example of the limitations placed on quanti-
tative analysis may be found in Berelson’s statement that “Whenever one word
or one phrase is as ‘important’ as the rest of the content taken together, quanti-
tative analysis would not apply.”9 Qualitative exegesis would; and it would make
its breakdowns hinge on this one word or one phrase. As a case in point, let us
suppose that an international communicator wished to ascertain whether his
texts evidenced respect for the audience. A good indicator of this characteristic,
though certainly not the only one, is the way in which the communicator refers
to his listeners. It is immediately evident, however, that neither the relative num-
ber of laudatory and critical references, nor distinctions between “moderate”
and “excessive” praise or blame will give any valid picture of the degree of esteem
in which the audience is actually held. Frequency counts will reveal the amount
of different modes of praise or blame, but since any mode may spring from vari-
ous psychological sources, the counts are unlikely to yield information about the
characteristic “respect” itself. The absence or presence of respect could obviously
be better inferred from the manner in which the positive and/or negative refer-
ences to the audience are interwoven; recognizable patterns of reference would
3 30 l Cold War T en si ons

no doubt appear in the communication. Qualitative exegesis would attempt to

bare these patterns and assess their presumable significance for the characteris-
tic under consideration. This particular task would be facilitated by the com-
mon awareness that certain familiar patterns of interwoven praise and/or
censure—”ideal types” in Max Weber’s sense—are symptomatic of respectful or
disrespectful conduct. For instance, a balanced mixture of friendly approval and
frank censure, both being voiced on fitting occasions, would clearly indicate
that the communicator is treating his audience as he would a friend or peer;
conversely, a pattern of abrupt alternation between extreme praise and harsh
criticisms or threats would indicate that the communicator was bluntly trying
to manipulate the minds of his audience, which in turn would indicate his low
opinion of their independence and dignity. It is particularly to be noted that
one single instance of such a configuration of statements would suffice to color
the entire communication. In reference to such characteristics, frequency
counts are of little relevance. What is relevant are the patterns, the wholes,
which can be made manifest by qualitative exegesis and which can throw light
upon a textual characteristic which is allergic to quantitative breakdowns.
Unlike quantitative techniques, which draw guiltily upon hasty and incom-
plete impressionistic judgments, qualitative analysis is frankly and resolutely
impressionistic. And it is precisely because of its resolute impressionism, that
qualitative analysis may attain to an accuracy which quantitative techniques,
with their undercurrent of impressionistic short cuts, cannot hope to achieve.
Carrying its explorations beyond the point at which many content analysis inves-
tigations prematurely stop, as if fearful of drifting too far from the secure haven
of statistics, qualitative exegesis is indeed capable of classifications and descrip-
tions which conform far more closely to the texts than those commonly produced
by quantitative analysis. The relative capabilities and limits of these two
approaches are nowhere better manifested than in the frequent failure of full-
blown quantitative studies to achieve the brilliant promise of their pilot or
exploratory stages. The pioneering steps, performed on a small sample, invite
attention to unique traits which are perhaps manifest in only one single configu-
ration of statements. The insight into wholes which these unique patterns pro-
vide gives rise to observations and hypotheses of unusually rich relevance. The
pilot study is, in fact, a model of qualitative exactitude and circumspection. But
in the fuller study which follows, the development and testing of these rich
hypotheses is entrusted to systematic quantification, in which both infrequencies
are deemphasized, and the original overtly impressionistic and accurate insights
are not developed for lack of the very spirit in which they were conceived.
 Q ua li tat i v e Con t en t A na lys i s m 331

DISCIPLINED SUBJECTIVIT Y

One might ask, of course, whether the superior precision attained by qualitative
procedures is not bought at too high a price. For it is true that qualitative analy-
sis, being inevitably subjective, cannot ascertain the accuracy and validity of its
findings in the manner of an exact science. One and the same topic may invite
different qualitative appraisals of almost equal plausibility; and no accumula-
tion of evidence will determine, in an objective way, which is closer to truth. But
though there is no objective truth in this field, the lack of it does not entail law-
lessness; qualitative analysis is not a discipline that admits arbitrary specula-
tions. The believers in exact science among the social scientists are inclined to
exaggerate, along with the objectivity of quantitative analysis, the dangers which
qualitative techniques incur because of their subjectivity. Any historical period
produces only a limited number of major philosophical doctrines, moral trends
and aesthetic preferences, and if qualitative analysis operates, as it should, below
the level of sheer opinion, these influences can be discerned and controlled.
Moreover, communications which are sufficiently outspoken to canalize the
imagination usually prove a powerful factor in bringing about a convergence of
viewpoints and approaches. It is therefore a reasonable guess that different ana-
lysts will arrive at similar conclusions with regard to many texts. An experiment
to test the guess is now being designed.
Finally, one may legitimately ask whether communications research, as such,
should really try to match exact science. Documents which are not simply
agglomerations of facts participate in the process of living, and every word in
them vibrates with the intentions in which they originate and simultaneously
foreshadows the indefinite effects they may produce. Their content is no longer
their content if it is detached from the texture of intimations and implications
to which it belongs and taken literally; it exists only with and within this tex-
ture—a still fragmentary manifestation of life, which depends upon response to
evolve its properties. Most communications are not so much fixed entities as
ambivalent challenges. They challenge the reader or the analyst to absorb them
and react to them. Only in approaching these wholes with his own whole being
will the analyst be able both to discover and determine their meaning—or one
of their meanings—and thus help them to fulfill themselves. Far from being an
obstacle, subjectivity is in effect indispensable for the analysis of materials which
vanish before our eyes when subjected to a treatment confounding them with
dead matter. Quantitative analysis is not free of such nihilistic influence. Many
332 l Cold War T en si ons

quantitative investigations in effect mark the spot where a misplaced desire for
objectivity has failed to reveal the inner dynamics of an atomized content.
One final suggestion: a codification of the main techniques used in qualita-
tive analysis would be desirable.

Notes

1. Bernard Berelson, Content Analysis in Communications Research (Glencoe, IL:

Free Press, 1952), 151.
2. Berelson, Content Analysis in Communications Research, 163.
3. Berelson states: “By definition, content analysis must be objective” (171).
4. Berelson, 9–20.
5. Thus, Berelson and Lazarsfeld suggest that the analyst try to formalize into catego-
ries his “general subjective impressions” of the content, and that he then put the
formulations aside and later come back to them afresh. Bernard Berelson and
Paul F. Lazarsfeld, The Analysis of Communication Content (New York: Bureau of
Applied Social Research, 1948), 115–17.
6. Marie Jahoda and Joseph T. Klapper, “From Social Bookkeeping to Social
Research,” in this issue of Public Opinion Quarterly, 623–30.
7. E.g., the previously cited studies of communications behavior along the Soviet
periphery; also Löwenthal’s study, “Biographies in Popular Magazines” and Arn-
heim’s “World of the Daytime Serial,” in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton,
eds., Radio Research I942–I943 (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pierce, 1944).
8. Berelson, Content Analysis in Communications Research, 122.
9. Berelson, 20.
 19
On the Relation of Analysis
to the Situational Factors
in Case Studies

T
his memorandum should not be considered a full-fledged paper.
It is the draft of an argument designed to serve as a basis for
discussion.
The following observations—which, incidentally, are not the only ones I had
an opportunity to make during my activities as a “roving” consultant to the
Bureau since July 1957—center around two topics:

1. The degree of awareness of the generality level attained in case studies and
multiple case studies.
Instances of such studies are the drug study, several medical profession
studies, etc. To simplify matters, the term “case study” will also be applied to
research on multiple cases wherever a misunderstanding is likely.
2. The degree of consideration given in analysis to “situational” factors.1
“Situational” factors or determinants are factors which account for the
peculiar character of the case or the cases analyzed. This concept refers
mainly, if not exclusively, to “sociological” factors—determinants, that is,
which comprise structural or functional characteristics of the case on hand,
economic and political conditions obtaining at the time of data collections,
historical influences, etc. Often these determinants are not traceable to the
properties, psychological or otherwise, of the individual respondents, in
which case they seem to be identical with what Lazarsfeld-Mensel in their
paper, “On the Relation Between Individual and Collective Properties,” call
“global collective properties.”2
The sum of situational factors relevant to a case may loosely be called the
“total situation” at the time and place from which the material issues. (The
3 34 l Cold War T en si o ns

total situation plays a role not only in case studies proper but in national
surveys as well. This is illustrated by comparative studies on an international
scale, such as Lipset-Bogoff’s planned study of social mobility in the U. S.
and Europe;3 they tend to bring out, for each of the nations compared, situ-
ational determinants not considered in the analysis of the national samples
themselves.)
My basic assumption is that, in order to fully define a case under investi-
gation, attention must be paid to the situational factors bearing on it; alto-
gether they determine its position in the social process.

II.

There are case studies which manifest a strange ambiguity regarding the level of
generality reached in them. An interesting example is the drug study. Of course,
Coleman-Mensel sharply define the range of their data4—four Illinois cities east
of the Mississippi and north of the Mason and Dixon line, none under the
shadow of a leading medical center and the largest not exceeding the 100,000
mark. Moreover, the investigators never forget to localize their material (and, I
should like to add, they remain acutely aware of the practical purpose analysis is
to serve). So far the study is clearly circumscribed and well in focus. All the more
striking is the vague manner in which the issue of generality is treated. Coleman-
Mensel declare that.
The major reasons for carrying out a study like this is to give knowledge about
the way doctors generally come to incorporate a medical innovation in their
practice. Yet the study was necessarily restricted to a single group of doctors and
single medical innovation. Generalization to other doctors and to other medical
innovations must be done with caution. From the present study it is impossible
to know just how generally the results found here do hold true for other doctors
and other innovations. (Intr.-15)
Then they say that, thanks to multi-variate analysis with its emphasis on rela-
tionships between variables, their findings “are quite likely to be valid for other
generally similar populations and situations” (ibid.).5
What exactly does this mean? If I am not mistaken, it means that their find-
ings do not apply generally or do apply only under very specific conditions—a
certain geographical region, no leading medical center nearby, cities with
100,000 at most, etc. In other words, the hoped-for generality turns out to be
an illusion; it covers only counterparts of the sample itself. Nevertheless,
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 335

Coleman-Mensel call generality the major reason for carrying out their study.
On the one hand, they believe in generalizations if they are done with
“caution”—a somewhat nebulous directive; on the other, they cut down gener-
ality to a minimum.

III.

Their wavering in this respect is symptomatic of many a case study. But before
submitting further examples, I wish to advance the following proposition: in
case studies the degree of awareness of the generality level is contingent on the
degree of consideration given to the sociological factors. The less the latter are
taken into account—what this means will be seen shortly—the more the issue
of generality is likely to be blurred. (Of course, the reverse holds true also.) This
proposition is almost self-evident; roughly speaking, a research analyzing the
data of a case or a group of cases cannot ascertain the extent to which his find-
ings are more generally valid unless he knows something, and does something
about the determinants operative at the locus of his material. Lack of regard for
them inevitably entails the kind of haziness instanced above. At this point a new
terminological distinction suggests itself—that between “oriented” and “unori-
ented” case studies. The former tries to relate their variables to the total situa-
tion, whereas the latter do not sufficiently consider the impact of local influence
and in consequence leave the degree of generality of their results in the open.
Whenever the tendency toward unoriented research asserts itself, it is as if
research evolved in a vacuum.
At first glance, the drug study does not seem to confirm my propositions. As
I mentioned above, Coleman-Mensel refer throughout to the locus of their
material (and, in addition, gear analysis to a practical purpose); and yet, contrary
to what should be expected if the proposition were true, they make ambivalent
statements about the range of validity of their findings. Now I believe it possible
to show that, appearances notwithstanding, their wavering results exactly from
the reason I indicated—a neglect of the situational determinants. To be sure,
the investigators are constantly aware of their point of departure; their study is
and remains a study of smaller cities remote from a leading medical school. But
the fact that they keep the circumstances conditioning their sample in mind
does not necessarily imply that they also consider, and explore for their research
operations, relevant components of the total situation. There is more psychology
than sociology in the study. Just to illustrate what I mean, the variable “social
336 l Cold War T en si o ns

friendships between doctors” might have been related to an assumption about a

“collective property” of cities which have only 100,000 inhabitants or less. Per-
haps in such cities of limited size the professionals of this or that denomination
is more in need of informal relations among each other than in the larger cities
with their multiple social outlets. Considerations of this possibility would have
established a connection between the size of the population and the importance
of social friendships and thus helped localize the latter in sociological terms. So
far as I remember, Colesman-Mensel in their descriptions of the sample do not
attempt to account for the ration between the number of doctors in each of the
four cities? More likely than not, the degree of saturation plays a role in the flow
of information about a new drug; consequently, it might have paid to “opera-
tionalize” this sociological rather than psychological concept.
Other studies are even less “local-minded” than the technically superb drug
study. Take Wagner Thielens’ “Some Comparisons of Entrants to Medical and
Law School,”6 based on a sample from one Eastern medical and on Eastern law
school:
The findings reported here, says Wagner Thielens, cannot, of course, be
assumed to hold beyond the scope of the two schools, since without additional
categories we do not know to what extent they must be interpreted only in terms
of local situations within the two schools. But it is tentatively assumed that con-
ditions obtaining more generally are reflected at least in part of these findings
(“The Student-Physician,” 131).
In contrast to the accuracy of his comparisons, Wagner Thielens’s “tentative”
assumption is surprisingly casual and vague. Add to this that he does not really
care about the “local situations within the two schools.” In the summary of his
findings no mention is anymore made of their limited generality; as a matter of
fact, they are represented in such a way that they almost look like results of gen-
eral validity. To stay with “The Student-Physician,” I would also count here, for
instance, such case studies as Huntington’s “The Development of a Professional
Self-image,” or Martin’s “Preferences for Types of Patients.” Kendall-Sevin’s
paper, “Tendencies Toward Specialization in Medical Training,”7 on its part dif-
fers from the just-mentioned studies in that it not only shows an appreciable
awareness of the source of the data and thus avoids inadvertently gliding into
loose generalizations but traces one of its statistical findings to the presence of a
non-psychological situational factor, namely, the possible influence of the staff
of Cornell Medical College on the decisions of fourth-year students. However,
such references from psychological variables back to sociological determinants
are very rare indeed, I guess.
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 337

To sum up, numbers of case studies are in the nature of unoriented research.
They treat the major issue of generality in a cursory and ambiguous manner
which contrasts with the internal accuracy of the quantifications and therefore
all the more suggests there is something wrong in the sub-structure. If my propo-
sition holds, the vagueness about this issue is inextricably bound up with the
reluctance to explore and utilize the situational factors which frame and condi-
tion the material analyzed. Unoriented research turns its back on the total situa-
tion. This explains why the studies I have in mind give a see-saw impression; they
undecidedly waver between specifying and generalizing statements—whereby it
should be noted that (unwarranted) preference for the latter is conspicuous in
those case studies which are intended from the outset to illustrate something gen-
eral, say, the drug behavior of doctors, processes of socialization, etc. They have a
natural bent for hurrying away from the local of their sample and plunging into
the unlocalizable limbo of psychological extrapolations from which, as may be
anticipated, a return to sociological categories proves extremely difficult.

IV.

After having roughly outlined my position I had better pause a little and discuss
at least one of the objections that may be raised against it.
This objection runs as follows: for analysis in case studies to start with a con-
sideration of situational factors would mean to put the cart before the horse. The
task of uncovering these factors can be carried out only in the analytical process
itself. And the analytical process extends far beyond the single case study. Any
such study calls for supplementation by a series of comparative studies which
alone are able to shed light on the peculiarities of each of the cases under investi-
gation, thereby permitting the researchers to sift out the more generally applica-
ble findings. (I learned from Patty Kendall that, with this purpose in mind,
questionnaires have been sent to all medical schools in the U.S., the intention
being to achieve, in the medical profession studies, the high generality of a
nation-wide survey.) To epitomize the argument, definition of the determinants
of a case is contingent on a sequence of comparisons which can be expected suc-
cessively to reveal all differential local influences. The total situation, that is, is
not so much a starting point (in the form of hypotheses) as a result in the form
of precise description). The indefinite generality of case studies is therefore noth-
ing to worry about; it is just a sign that they are something like stepping-stones.
338 l Cold War T en si ons

No doubt this argument carries weight. However, there is a methodological

snag in it. (In speaking of a methodological snag, I immediately discount the
fact that actually case studies are rarely followed up by systematic comparative
research. For a variety of reasons, economic or otherwise, social research pro-
ceeds more haphazardly in this respect than research in the natural sciences.)
Now what is methodologically wrong with too great a reliance on comparative
studies is the following: if, as I assume, the situational factors have a bearing on
the analysis of the situation to which they belong, then the variables selected for
analytical treatment must refer, somehow, to these factors in order really to
describe and interpret the situation under consideration. If they do not, analysis,
in interrelating them, always runs the risk of reflecting obliquely the case
investigated.
In the drug study Coleman-Mensel say that “scientifically-oriented doctors”
were among the first to receive information on tetracycline and introduced it at
an early stage, whereas graduates of competitive medical schools were relatively
slow in introducing the drug. This statement, contradictory by implication, is
commented upon as follows: “. . . the slower introduction of tetracycline by
graduates of competitive schools is evidently not due to the greater scientific cau-
tion of these competitive school graduates but to some other variable. In the
data which we have this variable is not evident; it may be some spurious factor
(italics mine) existing in the particular sample of doctors examined. In any case,
the relation, which is not a large one, remains unexplained” (18–19).
The summary characterization of the behavior of graduates form competitive
medical schools as a “spurious factor” may be due to the obliqueness of the vari-
ables chosen. I have definitive misgivings about the consistency (and adequacy)
of the concept “scientifically-oriented doctors.” It is distilled from sundry data
(Appendix D, 1–8) which is my opinion do not fully warrant its construction.
Sometimes the desire for establishing, as fast as possible, statistically manipula-
ble variables seems to get the better of the concern for their substantiality. Of
course, frequently the variables are solid and virtually relevant to the local con-
texts. As mentioned previously, in the drug study the category “social friend-
ships between doctors” might easily be related to a property of smaller cities.
And in the previously mentioned Kendall-Selvin study analysis is so conducted
that it directly brings a situational factor—faculty influence on fourth-year
students—into focus. (Interestingly, the research design there such that the
assumed existence of this factor comes almost as a surprise. This need not have
been so. Perhaps it would have been possible to direct attention to the local
determinants, including faculty influences, from the very outset and examine
their bearing on the whole curve of student tendencies toward specialization,
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 339

not only on the last phase of it.) Yet in case studies which are less sociologically
oriented than Kendall-Selvin’s the adequacy of the variables to the given situa-
tion is by no means certain. And whenever the variables are chosen and utilized
with little regard for the pertinent sociological configuration so that analysis is
apt partly to distort the reality it is supposed to describe. No comparative study
or sequence of such studies should be expected to remove the ensuing opaque-
ness of the analytical description.

V.

I now propose to circumscribe the concept of situational factors in more detail.

The first thing to do is; naturally, to point to existing studies which gravitate
toward oriented research. Contextual analysis in studies of a family of cases
ranks high as a systematic attempt to lay hold on, and operationalize, local deter-
minants of each of the cases analyzed; in the Teachers Apprehension project, for
instance, size, wealth, and political preferences of diverse colleges are brought
into play. To mention a few other relevant studies, contextual or not, the ITU
study establishes meaningful relationships between individual properties and
such collective properties as the ideological climate in larger and smaller shops
or even,8 if my memory does not deceive me, the impact of tradition; the polio
study takes structural features of national organizations into account; McPhee’s
program for research on television is crowded with assumptions on the total sit-
uation; and the study of the Religio-Psychiatric Clinic which is a single case
study derives, with the aid of ideal-types and Parsonian dichotomic variable pat-
terns, its psychological units from estimates of the total situation based on tran-
scriptions of group discussions and participant observation.
Examination of these examples leads to two conclusions, one concerning the
range of situational factors, the other the problem of their selection.
First, definition of the total situation involves various areas—not only sociol-
ogy proper and social psychology (whereby, in view of the current bias in favor of
“psychology” the emphasis should be put on the sociological rather than psycho-
logical component of this discipline) but also economics, politics, anthropology,
history. The area of history belongs to the most neglected for the simple reason
that, because of their understandable aspiration to generality, case studies tend to
care little about the place which their case occupies in the historical process; they
forget the longitudinal section in the cross section. But this oversight might
endanger the precision of analytical description. The operational significance of
340 l Cold War T en si ons

the historical factor is prominent in research on institutions or groups with a live

tradition and a history which palpably conditions their present shape and func-
tioning. Take a study of church congregations: it requires the researcher to deal in
images, concepts, and issues saturated with values and meanings which have
accrued to them in the course of history. Accordingly, the contents of these
motions are important in their own right; they figure as such and such contexts in
the minds of the parishioners. Which in turn means that analysis is adequate only
if it considers the possible implications of the contents themselves no less atten-
tively than the attitudes toward them. A complete isolation, for analytical pur-
poses, of attitudes from traditional notions whose content carries weight as this
particular content may falsify the picture. At any rate, the authors of The Authori-
tarian Personality would have come closer to the truth if they had related their
personality syndrome to the historical and national contexts in which it actually
appears. It would also have been better psychology for being less of it.9 A compan-
ion project to Benson’s exemplifying the usefulness of the historical approach for
social research under certain circumstances might prove extremely interesting.
Second, the selection of possibly relevant situational determinants depends
upon the case investigated. Lowenthal in his study of biographies in popular
magazines of a period of time orients research toward a historico-economic
factor—the ongoing transition from a production economy to a consumption
economy. When devising the report on Satellite mentality,10 Berkman and I
introduced, on the basis of a careful reading of the interviews, a number of polit-
ically important topics which then served us as a starting-point for analysis
proper. Incidentally, a comparison between this report and the INRA report on
the same interviews11—our qualitative analysis was to supplement, or comple-
ment, the quantitative analysis of the latter—makes it quite clear that the situa-
tional factors must be hypothesized at the outset in order to affect the analytical
process. INRA’s report was relatively unoriented; the researchers gave the mate-
rial a routine workout without, at the beginning, culling from it clues to (signifi-
cant) components of the given total situation and proceeding accordingly. But
this precisely is what Berkman and I tried to do. So we felt justified in exploring
the interviews for such topics as the “unreality” of the Satellite world, the dis-
tinctions made by Satellite non-Communists between several types of Commu-
nists, the different attitudes of non-Communists toward resistance in time of
relative calm and time of acute crisis, etc.—topics referred to in the material but
left unmentioned in the INRA report. The moral is that you cannot extricate
from analysis what has not been tentatively put into it. To stress an important
point, the decisive difference between the two reports is not that one prefers
qualitative analysis (much of which might have easily been quantified) and the
other indulges in quantifications; rather, the decisive difference must be sought
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 341

in the research design: we made an attempt to utilize socio-political determi-

nants, while the INRA did not.
As for the question of how to seize on relevant situational factors, I should
like to suggest that it be taken up in the planned seminar; the best method is
perhaps to discuss one or two unoriented case studies, with a view to recon-
structing the total situation from which their samples stem.

VI.

It follows from what has been said till now that a case study is oriented only if its
variables or units are related to the possibly relevant sociological determinants.
Only then will research achieve “the precise description and analysis of social
events” (quoted from Lazarsfeld-Barton’s paper, “Social Research in the United
States”).12 The task with which the researcher is thus confronted requires defi-
nition. Except for research on “global collective properties.” practically all case
studies analyse their sample for properties of the individuals and/or groups
involved; it is the humans and the interrelationships that count after all. Alto-
gether these properties—attitudes, behavior-patterns, preferences, status aspi-
rations, etc.—belong to what may be called the “psychological dimension.”
Similarly, the situational factors on their port may be said to constitute the
“sociological dimension.” The necessity for case research to select the psycho-
logical properties which appear as variables of analysis in such a way that they
have a distinct bearing on the pertinent total situation can now be formulated as
follows: The sociological dimension takes precedence over the psychological
dimension. Or conversely, in the interest of a “precise description and analysis of
social events” any psychological unit must be traceable to the ensemble of socio-
logical characteristics framing it. Within social research even a seemingly self-
sufficient pattern of personality traits is not an entity in its own right.
Among the studies which acknowledge the primacy of the sociological
dimension is Merton’s recent paper, “Priorities in Scientific Discovery,”13 is of
special interest methodologically for two reasons. First, Merton shows that the
recurrent priority disputes call for a sociological rather than psychological expla-
nation; they persistently flare up because the code sanctioned by the fraternity of
scientists requires that new findings be attributed to their discoverers. A phe-
nomenon which on the surface appears to be motivated psychologically thus
turns out to be a genuinely sociological phenomenon. (Had Merton been less
aware of the dependence of psychological properties on sociological determi-
nants, he might have “explained” the fact that in priority disputes scientists take
34 2 l Cold War T en si ons

up the cudgels from themselves as well as their confrères from some pattern of
personality traits in which, at critical moments, the desire for recognition and
prestige scores higher than self-denying modesty; patterns of this kind can be
made to fit any event or situation; yet in insisting on the sociological nature of
the phenomenon, he judiciously avoids the pitfalls of purely psychological con-
structs, which also permits him to leave the eternally fluctuating relation
between modesty and prestige aspirations undefined.) Second, Merton arrives at
his conclusions by way of a comparative survey of relevant causes which is oriented
toward situational determinants from the beginning. The same applies to all the
units of analysis as a matter of course. He does not rely, that is, on unoriented com-
parative research to define the sociological character of priority disputes; rather, he
finds out about it in the course of comparisons which are permeated with sociologi-
cal considerations. This highlights a point made in earlier contexts: that compara-
tive studies whose units are impermeable to the sociological dimension stand little
chance of detecting situational factors in the process.—As has already been indi-
cated above, Klausner’s study of the Religio-Psychiatric Clinic belongs here also.14
True, it concentrates on the divergent attitudes toward psychotherapy of a number
often cooperating minsters and psychiatrists, but attitudinal analysis is framed by a
phenomenological description of the outlook of these people: They are identified as
deviants; and their opinions about the functions of the church and the significance
of therapy are confronted with the institutionalized views of the clergy and the
medical profession. In other words, Klausner locates his variables in sociological
space by relating them to the collective properties of two social systems.—In my
own book From Caligari to Hitler,15 I hypothesized, on the basis of my material,
the existence of certain inner dispositions among the Germans of the Weimar
Republic; instead of passing them off as independent entities, however, I tried to
embed them in the sociological contexts of the period and to trace changes in col-
lective psychological behavior to the changing economic, social and political con-
ditions. It was psychology in the sociological dimension and sociology derived
from psychological constants. (After my book appeared, a psychoanalyst told me:
“Your psychological analysis is fairly correct so far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far
enough.” This exactly was what I wanted to avoid.)

VII.

The current style of social research does not seem to encourage consideration of
the situational factors. I infer that much from the fact that numbers of
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 34 3

researchers shy away from the sociological dimension even in cases where it is
fully exposed to view. They succumb to what may be called the “psychological
fallacy.”
Take Anderson’s paper, “Some Contributions to the Study of Social Percep-
tion:”16 based on data of the Teachers Apprehension study, it aims, among other
things, at determining the impact of the college teachers’ “caution,” “worry,” and
“permissiveness” on their perception of “incidents” at the respective colleges.
(The contextual part of analysis may be neglected here.) The underlying assump-
tion is, of course, that the three variables “caution” and “worry”—by the way,
how to differentiate between them?—does certainly not apply to the concept
“permissiveness.” It is no genuinely psychological concept. The six indices from
which it is built amount to value statements about situations which would have
in varying degrees involved political risks at the time of the data collection.
Consequently, these indices bear not so much on the respondent’s psychological
make-up as on the range of his political judgement. Far from suggesting a psy-
chological disposition like “caution,” or “worry,” or “tolerance,” they at most
denote a temporary attitude toward Communist infiltration, as it affects the
campus and the traditional notions of academic freedom. Whether or not “per-
missiveness” is a substantial unit is at least controversial. But once it has been
constructed, emphasis on its threadbare psychological dimension and the socio-
logical dimension at the expense of the latter.
Professor Brunner and David Wilder told me that they have come across the
same habit in their survey of existing research on adult education. In accordance
with the declared preferences of the educators themselves, most studies investi-
gate reasons for enrollment, student attitudes—do you like this course?—
change in attitudes, the kind of gratifications derived from attendance, etc. The
bulk of research—much of it consists or doctoral dissertations free from nonaca-
demic obligations—centers around motivations, human interrelationships,
group dynamics, and the like. Which is to say that, all in all, these studies give a
wide berth to adult education as a movement which raises sociologically impor-
tant issues. Adult education has the function of providing broad strata of the
population with knowledge in the areas of concern. Well, does it fulfill this
function? The run of the studies fails to breach the problem of communications
content. And yet it would not be too difficult to ascertain and measure the gain
in knowledge achieved by those who attend the courses. Another relevant issue
pertains to the sociology of culture: what happens to high-level knowledge if it is
passed on to relatively untrained students? The significance of this issue for adult
education and its cultural objectives is obvious. An evaluation of transcripts of
lectures by authorities on the subjects treated might yield yardsticks for the
34 4 l Cold War T en si o ns

analysis of teaching performances and enable the researchers to score their

adequacy.
And this leads to a consideration of the role which the educator’s training
plays in the communications process. Etc. The point I wish to make is simply
that adult education poses problems which reach deep into the sociological
dimension; that these problems stand out glaringly; and that nevertheless a great
deal of autonomous research shows little regard for them. It is as if the “psycho-
logical fallacy” blinded many a researcher to their existence and at the same time
compelled him to proceed along lines which virtually serve purely manipulative
purposes.

VIII.

Let us look more closely into the structure of unoriented case studies. They share
characteristics which result from the indifferences to the situational factors and
the concomitant tendency to blur the level of generality. Analysis in such studies
comprises a series of steps most of which do not directly bear on my argument
and will therefore be omitted. Of interest here are only the two subsequent
major operations.
1. Establishment of variables or units. According to premise, these variables
are not identical with situational factors, they are “internal” variables. (Of
course, the same applies to the hypothesis underlying them.) As a rule, the vari-
ables selected designate properties of individuals or groups—attitudes toward a
minority, preferences for a political party or a musical genre, personality traits,
prestige aspirations, and what not. These examples show that the units used in
case studies mostly consist of a sociological and a psychological component;
for instance, preference for a political party points to both the social entity
preferred and an inclination of the individual preferring it. Even though the
variables do not lie in the sociological dimension itself—amounting, say to a
“global” property of smaller cities or the content of a tradition-laden notion—
many of them might nevertheless permit the researcher to follow up the implica-
tions of their sociological component and this work his way toward the situa-
tional influences at the time and place of the data. In unoriented research,
however, these communication lines are largely blocked. There the emphasis is
on the self-sufficiency of the variables, their independence of the local determi-
nants. Otherwise expressed, their psychological component is made to over-
shadow what they include in “system references.” A major reason for their
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 345

isolation from the total situation is presumably the concern, at the outset of
analysis, for exact measurements; attempts to account for the situational factors
would introduce considerations apt to hamper, or even obstruct, the quantifica-
tion processes. So, the attitudes toward a minority are essentially valued as a psy-
chological property of individuals. Note that this preoccupation with the psy-
chological component of the variables not only tends to obscure parts of social
reality with which they potentially cover also, but may as well lead to problem-
atic psychology. It is by no means certain whether all the attitudes, preferences,
behavior-patterns, etc., elicited from the data for analytical treatment represent
genuine properties of the individuals with whom they are associated. Individu-
als whom the evidence reveals to be biased against a minority may manifest such
a bias only within the given social contexts. To be sure, one might argue that an
unoriented case study dealing with antagonistic attitudes toward a minority
does not assert any more than precisely this; but by disregarding the social con-
cerns relevant to the case, the study creates the impression that the bias is, so to
speak, a quality of the individuals showing it—an impression which may be
deceptive.
To sum up, unoriented case studies tend to resort to variables which are not
derived from hypotheses about situational factors. Although numbers of these
variables are transparent to the sociological dimension, they are often used with
manifest disregard for their references to that dimensions. Under the impact of
the “psychological fallacy” all the light falls on their psychological component.
Yet for this does not necessarily transform them into intrinsically psychological
units either. It is as if those which do not belong here not there occupied a twi-
light region. Generally speaking, we are confronted with the problem of whether
the variables of unoriented research really facilitate “the precise description and
analysis of social events.” (Incidentally, it is a problem which also concerns con-
textual analysis. In order to get hold of the total situation contextual analysis
may either start from sociological assumptions and constructs its variables
accordingly, or avail itself of the kind of variables characterized just above and
reinsert them into sociological contexts. on principle, the second alternative
should be expected eventually to yield as much information about relevant soci-
ological determinants as the first. However, my guess is that the first alternative—
selection of sociological variables at the outset—is more likely than the second
to attain the goal of contextual analysis. For in operating with variables rela-
tively remote from the sociological dimension, this type of analysis runs the risk
of tapering off into an asymptotic approach to the situational factors or at least
becoming increasingly cumbersome. Of course, this need not be so. But even
supposing that the second alternative fully serves the purpose, I cannot help
34 6 l Cold War T en si o ns

feeling that it relates to the first in about the same way as the Ptolemaic system
to the Copernican.)
Statistical analysis. The statistical processing of case material establishes, as
accurately as possible, the existing relationships between the occurrences which
fell under the variables selected. It may be taken for granted that quantitative
analysis results in a refined description of any case analyzed—a description
which, I hasten to add, is naturally limited to such aspects of the case as the vari-
ables denote. The problem I want to raise here has nothing whatsoever to do
with these mathematical operations themselves but bears on the following mat-
ter: does, in unoriented case research, the analytical treatment to which data are
subjected affect the signifying poser of the variables covering them? My tenta-
tive preposition is that it does. To be more precise, it appears that in the studies
under consideration the statistical elaborations tend further to divert attention
from what the guiding units include in sociological references. The reason is
this: As has been submitted above, many units or variables point to both the
psychological and the sociological dimension. And even though the researcher
indifferent to the latter actually concentrates on the psychological component of
the variables, he is theoretically still at liberty to look about and follow up to the
clues they offer to the situational factors. The variables themselves preserve their
double character; they are not yet isolated from the sociological determinants,
but continue to be in a measure suggestive of the total situation. Now notice
what happens when the data defined by those variables are statistically analyzed
for correlations, other kinds of relationships, deviations from observed relation-
ships, etc. In unoriented research the operations which are then taking place
involve the variables not as units belonging to the sociological as well as the psy-
chological dimension but as elements independent of any allegiance that might
impinge on the researcher’s freedom to combine and interlink them at will. They
must be considered self-sufficient or else they cannot be correlated freely. (It is
understood that I do not think here of large-scale surveys in which statistical
regularities are the point of departure for interpretation; nor do I speak of such
statistical operations as may be called for within the framework of case research
which incorporates the sociological dimension.) Due to an unrestrained empha-
sis on statistical analysis, the psychological component of each variable becomes
automatically all-important and eventually stands for the whole of it. In conse-
quence, the mathematical workout given the variables does not increase our
awareness of their references to the sociological determinants but on the con-
trary leads even farther away from them. Instead of bringing the social influ-
ences at the locus of the material again into view, it renders their reconstruction
more difficult.
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 347

IX.

And what about the findings of unoriented case studies? To begin with, they are
ambiguous as to location. On the one hand, it is obvious that they relate to data
assembled at a certain time and place; to this extent they are well-localized. On
the other hand, they are not embedded in the social contexts from which the
material issues so that their location remains indistinct; and this being so, they
tend to evoke the illusion of a generality similar to that of the natural sciences.
Hence the haziness about the generality level discussed above. Suffice it again to
mention this ambiguity which is only in the nature of a symptom after all.
It is symptomatic of the way in which the findings describe the social events
on which they bear. There is no doubt, of course, that all the relationships dis-
covered and established in the course of analysis reflect actual relationships. The
findings portray accurately existing occurrences and expose to view much of
their otherwise inaccessible interplay. The question is only what part of the
social events do they cover? Since analysis not initially framed by sociological
considerations disregards the situational factors, its results will not take them
into account either. So the findings are likely to neglect essential aspects of the
case they are intended to describe. They amount to a fine-spun texture of corre-
lations and relationships all of which, however, are left undefined in terms of the
social circumstances generating them. Once again, the configurations revealed
by unoriented analysis do exist; yet the render not so much the social events in
their fullness as the sentiments which these events deposit in the psychological
dimension or somewhere between it and the sociological dimension. Otherwise
expressed, it is the shadows of the events rather than the events themselves which
are summoned by analysis unaware of the sociological determinants. This cor-
roborates an observation advanced above—that unoriented case studies are
threatened with rendering their cases obliquely. To be sure, the relationships
established in any such study are true to fact; but from the angle of hypotheses
about the total situation it may well prove necessary (1) to assign to these rela-
tionships new weights, and (2) to introduce sociological variables. Both mea-
sures would completely alter the picture, without for that reason giving the lie to
the factuality of the previously established findings. The accuracy of statistical
analysis should not be confused with precision in the description of social
events. (My FCQ article, “The Challenge of Qualitative Analysis,”17 includes
some remarks on this point.)
Unoriented research, then yields findings of indeterminate generality and
doubtful relevance to the cases at issue. Because of their unrelatedness to social
34 8 l Cold War T en si o ns

reality proper they lack a frame of reference. Its absence is of consequence. It

accounts for the unhampered sprawling of analysis, the emergence, among the
findings, of relationships which it is true, grow out of the analytical process but
have no other merit than to occur at the place of the data. They are just transient
happenings. This indiscriminate exhibition of all that can be brought out by
mathematical operations may be traced to two reasons. First it almost is as if the
accumulations of findings of problematic significance, and the preoccupation
with utmost accuracy in securing them had the function of substituting for the
omitted situational factors; as if the researcher felt there is a gap that must be
filled and then filled it with everything that he is able to wrest from the material.
Second, his insistence on doing so may also spring from the belief that proce-
dures in social research are identical with those in the natural sciences and that
therefore seemingly insignificant results of analysis stand as good a chance as
significant ones of being recognized, someday, as indispensable contributions.
Yet is there really an identity of method and goal? Let alone other integrant
differences between the two approaches, the findings of social case studies can-
not lay claim to the genuine generality inseparable from all findings in physics.
So it happens that at least part of unoriented research appears to be in excess of
what would be needed were research framed by considerations of the possibly
relevant sociological determinants. Or to say the same in the reverse way: if
there were more analysis guided by assumptions about the total situation, much
of what now hangs loosely in mid-air would automatically disappear. Orienta-
tion would dispose of the sprawling: sociology would do away with the “psycho-
logical fallacy.”

X.

At the end I wish to submit a guess for what it is worth—that one of the origins
of unoriented research is market research. Most of the foregoing comment on
the former does not apply to the latter. Being as a rule concerned with short-
term causes and effects, market research need not inquire into the total situa-
tion; and it is oriented inasmuch as its analytical efforts are geared to, and this
limited by, a practical purpose, however insignificant from a sociological point
of view. But no sooner does case research lose sight of a practical purpose and
inadvertently cease to confine itself to findings of short-term validity than it
immediately assumes that character of unoriented research, provided it does not
at the same time integrate into analysis the situational factors.
 R el at i o n o f A na lysi s to S i t uat i o na l Fac to r s m 349

Notes

1. When referring to “analysis” I assume throughout that all the procedures it involves
are carried out competently.
2. {We were unable to locate a reference for this paper.}
3. {We were unable to locate a reference for this paper.}
4. {We were unable to locate a reference for this paper.}
5. {This is a quote in the original text, although the reference is unclear.}
6. {Wagner Thielens, “Some Comparisons of Entrants to Medical and Law School,”
Journal of Legal Education 11, no. 2 (1958): 153–70.}
7. {We were unable to locate a reference for any of these three papers.}
8. {It is unclear which study Kracauer is referring to here.}
9. {T. W. Adorno, E. Frenkel-Brunswik, D. J. Levinson, and R. N. Sanford, The
Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).}
10. {See Siegfried Kracauer and Paul L. Berkman, “Attitudes Toward Various Com-
munist Types in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia,” which we have included in
this volume.}
11. {It is unclear which study Kracauer is referring to here.}
12. {We were unable to locate a reference for this paper.}
13. {Robert K. Merton, “Priorities in Scientific Discovery: A Chapter in the Sociology
of Science,” American Sociological Review 22, no. 6 (1957): 635–59.}
14. {We were unable to locate a reference for this paper.}
15. {Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German
Film (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947).}
16. {We were unable to locate a reference for this paper.}
17. {See Kracauer, “The Challenge of Qualitative Analysis,” which we have included in
this volume.}
 20
The Social Research Center
on the Campus
Its Significance for the Social Sciences and Its Relations
to the University and Society at Large

contents
introduction————— 350
i: autonomous research—————353
ii: commissioned research————— 369
iii: training————— 379

introduction

The study outlined in the following pages is intended as an inclusive and system-
atic contribution to the running controversy about the significance of organized
social research in the university.
It is noteworthy that such a study could not even have been conceived twenty
years ago when social research groups, if any, were as a rule ephemeral organiza-
tions set up to implement a specific research goal and disbanded after having
served the purpose. A kind of transition between past and future was the
research organization which Professor Odum, a dedicated Southerner, founded
in North Carolina as far back as 1925; characteristically, its destination was to
evolve propositions that might help the South. This would corroborate an inter-
esting observation of Professor Lazarsfeld’s—that regional thinking belongs
among the substantive roots of contemporary empirical research.
Only since 1935 or so have more and more universities in this country and
abroad seen fit to incorporate or create permanent social research centers. This
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 351

powerful movement toward institutionalized research may be traced to two rea-

sons: the new scientific developments in the collection of primary data (e.g.,
sample survey) which call for exploration and application by groups with special
skills, technical facilities and research traditions, and the seemingly increasing
inclination of governmental departments, social agencies and business enter-
prises to have such groups tackle their particular problems. (The fact that vari-
ous public and private organizations entertain research staffs of their own in
order better to cope with difficulties and needs in the areas of propaganda
effects, publicity appeals, labor-management relations, etc., confirms the high
market value of applied social research.) Both science and society at large have
favored the trend under consideration. {Be this} as it may, there is no doubt that
the social research centers on the campus show a strong capacity for survival.
And now that they have developed stable habits and characteristics, the time has
come to examine them more closely.
For the purpose of a first orientation it may suffice to present the arguments
which part of the academic world raises against organized research. Since they
bring the major topics and contents of the debate into focus, they serve as an
appropriate point of departure. Whether or not these arguments are relevant is
of little interest at the moment; nor is there any use in reproducing the custom-
ary counterarguments, however weighty. The task of assessing the significance of
group research will devolve upon the study itself; and it may well prove neces-
sary in the process to re-define the pros and cons which are current now.
The controversy, rarely outspoken but forever smoldering, centers around
three issues of vital concern to the scholar. The first issue involves the genuinely
scientific pursuits of research organizations—that part of their program which
may conveniently be called autonomous research. Especially scientists with a
broad scholarly background argue that the inevitable absorption of permanent
research groups with empirical data and the methods of processing them all but
automatically stifles their susceptibility to basic social problems. Thus the inter-
est in the size and composition of a given radio audience tends to win out over
the preoccupation with the meaning of radio listening as such. The Hollerith
machines must be fed; and they would be doomed to starvation were research
organizations more concerned than they actually are with that kind of knowl-
edge which grows out of wide experience, thoughtful circumspection and imag-
inative insight.
Another objection which overlaps this one and comes from about the same
academic quarters is directed against the aspiration of organized research to
attain to the objectivity of exact science. Indeed, it cannot be defined that all
social research centers more or less try to live up to this aspiration which
3 52 l Cold War T en si ons

incidentally is in perfect harmony with their inherent desire for permanence.

Hence their insistence on quantification and reliability, upheld by the under-
lying conviction that general laws and valid predictions are within reach. The
critics of organized research hold that the conception of sociology and social
psychology as a sort of human physics threatens unduly to narrow the potential
scope of these sciences. More specifically, they are afraid lest the emulation of
exact science might entail disregard for the qualitative components of the phe-
nomena analyzed as well as indifference to propositions which do not favor
numerical breakdowns.
The second and most obvious issue of the controversy concerns the depen-
dence of all or nearly all social research centers on substantial support from
sources outside the campus. Founded for the sake of autonomous research, these
organizations feel nevertheless urged, out of their instinct of self-preservation, to
take on a considerable amount of commissioned research. And the latter may
even exceed and slow down the former—despite the availability of Foundation
subsidies for purely scientific projects. This state of affairs is responsible for a
particularly conspicuous argument against group research: many a champion of
professional integrity contends that university institutes indulging in market
research and the like compromise academic standards and goals. Speaking
crudely, what he means is that social scientists prostitute themselves in submit-
ting, somehow, to the claims and aims of their donors. There the matter will
have to rest provisionally. It should be added, though, that the feeling of integ-
rity at the bottom of this argument is no less intense among the exponents of
organized research themselves and that it actually challenges them to give much
thought to their precarious situation between science and business, the univer-
sity and the outside world.
The third issue bears on the training which students receive in the social
research centers. In keeping with their obligations as university institutes, prac-
tically all centers consider it one of their tasks to contribute to the formation of
future social scientists. And there is a strong belief in the camp of group research
that the kind of training these organizations are able to provide complements
the theoretical courses in a most fortunate manner. The critic of research centers
on his part attacks their educational activities with an argument which follows
straight from his doubts about their autonomous research. In his opinion these
“social laboratories,” as they sometimes call themselves, stress technical effi-
ciency at the expense of full comprehension and in consequence produce versa-
tile specialists rather than authentic scientists.
So much for the main issues of the controversy. They delimit three areas of
investigation—autonomous research, commissioned research and training. To
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 35 3

explore these areas thoroughly one might think of a comparative study covering
the operations and products of the most important research organizations since
their inception. Yet such a study would be impractical because of its excessive
scope. Nor is it absolutely needed. The objectives of this project can be attained
by a semi-comparative study—a study, that is, which concentrates on a single
research group and makes comparisons only in the form of excursions designed
to round out the picture. The Bureau of Applied Social Research, Columbia
University—called “Bureau” in the following—suggest itself as a fairly paradig-
matic case. It is one of the oldest university institutes in the field; and it has done
a great deal of pioneering work, influencing similar organizations in this coun-
try and abroad. In fact, some of them are patterned on it. A historico-systematic
study of the Bureau—its activities in the areas indicated and its related organiza-
tional patterns—would therefore seem to constitute an adequate approach. Pro-
vided it lives up to its comparative duties, this relatively limited investigation is
likely to afford insight into the inner workings of organized social research,
clarify its significance for the social sciences, and shed light on both its academic
and social functions.

i. autonomous research

The controversy about research organizations, then, resolves around activities in

the three areas of autonomous research, commissioned research, and student
training. The best way of putting the debate on solid ground is obviously to scru-
tinize the actual achievements of organized research within each of these areas.
It would seem advisable to investigate the latter in the order in which they have
just been mentioned. The first area to be considered, therefore, is autonomous
research.
Yet before examining this area, the meaning and the range of the term
“autonomous research” must be clarified. As has already been pointed out above,
it refers to pursuits intended to enlarge the body of existing knowledge, evolve a
new method, test some significant theory, etc. Which implies that, for instance,
a routine study which confines itself to informing a business company about
customer reactions to its product can hardly be said to fall under this title. A
certain spontaneity of research design is inseparable from “autonomous” proj-
ects; that is, they are not just meant to tackle the problems of private or public
social agencies but grow out of the scientist’s desire to advance his science and
will have to be structured accordingly. Understandably enough, projects in this
3 54 l Cold War T en si o ns

vein are frequently carried out with the aid of foundations or other organiza-
tions devoted to sponsoring scholarly undertakings. However, in view of the
intrinsic character of empirical social research as well as the research center’s
financial needs—which are not or perhaps cannot be met by the university and
foundations alone —, it is inevitable that autonomous intentions should also try
to assert themselves in assignments from outside the campus, as is strikingly
illustrated by the “American Soldier.” There is no clear dividing line between
autonomous research and commissioned research; rather, the former may well
materialize in, or at least capitalize on, projects sponsored by clients who are not
primarily concerned with scientific aims and procedures. Nevertheless, it would
seem indicated to treat the autonomous endeavors of the research institute sepa-
rately. For even though they often come true in commissioned projects, they do
not exhaust themselves in catering to the client’s demands but can be expected
to follow ways of their own likely to lead beyond the confines of the commis-
sions occasioning them. Hence the legitimacy of exemplifying autonomous
developments and aspirations by references to such commissioned studies; the
references bear not so much on the practical purpose of these studies as on what
they include, perhaps as a by-product, in scientific accomplishments.1
Analysis of the research institute’s autonomous output will be oriented
toward two objectives. First, it aims at defining the scientific significance of all
projects in this vein. The underlying assumption is that the significance of a
project grows in the measure in which it advances methodology and/or raises
issues involving the structure and character of our society. To simplify matters
in this outline, emphasis will be placed on studies of substantive issues rather
than methodological contributions—which of course is not meant to belittle
the signal importance of methodology. (As a matter of fact, both approaches
interpenetrate each other). All other circumstances being equal, a study of the
social implications of radio listening is certainly significant in this sense, while a
study focusing on the size and composition of a given radio audience is much less
so.2 This is not said to minimize the relative value of the latter studies; they are
often prerequisite to propositions of some significance. A case in point is the
study “Social Stratification of the Radio Audience” which H. M. Beville Jr. pre-
pared for the Princeton Office of Radio Research in 1939. In his preface to this
statistical survey Prof. Lazarsfeld points out that its systematic exploration
might increase our knowledge of widespread attitudes and behavior patterns
and thus pose problems bearing on the whole of American society; for instance,
Beville’s data challenge one to inquire into the reasons for which low income
groups respond more readily than the economically privileged to “psychologi-
cal” programs and dramatizations.
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 355

This implies, incidentally, that any speculation on the significance of the sub-
ject matter analyzed is meaningless. Rather, everything depends on the manner
in which a topic is approached. Audience responses may be studied mainly for
bookkeeping purposes or with a view to finding out about their implications for
society in general. The theme itself—audience responses—is so to speak neutral;
what counts is the way it is treated. (Hence the possibility that a very specialized
monograph affords insight far beyond its subject matter)
Yet even so it is advisable to retain the classification of projects according to
their level of significance. Many less significant projects which perhaps carry
weighty implications are left unexplored for lack of time, money or brains and,
hence, must be evaluated as low-level projects for the time being, in spite of their
potentialities. And after all, not all low-level studies show promise; a study, say,
of the images which people form of competing brands of soap might be just that,
i.e., defy attempts at further exploration.
Second, analysis is intended to define and appraise the institutional proper-
ties of a permanent research organization in their bearing on autonomous scien-
tific endeavors. In what ways does the existence of such an organization benefit
and/or obstruct independent and, so to speak, spontaneous research? But these
problems will be discussed only after the analysis of autonomous research itself.
The Bureau’s autonomous research activities comprise long-range programs
in the following areas:

(1) Communications and opinion formation. Research in this area, the

Bureau’s initial concern, has resulted in series of projects studying the effects of
the mass media. It might be added already now that the tremendous task of
finding out about these effects has led the researchers to shift, temporarily or
not, the emphasis from the mass media themselves to factors held to play a more
important role than they in the processes of decision making. Within the frame-
work of the communications program proper much attention is paid of late to
the functions which modern mass communications assume on the international
scene, particularly in pre-industrial societies.
(2) Political behavior. This program, intimately connected with the mass
media studies, materializes in projects investigating the influences behind vot-
ing decisions as well as the organizational characteristics of political parties and
“private governments.” An interdisciplinary long-term project designed to cod-
ify our current knowledge of the political process in America, is under way.
(3) Population. Under this title the growth of urbanization is being stud-
ied in its relation to other trends symptomatic of our civilization, such as the
tendencies toward industrialization and literacy. Two major studies are in
3 56 l Cold War T en si o ns

preparation—a “world urban resources index” and a publication on “patterns of

world urbanization.”
(4) Sociology of professions. The idea behind this program is to analyze
processes of socialization. The current main project, based on data which were
gathered in a medical school, centers around the transformation of medical nov-
ices into budding young doctors, trying to account for the extent to which the
attitudinal changes involved are brought about by institutional influences and
the value-laden atmosphere in which they occur.
(5) Special projects. This program division which includes studies outside
the areas just delineated belongs here inasmuch as some of the projects adminis-
tered under it are carried out in the hope that they will open up new fields of
research. There is, for instance, the long-term study of the epidemiology of
hypertension; along with related projects, it is likely to develop into an autono-
mous program covering the areas of public health and social medicine. Similarly,
a special project sponsored by the National Council of the Protestant Episcopal
Church for the purpose of learning about the effects, and responses to, its activi-
ties in certain secular fields may well prepare the ground for a large-scale pro-
gram devoted to the sociology of religion.
(6) Methods. The “methods” program consists of projects which serve to
innovate and refine new tools of research—perhaps especially those needed for
the implementation of studies in progress. Thus the Lazarsfeld-Stanton Program
Analyzer grew out of the researchers’ preoccupation with audience reactions to
mass media content. Other methods evolved or furthered by the Bureau and
presumably connected with its substantive autonomous pursuits are the focused
interview, the panel technique, the integration of qualitative and quantitative
research, etc. New developments in the field of sample survey techniques owe
much to Lazarsfeld’s conceptual and mathematical ingenuity. As a matter of
course, all research groups are requested to participate in this program.

In order to cover the material adequately, the planned study will have to meet
two major obligations: it must review each program separately and then check
on the possible interrelationships between all of them; and it must pay attention
to the evolution of research designs. Such a double approach—systematic and
historical—is indispensable in the case of material which clearly represents a
sequence in time. It will be seen that with autonomous research the two
approaches overlap.
The first task—analysis and evaluation of each program—requires a series of
procedures which will be presented here schematically.
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 357

Assuming a specific program is under consideration, one might conveniently

begin with ascertaining its scope. Since, by definition, the program covers long-
range activities and therefore extends over an unlimited period, it should be
expected to materialize in a large number of projects. The communications pro-
gram, which dates as far back as 1937, certainly does. The professions program, ini-
tiated in 1950, is designed to investigate not only the development of physicians,
which is being done now, but the socialization processes in other professions as
well; and this may not be the end of it. The possibility that a research institute
intent on continuing a promising program is forced to postpone or disrupt it for
overriding organizational reasons will be considered in due time.
The next step consists in defining the degree of continuity attained by the
program’s consecutive projects. That continuity is of the essence within this con-
text can be inferred from a simple theoretical reflection. One is safe in assuming
that empirical research, as practiced in the research centers on the campus, is
animated by a desire for the objectivity of exact science. In any case, when prob-
ing into the given social phenomena it tends to rid itself of preconceived ideas
about the whole of society. However, phenomena which are not viewed from the
angle of an idea encompassing them, immediately change from definable entities
into indeterminate complexes pregnant with numerous possibilities and poten-
tialities. Merton hints of this indeterminacy when comparing the different roles
which two types of experts assume in advising, say, our policy makers—(1) the
“unattached intellectual,” a university teacher or so who may give advice unham-
pered by administrative consideration, and (2) the “bureaucratic intellectual”
who, as an official, must keep his suggestions within the framework of directives
binding for all office-holders. Unlike the latter, the “unattached” expert is free
to submit to the policy makers an “indeterminate” number of alternatives and
choices (which however, as Merton judiciously adds, are rarely needed because of
their all but unavoidable remoteness from bureaucratic concerns and “practica-
ble” solutions—indeterminacy thus marking a kind of freedom which to the
expert means a “purgatory” rather than a blessing) Conversely, whether the
“bureaucratic” expert resents the limitations imposed upon him or succeeds in
rationalizing them, these very limitations predetermine the range of his proposi-
tions. He operates in a well-contoured area instead of having to ponder indeter-
minate possibilities. In the words of Merton, the bureaucratic intellectual often
“finds himself in a position where he is called upon to provide information for
alternative or specific policies which have already been formulated by policy
makers. . . . His perspectives are fixed accordingly. . . . He may or may not be
aware that he is ignoring possible alternatives in his research by focusing on the
3 58 l Cold War T en si o ns

consequences or modes of implementing limited alternatives which have been

presented to him. He may overlook the fact that view to alternatives A and B
means ignoring alternatives C and D.”3
In view of the inherent indeterminacy of scientific pursuits it is well-nigh
inevitable that any particular undertaking of organized research should yield
only fragmentary results—fragmentary in the sense that they leave unanswered
many a question arising in the course of research. Supposing a program includes
the projects A, B, C, etc.: then each project is likely to investigate at least one
aspect of the problems bound up with the overall themes or issues of that pro-
gram; but in doing so it will presumably open up new aspects not yet considered.
Accordingly, the following alternatives suggest themselves (provided the pro-
gram is not discontinued at a certain stage of its implementation for scientific or
organizational reasons):

(1) The projects of a program represent scattered rather than mutually con-
nected attempts to approach what may cursorily be called the objectives of that
program. The Bureau material does not include fitting examples. Nevertheless,
to illustrate this alternative, it is perhaps permissible to discount, for the sake of
experiment, the unity of intentions actually underlying the political behavior
program. Then “political behavior” appears as a conglomerate of projects which
have not much in common, except for the fact that their subject matter lies in
the area of politics. These projects, or rather groups of projects, are: (a) studies of
voting decisions which to a large extent must be traced to the concern, inherent
in communications research, with mass media effects; (b) a major study of the
Printers’ Union which, among other things, tries to explain why this union is
the only one to retain the two-party system; (c) research in institutional patterns
typical of parties and other organizations; (d) codification of our current knowl-
edge of the political process in America. At least on the surface there is a defi-
nite lack of coherence between the pursuits under the title “political behavior.”
To say it once more, they are in effect interrelated and the impression that they
are not has been created only to help the reader imagine a program whose var-
iegated projects do not seem to converge toward a common goal or so. It is of
course possible that such divergent approaches will be successfully combined or
synthesized in a later stage of research. This has happened more than once in
the natural sciences.
(2) The projects of a program form a sequence of substantially inter-
linked propositions, with B starting from where A ends and C being contingent
on B. Development in the field of “communications and opinion formation”
can be interpreted as following this pattern. Interest in the effects of mass
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 359

communications, especially short-term campaigns, originally led the investiga-

tors to concentrate on “audience research,” mass media content, relevant differ-
ences between the media, and the respondents’ psychological predispositions—
factors supposed to influence, if not change, given opinions and attitudes. Yet
studies of the political effects of radio and newspapers showed that, along with
the social environment, interpersonal relations play a much larger role in deci-
sion making than mass communications proper. Hence a marked shift of
emphasis to the respondent’s group affiliations the functions which small every-
day groups with their “opinion leaders,” and gate-keepers, etc. assume in the
mass persuasion process. The forthcoming Elmira study, says Mcphee, stresses
“social processes as compared to the mass media by a ratio of perhaps five to one
in page volume and at least double that ratio in intellectual concern.”4 This new
orientation, which belongs among the more recent phases of the program,
resulted in increasing awareness of the “two-step (or multiple-step) flow” of
communications.5 Also, once the primary group was recognized as a sort of
shunting station, an intermediary center through which most media messages
pass—and rarely pass without being refracted or changed—the real effects of
latter could be defined more accurately than was possible before.
It is noteworthy that this very sequence of approaches, so characteristic of the
whole program, recurs in one of its subgroups which, under the heading “inter-
national communications,” comprises a series of studies of mass media effects in
the Near and Middle East. The first report (on Greece) was essentially audience
research with the emphasis on communications behavior, while the report on
Egypt, carried out at a later date, featured the role of social stratifications and
interpersonal relations in the communications process. In addition, as research
advanced, typical attitudes toward the great issues of traditionalism and West-
ernization were brought into focus.
(3) A third alternative, presumably the most frequent one, would be a pal-
pable continuity of research designs, punctuated with projects which somehow
sidetrack the main line of evolution. They may be in the nature of excursions, as
was the case with several studies under the population program—one tackling
problems of fertility in the Caribbean islands, another dealing with long-term
population predictions; sponsored by this program division, both studies were
only loosely connected with its more permanent pursuits. There are also projects
or groups of projects which deviate from the overall course of the program inas-
much as they mark a trend abandoned later on; they represent, or are believed to
represent, a dead end rather than a link in the chain of approaches. The question
is whether some of these seeming blind alleys were not actually valuable advances
unrecognized as such at the time. It may be assumed in retrospect that the
360 l Cold War T en si ons

content analysis studies of the early ‘forties—studies motivated by an interest in

the possible effects of mass media content—were given up prematurely. This
would seem to follow from Arnheim’s study, “The World of the Daytime Serial”
(Radio Research, 1942–1943) in which he elaborates on the frequent occurrence
and paramount significance of the “leader” figure in soap operas. He character-
izes the leader as an “influential” in the current sense, describes him in reference
to small groups and explicitly mentions that he is often of low social standing.
But since subsequent investigations failed to build from those first exercises in
qualitative content analysis, the clues which the latter offered to existing behav-
ior patterns and communications habits were not followed up either. Were it not
for this neglect, the variable of interpersonal relations might have been discov-
ered at an earlier stage of research.

In case some sort of continuity is discernible, analysis is faced with the task of
assessing its direction. Three types of direction stand out conspicuously.
First type: It may be assumed that the program under consideration opens
with a project rich in findings. Nevertheless, this project can hardly be expected
to fulfill the objectives envisaged; rather, the contributions it makes will raise
new problems which demand to be tackled also. Yet instead of proceeding from
problem to problem with the vigor of the initial project, the subsequent investi-
gations just elaborate on its necessarily fragmentary solutions. In other words,
the theoretical impetus behind the opening moves wears off; and for lack of it
research threatens to lose itself in sheer technicalities and a jungle of empirical
facts. From the viewpoint of the study this would be a downhill movement.
There is no Bureau program that deteriorates in such a way. But what about this
or that section of a program? If isolated artificially, the projects which made up
radio audience research might serve as an example. All of them were based on
the assumption that radio provides stimuli which more or less directly affect the
listeners’ opinion and attitudes. Hence the sustained concern with medium
exposure, audience likes and dislikes, etc. The sequence of studies in this field,
most of them commissions, moved in a direction marked by increasingly refined
statistical measurements and analytical procedures (see, for instance, Herta
Herzog’s comparison between listeners and non-listeners in “What Do We
Really Know About Daytime Serial Listeners?”); however, the basic assump-
tions which kept research on the move were taken for granted throughout. To be
precise, they were actually questioned: as has been mentioned above, some of the
pertinent studies brought out implications transcending the scope of audience
research proper; and after all, the limitations of this particular approach are now
fully recognized. And yet one gets the impression that the research trend under
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 361

consideration tended to perpetuate itself even after its sources had dried out and
that, for lack of new substantive problems, the technical refinements it produced
became more and more an end in itself.
The second type manifests itself in a sequence of projects which actually do
explore various aspects of the problems involved. Yet none of these projects poses
more relevant questions than the others. Assuming the first of them is on a
medium level of significance, then the sequence does not gravitate toward issues
of greater or lesser consequence but unfolds from beginning to end on the level
thus defined—the very level to which Merton’s middle-ground argument refers.
Evidently the sequence follows a course which is much in the nature of an inde-
terminate meandering through the maze of social reality. To the extent to which
the population program organizes information about urbanization it might be
representative of such an evolution. Or take again communications research: the
consecutive projects of this program can be conceived as a continuity evolving
on about the same medium level. In order to account for the causes of mass
media effects, they have emphasized one possible influence after another in the
process, from media content via psychological predispositions to interpersonal
relations. These successive propositions presumably parallel each other with
regard to their relative significance. Provided the series they form is not cut short
by a new approach putting them so to speak into brackets—a possibility which
seems to come true especially in the Elmira study—there is no earthly reason
why exploration of the las-mentioned factor of interpersonal relations should
not challenge the researchers to introduce a new factor, and so one. The series
might be continued. To be sure, this movement from aspect to aspect, position
to position, results in an accumulation of knowledge within the areas investi-
gated, but it does not amount to progress in the sense that it would yield increas-
ingly significant knowledge.
Here is where the third type of direction comes in: instead of evolving invari-
ably on the same level of significance, the successive pursuits advance toward the
frontiers of empirical research, regions in which basic problems and far-reaching
issues begin to assert themselves. It is fairly obvious that Merton insists on
middle-ground theories only because he considers them a prerequisite of the
transition from empirical to basic research; that is, they would somehow resem-
ble the artificial satellites indispensable for space travel. This advance toward the
frontiers—or is it rather a return of empirical research to its origins?—may be
illustrated by shat has just been called a new approach in the area where com-
munications research and research in decision-making processes join forces. The
following is a more or less hypothetical reconstruction of latest developments in
this area. They lead, it may be assumed, from the recognition of the influence
3 62 l Cold War T en si o ns

which interpersonal relations exert on the individual’s opinions and attitudes to

an awareness that the individual is also exposed to the impact of the larger
groups to which he belongs, such as church communities, unions, political orga-
nizations, etc. Now any larger group is a historical unit; and its specific character
owes much to the changes it has it has undergone in the course of time. Conse-
quently, in order to interpret these groups as influences that play a role in deci-
sion making, the social scientist must study not only their current sociological
structure but set them in a historical perspective as well. For instance, it is quite
conceivable that successive generations differ in their stand on the goals which
their respective groups promote and that they thus alter the nature of the goals
themselves. And it is equally conceivable that the historical sequence of such dif-
ferences and alternations follows a definable pattern. The authors of the Elmira
study, it appears, assume precisely this; in any case they trace some changes in
attitudes and opinions to the tendency, believed to be inherent in each new gen-
eration, to evolve a new set of preferences. Research, then extends its interpreta-
tive effort to include what may be termed the “historical factor.” It is important
to grasp the meaning of this step. In achieving it, the researchers do not simply
add an explanatory factor on the same level of medium significance as those pre-
ceding it—an alternative exemplified above—but definitely go beyond that
level. Indeed, the inclusion of history confronts them with such basic problems
as how to integrate historical exegesis and sociological analysis or how to utilize
historical entities within the framework of empirical procedures. Similar
advances toward basic theory are noticeable elsewhere. In the Printers’ Union
study the customary empirical approach is supplemented by an exposition of rel-
evant historical processes. And one is safe in conjecturing that the religious pro-
gram in the making will have to come to grips with the history of the Churches
and the institutional implications of various theological concepts. All of which
implies that the involvement in basic theory and the concern with substantive
issues of high significance are closely interrelated. Otherwise expressed, the
incorporation of the “historical factor” challenges research to raise questions
that bear on large provinces of social reality, if not on the character of our soci-
ety as a whole.
The scheme presented, then, serves to analyze each program for its scope, its
inner coherence and the course it is taking. It need hardly be mentioned that the
scheme has no function other than to give a general idea of how any program
should be approached. Actually the material may call for variations in treatment
and/or additional queries. This would, for instance, apply to projects carried out
with other university agencies. Take the long-term study of social factors relat-
ing to hypertension: a joint enterprise of the Bureau and Columbia’s School of
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 363

Public Health, its evolution is certainly conditioned by the fact that it grows out
of interdisciplinary research. The necessity for social scientists and medical
experts to collaborate in this field is obvious. Nevertheless, one will also have to
consider the possibility that such teamwork entails compromises lowering the
intensity of design. This might happen, for example, when one expert group nur-
tures doubts about certain notions of the other but, for lack of competence,
must somehow put up with them. The task of reconciling divergent approaches
not only mechanically poses problems which involve the organizational setup. It
would therefore seem desirable to examine the organizational aspects of the
hypertension project with a view to finding out about their impact, if any, on its
scientific significance.
After the autonomous programs have been checked individually, the ques-
tion of whether or not they are interrelated arises. In the case of the Bureau most
of them are. It has already been shown that a large section of the political behav-
ior program—all the projects inquiring into the motivations behind voting
decisions—is an outgrowth of the communications program with its emphasis
on the role which the mass media play in decision making. As has equally been
pointed out, research under these programs arrives at the conclusion that an
individual’s decisions are strongly influenced by the small everyday groups to
which he belongs. Well, the factor of interpersonal relations is also taken into
account in the professions program; the study of trainees at a medical school
combs student diaries for indications about the kind of influence which the
“opinion leaders” among the trainees exert on their fellow-students.6 And this
suggests that the interest in the socialization of professionals and the preoccupa-
tion with voting behavior have something in common. Both bear on changes in
attitudes and opinions. The main difference between the study of medical train-
ees on the one hand and some study of an election campaign on the other is
perhaps that the former investigates long-term transformation processes, while
the latter concentrates on such changes as may be effected by short-term opera-
tions. That the absorption in social dynamics does not lead to a neglect of social
issues is demonstrated by the Bureau’s efforts to develop a major program cover-
ing the sociology of religion. There is little doubt that this program falls into line
with the afore-mentioned autonomous pursuits. It is likely to parallel and com-
plement the studies of the political process in America. It will definitely carry
over institutional research to a new area. And it may well add to our knowledge
of the substantive influences that condition widespread attitudes; interestingly
enough, the data on which the current Polio study draws intimate that people’s
choices and decisions are in a measure determined by their religious affiliations.
Threads thus lead from area to area, unit to unit. Only the population program
3 64 l Cold War T en si ons

is relatively unconnected with the rest of the autonomous output—a lack of

coherence which has certainly facilitated its recent organizational separation
from the Bureau.
Finally, some thought should be given to the interplay between substantive
and methodological endeavors. It is evident that these two branches of research
depend upon each other: substantive problems cannot be effectively tackled
unless appropriate methods for getting at them have been devised; and con-
versely, any advance in methodology stands a fair chance of bringing hitherto
unsuspected aspects of substantive problems into view. Substance calls for
method, and method makes appear substance. The latter sequence—from
research techniques to new aspects of social phenomena—is of particular inter-
est. Take the panel method: application of this technique, which the Bureau
developed as a means of studying the dynamics of attitudes and opinions, yielded
insight, otherwise difficult to gain, into the “regressive” effects of campaigns
launched during an election period or so to win over opponents and entice the
indifferent; actually, instead of swaying the minds, such pressures often
strengthen group resistance to the campaign goals and also prompt the individ-
ual to revert to the very ideas they combat. The differentiation between high-
motivated and low-motivated decisions at which the researchers arrived when
utilizing reason analysis is likewise of substantive interest. What latent structure
analysis implies for the projective tests and for depth psychology in general
remains to be seen.
It has been tacitly assumed till now that there is an equilibrium between sub-
stantive and methodological pursuits. But the possibility that one branch of
research grows rampant at the expense of the other should not be overlooked.
Any such lack of balance has dangerous consequences; to paraphrase a famous
statement of Kant’s, substantive concepts without appropriate methods are
“blind,” while methods without substantive concepts are “empty.” Affinity for
substance being rare, the second alternative is more likely to occur. And this
leads back to the Bureau. The question is whether its absorption in methodology
has ever exceeded its genuine preoccupation with social problems proper. In
their recent paper, “Friendship As a Social Process: A Substantive and Method-
ological Analysis,” which is based on the housing study, Lazarsfeld and Merton
focus on this particular issue, trying to demonstrate that methodological explo-
rations are prerequisite to substantive discoveries or at least facilitate them con-
siderably. Since the paper can be assumed to be representative of the Bureau’s
research intentions, a thorough probing into it—a probing into its latent empha-
ses rather than manifest arguments—might reveal something about the kind of
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 365

relationship which the Bureau tends to establish between these two indepen-
dent modes of research.
So far the material has been dealt with systematically. Now the history of the
research institute’s autonomous activities will have to be considered. Not all of
it, though; for systematic analysis has already involved the dynamics of these
activities, if in a fragmentary manner. Indeed, the preceding paragraphs about
the continuity (or noncontinuity) of successive research propositions and the
direction in which they follow each other take in a measure care of develop-
ments in this field. What counts in the present stage is to supplement the frag-
mentary data thus provided by information enabling us to see the various
sequences of autonomous aspirations and realizations in their historical context.
Speaking of the Bureau, one would for instance like to learn whether it has
always patterned the relationship between methodological and substantive anal-
ysis on the model set in the Lazarsfeld-Merton paper mentioned above. Along
with such conceptual changes, the historical survey would also have to cover the
impact of several relatively external factors on the evolution of the Bureau’s
autonomous research. No doubt university influences play a role in this evolu-
tion; and so do, perhaps, atmospheric conditions—the ideas and moods that
frame people’s outlook in any given period. The emphasis which the Bureau has
placed throughout on a psychological approach to social phenomena presum-
ably reflects the still undiminished prestige of psychology in this country. Nor is
it by sheer accident that during the war the Bureau manifested a certain prefer-
ence for content analysis studies; general concern with the effectiveness of our
propaganda message in those years decidedly favored research along these lines.
By the same token, the Bureau’s increasing interest in religion may have some-
thing to do with a change in intellectual climate; judging from the non-fiction
column of the bestseller lists, there seems to be a growing desire for values and
contents apt to imbue life with meaning.7
What holds true of the Bureau, may not, or not completely, apply to other
organizations of similar status, it is therefore planned to review also the autono-
mous output of, say, the research centers at the Universities of Chicago, Michi-
gan and Harvard. This investigation will not be exhaustive, for this sole purpose
is to provide such additional information as is indispensable for an evaluation of
autonomous research in general.
In order to evaluate the material analyzed, two questions—both formulated
at the outset—will have to be answered: What is the significance of autonomous
research, as cultivated by the institutes on the campus? And in what ways may
the latter’s organizational requirements affect the character of these pursuits?
3 66 l Cold War T en si ons

Regarding the first question, it has been assumed in the preceding pages that
the significance of empirical research grows with its increasing immersion in
social theory and in substantive problems leading up to the whole of society or
even bringing it into play. Hence the necessity of ascertaining the extent to
which autonomous research actually acknowledges these central concerns of
sociology. Here is the place where, in the case of the Bureau, all the previous
appraisals of its activities in the areas of communications research, political
behavior, etc. must be integrated into an evaluation of its total autonomous
output.
Yet this is only part of the story, if perhaps its most important part. Viewed
from another angle, autonomous research reveals itself to be significant for rea-
sons which have nothing to do with its greater or lesser devotion to basic theory
and major issues. An analogy may illustrate this kind of significance which
should not be neglected at the final stage of evaluation. Supposing a culture-
minded person who has been exposed to abstract art for years and years with-
out, however, grasping its meaning, drops into an exhibition of recent portraits
all of which indulge, unmoved, in the old realistic manner. What he experi-
ences there is presumably this: even though he is reluctant to endorse abstract
painting, he nevertheless feels deeply disturbed at the sight of pictures which
pretend to ignore its existence. They strike him as unreal—as more unreal, in
effect, than any of the abstract approaches. And this in turn will prompt him
to realize the element of necessity in modern art. Similarly, now that the meth-
ods of collecting and processing empirical data have become a matter of
course, even the most significant speculations about the nature of society take
on a ghost-like character if no attempt is made to test them with all the avail-
able means. In an era of organized social research their magic wears thin—a
change in atmosphere which perhaps the speculative minds themselves would
be the las to deny. There seems to be something inevitable and compelling
about the movement toward institutionalized research. But as the product of
an irreversible evolution this type of research with its empiricism and its emu-
lation of exact science is certainly significant in its own right. (The task of
defining its peculiar meanings would involve an inquiry into the characteris-
tics of contemporary thought).
The second question concerns the implications of organizational permanence
for autonomous research. Among the advantages of a research center the follow-
ing may be mentioned:

(1) It offers to scientists, lone scholars or not, facilities that could not be
had otherwise. Projects which involve extensive sampling, tabulating, etc.,
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 367

largely depend on the existence of an institute geared to assembling and process-

ing the material needed.
(2) Permanence insures large-scale autonomous research. There is every
reason to assume that such autonomous projects as the Elmira study or the
Decatur study—projects requiring a relatively long incubation period and the
utilization of variegated research experiences—could be developed only within
the framework of the Bureau. The same applies, of course, to any long-term pro-
gram; he professions program, for instance, is bound to unfold in a series of
interrelated projects and therefore presupposes institutional stability. Nor
should it be forgotten that permanence affords the administrative advantage of
staffing a project according to the requirements of the moment. The evolution of
the population program is a case in point; it started, so to speak, with no staff at
all and then gradually took on larger proportions, whereby the Bureau with its
University affiliations was in a position to supply adequate personnel whenever
needed.
Organizational continuity does not warrant the continuity of research
propositions. Several co-existing autonomous programs may or may not be
interrelated. In the case of their interdependence all of them appear to stem
from unified and truly spontaneous research intentions. But is this unity, ideal
as it may seem, under all circumstances preferable to a conglomerate of pro-
grams which show no affinity for each other? It is entirely conceivable that the
organization in charge of the latter considers it its foremost task to follow up
the mutually unconnected propositions of different scholars. And provided
these propositions are on a high level of significance, the unity reached in the
first case need not be superior to the incoherence in the second. As has been
pointed out above (pp. 23–24), the Bureau has on the whole given preference to
the first alternative—programs forming a unit of closely interlinked queries and
approaches; in fact, only its population program is somewhat out of tune with
the rest of its autonomous output. This tendency toward coherence testifies to
the theoretical interests of the Bureau’s leading scientists.
(3) Permanence breeds traditions, thereby assuming functions vitally
important in fields where reading cannot substitute for training and a pooling
of skills is of the essence. However, traditions might also render those condi-
tioned by them less flexible in their dealings with new problems. Has the Bureau
succeeded in evading these dangers? That its staff members are sensitive to the
tradition which grows on them and consider it a positive influence rather than a
burden, can be inferred from the fact that they value highly what one of them
calls “Bureau culture” and another “communalized language and behavior.”
Should these favorable responses turn out to be justified, one might try to
368 l Cold War T en si o ns

establish a correlation between the particular “culture” of the Bureau and its
aversion to organizational rigidity. Indeed, the Bureau has always been reluctant
to enforce a strict division of labor, with technical experts specializing in the
diverse research operations. Perhaps such a relative looseness of organization
accounts to an extent for traditions which do not stifle intellectual enterprise;
on the other hand, this very laxity, if laxity it is, is likely to interfere with stream-
lined efficiency.
(4) In the interest of its survival any academic research center is obliged to
take on assignments from private or public social organizations. But contrary to
what might be expected, this necessity sometimes proves to be an advantage. For
certain assignments either raise problems in line with the center’s existing
autonomous endeavors or involve data stimulating it to turn the spotlight on
areas not yet investigated. These possibilities will be discussed and exemplified
in the subsequent chapter.

And so will the disadvantages bound up with organizational permanence.

Suffice it here to epitomize them in a slogan-like manner: commissioned research
tends to obstruct autonomous research. (The just-mentioned assignments bene-
fiting it represent hardly ever more than a minority of cases after all). Other-
wise expressed, in order to achieve permanence, this condition prerequisite to
sustained autonomous activities, the institute on the campus cannot help
endangering the latter—means threatening to defeat the ends. The paradoxical
situation in which the institute thus finds itself because of its eternal need for
support is amply illustrated by the history of the Bureau. In 1946, for instance,
the Bureau planned to prepare a much-needed syllabus on research methods and
their application. Since the Foundations showed little interest in this proposi-
tion, the funds required for its execution had to be derived from the profits of
commercial projects. The Bureau, that is, was forced to accept a number of
“bread and butter” assignments for the sole purpose of being able to finance the
syllabus. However, these assignments were such a strain on the staff’s time that
work on the syllabus itself, which should have been completed in 1949, fell far
behind schedule. In fact, the job is not yet finished.
Its inherent desire for permanence, then, puts the research center into a per-
manent dilemma. It must constantly try to reconcile, somehow, autonomous
interests with economic needs. And it cannot do so without compromising the
institute’s standards and goals. Scientists associated with it may have to devote
some time and effort to securing new funds. Projects unlikely to prove reward-
ing scientifically may have to be accepted. The Bureau’s list of unpublished
reports includes studies of the effects of toothpaste and Ex-Lax commercials and
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 369

of the reasons for which razor blade consumers change their brands—
investigations whose main value presumably consists in enabling the Bureau to
get over a financial crisis. (It is understood, of course, that, given enough time
and money, even an inquiry into the responses to Ex-Lax commercials might
afford insight of consequence).

ii. commissioned research

The second area to be investigated is commissioned research. For lack of suffi-

cient university support the social research center must accept or even covet
commissions from outside the campus in order to be able to fulfill its aca-
demic obligations, let alone survive. That much has been anticipated in the
last pages of the preceding chapter. Most organizations of this kind are largely
self-sustaining.
Analysis is faced with the task of bringing out the characteristics of the
center’s commissioned research as well as the problems bound up with it. The
subsequent two schemes, analogous to those for autonomous research, roughly
illustrate how this objective might best be achieved. The first is devised to
explore the common subject matter in a systematic manner, while the second—a
series of questions rather than a scheme—serves to cover its evolution.
To begin with the systematic part of analysis, support may come from (phil-
anthropic) foundations, social welfare of social action groups, government agen-
cies and private business organizations. It would seem advisable to check at the
very outset on the function which foundations assume as sponsors. To be sure,
like most donors they can be expected to grant funds only for work in areas in
which they themselves are particularly interested, but once this limitation is
taken into account, one will in all fairness have to admit that at least part of
them tend to support scholarly enterprises which otherwise might have be
dropped. In any case, the Bureau requested, and received, foundation subsidies
mainly for the sake of its autonomous pursuits. Assuming, this holds true in a
general way, foundation-sponsored projects do not strictly fall under the title of
commissioned research and may therefore be disregarded in the following.
There remain, then, all those projects which issue from the vortex of society
itself. They put two grave problems before the research institute on the campus:
To what extent do they conform to its scholarly aspirations? And are they com-
patible with its ethical code, professional or otherwise? The first question gives
rise to a breakdown of commissioned research according to its scientific
370 l Cold War T en si o ns

significance. It appears that two different kinds of commissions can be consid-

ered relevant scientifically—projects in keeping with the institute’s existing
autonomous programs and projects opening up new areas of research. (What
the latter alternative means remains to be seen.) But since the institute may also
have to take on assignments which offer little scientific interest, altogether three
types of projects claim attention here. They will be discussed presently.
The first type comprises projects which somehow fall into line with the insti-
tute’s actual autonomous activities, supplementing them or leading beyond
them in this or that direction. Their most desirable emergence may be a luck
coincidence, as in the case of the so-called “drug” study which the Bureau was
recently asked to prepare. Since the client wants to learn why doctors prefer cer-
tain drugs to others which have likewise been brought to their attentions, this
study, as it were, invites further analysis of the factors behind personal influ-
ences and the processes of decision making. Yet assignments of this type are less
infrequent than the slim chance of a windfall would lead one to expect. The
reason is that the research center does not just wait for them. There is always the
possibility of personal relations between the exponents of research and those in
need of it; and such relations, especially if grounded in “value-homophily,” may
well give rise to “fitting” projects—fitting in the sense that they satisfy both the
client’s demands and the autonomous requirements. Here belong the Bureau’s
commissioned Middle-East studies which look exactly as if they were a straight
extension of its communications research. Also, the institute may manage to
“plant” a project which it would like to carry out for reasons of its own. It is evi-
dent that projects in this vein must be tailored to the presumable wishes of
potential clients. A good case in point is the Decatur study which covers a wide
range of personal influences. The Bureau approached a publishing company
which specializes in popular low-brow magazines with the idea of this study,
arguing as follows: In order to increase your success with the audience, you
should know more about the way in which it is actually affected. Now advanced
research shows that most people are strongly determined in their choices by the
judgements of other people—in particular those who enjoy some prestige as
“opinion leaders.” You will be all the more interested in the kind of influence
these opinion leaders exert since they are also found among your readers and
advertisers. Let us therefore locate relevant “influentials” in four areas of con-
cern to you: marketing, movie preferences, fashions and political affairs. Etc.,
etc. The argumentation clicked with the publishing house, and the resultant
study built from the Bureau’s autonomous propositions.
However, even the most “fitting” project may have strings attached to it. This
observation calls for an excursion into contractor-client relationships and their
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 371

possible consequences for research. To start with the embryonic stage of a com-
mission, the prospective client is not a blank but has certain problems on his
mind which he wants to research institute to solve. For instance, a government
agency may wish to learn about the implications of organizational measures
whose affectiveness is open to doubt and to get suggestions for an improvement
of its organizational setup (see the unpublished Bureau report: “Problems of
Film Production in Underdeveloped Countries”). To decline research is not so
much an end in itself as a means to an end. In the course of his preliminary dis-
cussions with the representative of the institute—the contractor—his problems
and ideas, usually vague at the beginning, can be expected to develop into a
manageable project which may or may not be promising scientifically. If the lat-
ter possibility is discounted for the moment, the project either fits into the insti-
tute’s autonomous output or—to anticipate the second type of commissions—
bears on scientifically important issues not yet covered by the research group.
But even so the contractor may feel dissatisfied with this or that condition which
the client would like to impose. It is quite conceivable, for example, that the cli-
ent is interested in questions which could be fully answered only by way of
research operations requiring larger expenses than he is prepared to defray. Pre-
sumably the contractor will try to obtain more adequate terms. There are several
instances in which the Bureau successfully prevailed upon the client to expand
the scope of the commission. In the case of the tea study—a project intended to
explain why people might change over to tea—the client agreed to the inclusion
of a reason analysis which was not originally planned. Similarly, the sponsors of
the oil progress project let themselves be convinced that they should enable the
Bureau to use the data assembled for an additional latent structure analysis apt
to inform them about the character of permanent consumer attitudes toward
the oil industry.
Assuming now the client does not remove the restrictions which tend to
interface with a satisfactory performance as envisioned by the contractor, then
the latter is of course free to reject the assignment. Yet he may as well accept it
because of (1) its financial attractiveness, (2) the opportunity it offers for student
training, and (3) its scientific potentialities. The first two reasons will be con-
sidered shortly. Regarding the last, the following case is fairly typical: A client,
concerned with problems which are not particularly alluring from a scholarly
angle, insists on financing research only for a period of time long enough to
tackle these problems but not sufficiently long to do justice to the more interest-
ing features of the project. In such a case the research institute may or may not
be able to go beyond the commission proper and subject, on its own account, the
material involved to a new analysis. The history of the Bureau provides examples
372 l Cold War T en si ons

of both alternatives, especially the first one. Thus the Middle-East studies were
followed up in a number of papers, among them an article demonstrating the
inherent possibilities of “secondary analysis”;8 moreover, a book on the Middle
East is now being prepared which reverts to the interviews from which the origi-
nal studies were drawn in an attempt to delineate a few conspicuous personality
types in this area and their different relations to the forces of traditionalism and
Westernization. The forthcoming Decatur study re-analyzes the date of com-
missioned report for a variety of novel approaches. The report on Satellite men-
tality—a qualitative analysis of interviews with escapes from behind the Iron
Curtain—will have a sequel also. On the other hand, it happened repeatedly
that the Bureau just delivered the goods and left it at that for lack of time and
money. To be sure, the girl scout study answered the questions raised by this
organization as the stand of its volunteer workers on religiously restricted troops
and on the policy which national headquarters should follow in the denomina-
tional field; yet from the angle of autonomous research the study had to be aban-
doned prematurely, for there was no opportunity to bring out its scientifically
rewarding implications. The same applies to the Quick study; the hundred
depth interviews with Quick readers on which it is based still wait for further
exploration. Nor was the Bureau able till now to meet the challenge of the report
on the social factors concomitant with venereal diseases. Generally speaking,
whether or not frustrations prevail over fulfillments may be inferred from the
research center’s total record. Whatever the Bureau’s achievements and failures
in this respect, one is safe in assuming that it shows throughout a propensity for
carrying on promising investigations beyond their commissioned stage, even
though external conditions prevent it from doing so in a number of cases. It
would be interesting to check on the amount of Bureau material which lies dor-
mant for the time being.
As has been summarily indicated above, the commissioned projects of the
second type open up new areas of research; that is, they involve issues which the
research institute has not yet considered but now finds worth-while because of
their scientific relevance. Perhaps the projects hint of hitherto unsuspected
changes in social structure or prove rewarding for methodological reasons. It is
also conceivable that they impress upon the researchers an aspect of social life
which calls for further treatment. The Bureau has carried out enough projects
which might give rise to additional large-scale programs. For instance, the stud-
ies in the fields of hypertension and venereal diseases suggest the development of
a program covering various problems of social medicine. By the same token, the
polio projects, the girl scout project, and the Episcopal study—an inquiry into
the responses of clergy and parishioners to the secular activities of the Episcopal
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 37 3

Church—make, independently of each other, inroads in the area of institutional

research; hence the possibility that the Bureau will sometime find it desirable to
gather the loose ends they contain and investigate this relatively unexplored area
under a separate title. Incidentally, the Episcopal study may well be the nucleus
of a future major program on religion. to add a last example, the Decatur study
and, perhaps, also the so-called disk jockey study (which was commissioned by
Broadway Music Inc. and concerned itself not only with the motives behind the
disc jockey’s choice of records but involved, up to a point, the organization and
the functioning of the popular music business) would seem to encourage new
approaches to the substantive issue of popular culture. The Decatur study does
so explicitly by pointing to the need for a special research program devoted to
the uses which people make of the mass media as well as the gratifications they
derive from them.
It is true that any research center tends to develop certain preferences which
in turn and likely to attract assignments of specific interest to it; but despite
these preselective influences such commissions must be considered fortunate
accidents. Originating with private or public social agencies they cannot possi-
ble be predicted. The moral is that applied social research is of the essence. A
research center confining itself to purely spontaneous pursuits, would perhaps
never chance upon the significant issues and themes which society at large con-
tinually brings to this attention. Otherwise expressed, autonomous research is
not the only raison d’être of a university institute. Rather, its’ very scientific
interests challenge any such organization to rely in a measure on unforeseeable
commissions. Even supposing the organization is financially not obliged to
accept assignments from outside the campus, it nevertheless will have to lie in
wait for them in order to live up to its academic duties; it must so to speak leave
the campus to achieve full scholarly status within its confines. Only by taking
advantage of the “accidental” questions which society raises—questions which
form the viewpoint of society itself are of course anything but accidental—can
the social scientist hope to keep tabs on the living matter he is called upon to
study. That organized research exposes him to the hazards of empirical ventures
is perhaps its most peculiar contribution to the social sciences. For true as it is
that empirical research serves to verify theoretical speculation, it is no less true
that social theory may be advanced by empirical research feeding on chance
opportunities. “ ‘Applied’ research,” says Stouffer who also declares himself in
favor of a constant shuttling back and forth between theory and empirical data,
“can speed up thinking about the kind of basic theory that is needed. . . . Often
the pressure to ‘explain’ or interpret a surprising empirical practical finding may
lead to a reflection which organizes a good many such finding.”9 Merton holds
374 l Cold War T en si o ns

the same opinion, trying to substantiate it throughout his writings. The above
examples intimate that the Bureau is ready to seize upon providential “acci-
dents” whenever possible. Sometimes it even takes the initiative in bringing
them about. Thus the Bureau presently aims at establishing, with the coopera-
tion of other Columbia units, a Research Center for greater New York designed
to survey the problems and need of the New York community; this project
which definitely belongs to applied research may set off many a contribution to
social theory.
The third type of commissioned research includes projects of little, if any,
scientific interest. It should be kept in mind, though, what has already been said
in earlier contexts—that even a seemingly insignificant commission, such as a
study to improve the sales of some toothpaste brand, may lead up to important
substantive problems, provided the researchers have sufficient time on their
hands to get at them (p. 32). To be sure, since applied social research is currently
in demand, well-reputed research organizations are perhaps in a position to
select from among the assignments offered them those which conform best to
their essential goals. Yet whether or not this slight margin of choices yields the
hoped-for results depends upon the character of the inflowing commissions. In
addition, an organization’s need for support may be so pressing that it defeats all
selective efforts. Hence the possibility or even likelihood that many a university
institute carries out projects which just amount to “hackwork.” The above-
mentioned studies, chosen at random from the list of the Bureau’s unpublished
reports (p. 32), are certainly true to type and they are by no means the only ones.
But it should not be forgotten that at least some of these projects benefit the
institute’s training program and thus assume an academic function after all. In
the Bureau such unavoidable chores may be entrusted to relative beginners who,
in executing them under supervision, learn how to develop a code, train the cod-
ers, instruct the machine room, and build tables from the tabulated data.
Decisions about the acceptance or rejection of a commission hinge on moral
considerations no less than on estimates of its scientific relevance. These consid-
erations stem from two sources—the professional ethics of the university insti-
tute and the general ethical code to which it feels it should submit as a member
of society. To deal first with matters of professional integrity, there is little need
for dragging in instances in which the client’s inquisitiveness goes hand in hand
with a desire to influence, however subtly, the outcome of research. The insti-
tutes on the campus can be relied upon to resist attempts at manipulation.10 Yet
for familiar reasons they will not always be in a position to reject assignments
which center around uninteresting goals—say, fund raising for a social action
group—or insignificant social topics and under the given conditions involve
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 375

mainly drudgery. Examples of Bureau reports in this vein have been cited above.
Referring to several remarks equally made in earlier contexts, one might object
that hack work is the work of hacks; that only hacks are likely to ignore the sig-
nificant implications or connotations of otherwise insignificant subjects. But
this objection is not really valid. for even a genius will hardly consider a report
on the possible effects of some Ex-Lax commercial a fitting starting- point for
excursions into the lofty regions of social theory—let alone that such commis-
sions rarely permit him to take wings.
Academic organizations thus indulging in drudgery evidently lower their
scholarly standard; and by the same token, one is inclined to argue, they sin
against the rules of conduct obtaining in the university. From the viewpoint
of professional ethics, however, their apparent weakness is controversial rather
than just objectionable. Supposing an institute cannot survive unless it takes
on scientifically insignificant commissions, then the (moral) problem arises
whether it is not justified in doing no for the sake of its autonomous pursuits.
Should it cease to exist, valuable projects and ideas might never see the light of
day. On the other hand, the time consumed by hack work may excessively cur-
tail the time left for the things that count, and in general bad means spoil
good ends. Arguments and counterarguments are inexhaustible—which
amounts to saying that each case will have to be judged according to its indi-
vidual merits.
Professional integrity may also be severely tested during the execution of cer-
tain projects, scientifically interesting or not. Take the following hypothetical
case patterned on the Bureau’s above-mentioned study of Satellite mentality
(p. 38): A government agency wants to get material analyzed and evaluated which
has a direct bearing on cold-war issues—whereby it assumed that the agency
does not try to restrict independent research. Yet since the assignment calls for a
discussion of real-life conditions behind the Iron Curtain, the presumable
effects of Communist propaganda and U.S. propaganda, etc., it is well-nigh
inevitable that scientists and researchers should be affected from without and
within by the powerful stereotypes that shape public opinion in the area of poli-
tics. And the problem is whether or not their moral energies and intense enough
to neutralize these all-pervasive influences which tend to color their findings
from the outset and even before.
Even atomic physicists have come to realize that they are not only scientists
but also citizens and that in consequence they owe allegiance to two ethical
codes which might easily conflict with each other. Social scientists are in the
same boat; they too may find themselves in a dilemma of conflicting loyalties.
Three alternatives present themselves to the mind.
376 l Cold War T en si ons

(1) Ethico-political bias vs. a detached scientific approach. A case in point

is the Bureau study: “The ‘New Internationalism’ Under Attack” which was
financed by the United World Federalists, an organization interested in a con-
tent analysis of some of the publications opposing “World Government.” Once
the Bureau had accepted this assignment, the staff member in charge of it was
faced, consciously or not, with a dilemma, involving the objectivity of research.
As a scientist he was certainly eager to present the pros and cons of the movement
attacked with complete equanimity; but as a member of the larger community he
might have felt urged—out of sympathy for the cause of the client, the very sym-
pathy which, perhaps, prompted the Bureau to take on the commission—to
underrate the significance of the counterarguments found in these publications.
Actually he seems unwittingly to have succumbed to the latter temptation; it is
almost impossible to overlook the apologetic character of his report. In cases like
these the research institute had better state explicitly its political preferences or
convictions at the very outset so as to avoid being reproached with unscientific
partiality. What makes the report under consideration look equivocal, is of
course not its underlying concern with world government but its pretense to sci-
entific detachment.
(2) Ethically desirable drudgery. It is entirely possible that a social agency
requests some institute on the campus to engage in research which, for all its
lack of scientific interest, promises information beneficial to broad strata of
the population. For instance, the Health Council of a New Jersey community
commissioned the Bureau to determine the extent to which people within the
Council’s sphere of influence are aware of, and utilize, the public health facili-
ties available to them in their neighborhood. It is evident that such a project
represents a service to the larger community. And if one assumes that in case
of a conflict between the social and academic codes of ethics the former has
precedence over the latter, the Bureau was certainly justified in accepting this
professionally unattractive commission. The whole argument adds to the
moral controversy about “hack work” by demonstrating that it may be defen-
sible on certain well-defined occasions.
(3) Ethically undesirable projects which, however, might prove attractive
scientifically. Here would belong assignments from one political party or factory
studies unsupported by the unions. But as Lazarsfeld remarks in a recent memo-
randum, in many cases it is unfortunately impossible to foresee the category in
which an investigation belongs. For instance, a study of employee morale can be
used for exploitative as well as remedial purposes and therefore may be morally
admissible or undesirable.
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 377

At this point an important question arises: to what extent does the profes-
sional and ethical behavior of a research center result from conscious reasoning
about what academic and civic probity may require in delicate situations? Suffice
it to pose the question, which can be answered only on the basis of complete
familiarity with the center’s unwritten rules and organizational habits. To add a
general observation for what it is worth, the sensitivity of an academic organiza-
tion to professionally and/or socially problematic assignments is likely to
increase in direct ratio to its involvement in basis social theory. (Regarding the
Bureau, one gets the impression that the soul-searching among its staff member
in cases of controversial commissions is matched only by their depressive aware-
ness of the existing financial necessities).
Systematic analysis will have to be supplemented by an inquiry into the
dynamics of commissioned research. Among the pertinent variables three are
of special interest: the degree of dependence of a research center on outside sup-
port; its attitudes toward assignment from such sources; and the character of
the assignments themselves. To begin with the first variable, the center’s need
for support may or may not have remained stable throughout its evolution.
Under this title one would like to learn whether, other circumstances being
equal, the growth of the center entails an increasing demand for commissions
so as to take care of the increase in overhead expenses and keep the larger staff
busy. But be this as it may, the Bureau is now as desperately in want of funds as
it was in the past. Economic crises continue to mark the normal state of affairs;
and much time is still lost in merely soliciting studies (cf. p. 32).
If one keeps the factor of support constant for the sake of simplification, the
second variable—attitudes toward commissions—can easily be isolated, pro-
vided changes in the nature of the commissions themselves are provisionally dis-
regarded. One of the major questions is obviously whether the research center’s
policy with regard to scientifically irrelevant studies has undergone significant
changes. And if so, in what direction? In order to exemplify procedures, it may
be hypothesized that the Bureau originally manifested some laxity in matters of
commercial projects and that the laxity of the beginnings has by and by yielded
to greater selectivity—a hypothesis, incidentally, which does not seem to be far
from the truth. Once this is taken for granted, one will have to speculate on the
presumable reasons for such a development from indiscriminate acceptance of
any assignment to a less compromising attitude. Both external and internal rea-
sons may account for it: pressures exerted by part of the academic world and
influences traceable to the immanent evolution of research itself. In fact, always
assuming that the Bureau has actually moved in this direction, it is quite
378 l Cold War T en si ons

conceivable that is has done so also because its research activities have, by dint of
their inner logic, brought into focus increasingly significant issues which in turn
have conditioned it to become more critical in its choice. And what about
changes in the area of social ethics? According to the general observation
advanced above, such a more critical attitude in the professional field might cor-
relate highly with refined notions of what is morally admissible.
So much for attitudes. Concerning commissions—the third variable—they
too may have changed their character with the passing of time as a result of
changes in social structure and/or a reorientation of the research center itself.
The latter alternative can be illustrated by the history of the Bureau, as would
seem to follow from an unpublished report on Bureau activities written in 1949
or so. Having stated that, for the first ten years of its existence, the bulk of the
Bureau’s support came from commercial clients, the author of the report contin-
ues: “In the last few years, the Bureau has sought to divorce itself more and more
from such sources of support and has increasingly oriented its fund raising activ-
ities around philanthropic foundations, social welfare and social action groups,
and government departments. This policy has proven relatively successful . . .” It
might be added that under the present Administration assignments from gov-
ernment agencies are dwindling. Study of these changes is indispensable for the
correct evaluation of attitudinal developments. Supposing during a given period
commissions become more and more scientifically irrelevant, while the Bureau
itself, in accordance with the above assumption, show a tendency, constantly
gaining in strength, to turn down scientifically unrewarding projects. The
Bureau’s rejection of hack work during that period—even though this may
endanger its financial situation—would surely be proof of its growing awareness
of scholarly responsibilities. Conversely, should even those commissions which
are not directly solicited by the Bureau more and more center around issues of
consequence, the Bureau’s increasing affinity for precisely such commissions
may also be due to their increasing incidence.
In the interest of an inclusive and well-balanced picture comparative excur-
sions are a “must.” Accordingly, it would seem advisable to consult the Harvard,
Chicago and Michigan institutes, suggested above for comparisons in the
dimensions of autonomous research, on account of their commissioned output
as well. On the basis of the whole survey, an attempt can be made to appraise the
presumable effects of different interrelationships between these two large groups
of research activities. Supposing an institute accepts so many commissions, sci-
entifically attractive or not, that it is no longer in a position to follow up sponta-
neous research designs: is the preference it thus gives to practical tasks likely to
lessen the quality of the solutions it offers? Technically streamlined solutions
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 379

may be poor in depth and outlook. Perhaps it is possible to determine the ideal
ration between autonomous and commissioned research—a ratio acknowledg-
ing the double necessity for a university institute to aspire to goals of its own and
at the same time profit by such accidental commissions as enable it to feel the
pulse of society. And finally, one might try to derive from this “ideal ration” the
theoretically desirable proportion between university support and outside
support.
There still remain enough queries, but they go beyond the scope of the pres-
ent study. One of the most impressive themes looming at the horizon is the
interplay between applied research and society. If approached from the angle of
the former, this theme would call for an inquiry into the actual impact of com-
missioned research on our social environment. That is, one would have to try to
find out about the extent to which public and private social agencies have heeded
the suggestions of research institutes and to assess the changes effected. At least
part of the ground thus defined might be covered by a project, now under way, of
the Ford Foundation which Lazarsfeld mentions in his above-quoted memo-
randum (p. 46)—a study of the extent to which knowledge in the behavioral
sciences has proved useful in practical affairs. The same theme of the interrela-
tionships between applied research and society will also have to be treated with
the emphasis on the changing needs and preferences of the latter. Then it would
invite examination of the reasons why so many organs of society feel urged to
request the services of organized research. And since this is a relatively new and
powerful trend, one would eventually have to speculate on its origins. Is it symp-
tomatic of certain changes in the deeper layers of society itself? Yet these ques-
tions belong to the future.

iii. training

The third and last area to be investigated is training.

The university institute usually engages in two kinds of training activities—
in-service and out-service training. To begin with the latter, it may comprise
various educational measures not involving apprenticeship proper. The Bureau
provides technical assistance to students on the graduate level, thus supplement-
ing their formal education within the university curriculum. This technical
assistance program accommodates students who are preparing term papers,
master’s theses or doctoral dissertations in two ways: (a) It affords them an
opportunity to consult Bureau staff members and at the same time puts at their
380 l Cold War T en si o ns

disposal all the resources in material, machinery, etc., which they may need for
their projects. And (b) it acquaints them with specific research operations, such
as questionnaire construction, sampling, coding and processing of survey data,
etc., by arranging “tutorial” seminars organized on a workshop basis. These sem-
inars are also for the benefit of the in-service trainees, challenging them to
acquire skills in areas not yet familiar to them.11— In addition, the Bureau occa-
sionally holds courses for groups outside the campus so as to initiate them into
the advanced techniques of social research. Such courses were made available,
for instance, to executives of a large manufacturing concern, Latin American
census officials and German, Japanese and Korean radio broadcasters.
In-service training is to a large extent training on the job. The personnel pol-
icy of the Bureau is to provide for a turnover of the research staff every two or
three years. Only a small core staff is granted permanent positions in the interest
of the work to be done as well as the preservation of the steadily accumulating
know-how. Indeed, apprenticeship at a research center would seem to be all the
more valuable since certain major research operations—e.g. the “analysis phase”
of the survey method—are largely uncodified. They can be learned only in prac-
tice. It may also be assumed that of all the contributions which the center makes
to the formation of future social scientists intramural training is probably the
one which molds them most effectively. In any case, a majority of Bureau train-
ees feels this way.12 Analysis will therefore concentrate on in-service training.
The following scheme is divided into two sections, the first bearing on the
character of this kind of training, the second on its presumable effect. Regarding
its character, three factors can be said to determine it at any given period: (1) the
general gals and emphases of the research center; (2) the ways and means of
indoctrination; and (3) the “raw material” itself—that is, the criteria by which
students are selected and the reasons for which they may wish to join the staff.
From the viewpoint of training procedures it would seem more logical to study
the last two factors in the reserve order; but since within these contexts special
attention is paid to training in its relations to the other functions and obliga-
tions of the university institute, the sequence as established here is perhaps
preferable.

1. What matters first, then, is the general outlook of the research

organization—its prevailing research interests and its overall training objectives.
With respect to the former (which show in the output of the center and, there-
fore, can be inferred from the analyses suggested in the preceding chapters), one
is safe in assuming that they condition the scope and direction of training. In
fact, because of its well-known preferences in program selection the Bureau
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 3 81

provides fairly intensive training in the areas of communications and political

behavior, while somewhat neglecting skills like participation observation or
small group dynamics analysis which play a less important role in these areas (cf.
p. 40). (Yet a certain one-sidedness is perhaps unavoidable. And it need not harm
training. For the task of training is not to teach the trainee all imaginable tech-
niques but to give him a working knowledge of how to acquire, should the need
arise, these he has not been taught.)
Carrying this line of investigation a bit further, one might also inquire into
the impact on training of changes in research interests. The hypothesis that the
style of training will be affected by a shift of emphasis, say, from substantive
issues to essentially methodological problems does not seem farfetched. It is
quite conceivable that similar emphases tend to prevail in both fields of
activities.
By the same token, the views which a research center forms of the purpose of
training account for certain characteristics of its educational approach. To say it
more cautiously, these particular characteristics strike one as resulting from such
views. Thus the institute may fulfill its training duties with an eye to the stu-
dent’s scientific competence rather than his fitness to meet future job
requirements—training here being viewed from a predominantly academic
angle. Or the institute may feel that, in addition to conforming to the university
standards, it should also try to prepare the trainees for the positions available to
them upon leaving the campus. Whether or not the line followed by the insti-
tute can be traced to its greater or lesser preoccupation with significant autono-
mous pursuits is an open question. In case of the second alternative—training
taking into account the students’ careers—one is perhaps entitled to assume
that changes in job opportunities will influence educational emphases and
procedures.— There is no evidence that the Bureau cares about career prospects
beyond the academic confines; it is not “outward-directed” in this sense.
2. Analysis of the ways and means of practical indoctrination requires cri-
teria for what ideal training should be like. A few assumptions may therefore be
made at the outset. First, ideal training can be achieved only if the apprentice is
confronted, in an ordered progression and under adequate supervision, with all
the tasks which a sizeable research project involves from its inception to its last,
interpretative stage. Second, ideal training is contingent on favorable environ-
mental conditions—especially the existence of a qualified and dedicated team of
staff members who make the novice realize the significance of integrated collec-
tive work for empirical research. Many apprentices at the Bureau are aware of
what has been labelled its “culture” in earlier contexts (p. 31) and consider it defi-
nitely an asset for training.13 Such culture may somewhat compensate for the
3 82 l Cold War T en si o ns

Bureau’s one-sidedness in program selection. Third, ideal training should in a

meaningful way complement the formal education which the student receives in
the disciplines of his choice. To simplify matters, only the first assumption will
serve as a frame of reference in the following. The reason is that it alone bears on
the training procedure proper.
Before examining these procedures, however, it is advisable to deal separately
with two inherent features of academic research organizations and their possible
consequences for the training process.
(a) Much as projects advancing autonomous research are of the essence, they
may turn out to be a disadvantage to training: centering around high-level prep-
ositions, they require skills which elude the grasp of the beginner. They presup-
pose training instead of serving its ends. The history of the Bureau, says Pratt,
suggest that, in terms of basic training, “routine” projects are preferable to new
approaches. Generally speaking, like any complex organization, the research
center assumes a variety of functions which it is often difficult to reconcile with
each other. Its research goals tend to conflict with its training goals. Accord-
ingly, the higher the status of research for its own sake, the less prestige enjoys
training as an end in itself. This seems to hold true of the Bureau. In case of
conflict, it has more than once sacrificed its educational aspirations to its scien-
tific aims by giving priority to pioneering studies with a low training potential.
(b) The research center’s economic dependence on assignments from social
agencies may affect implementation of its training program in two ways.
To find out about these influences one will, first, have to inquire into the
reasons for which the center accepts some commission. To be more precise, to
what extent is it motivated by pedagogic constructions? In the Bureau the fit-
ness of a commercial project for training purposes seem to be at best a support-
ing argument in its favor. Other criteria, such as its compatibility with the
Bureau’s research programs or its value for new developments, are likely to carry
more weight. And as might be expected, the awareness that additional funds are
needed to keep things going frequently enough tips the balance. This would
mean that the training potential of most available projects is a matter of chance
rather than planning.
Second, once a project is accepted, the research center assumes responsibili-
ties toward the sponsor which inevitably take precedence of its training duties.
And as can be inferred from the passages about the relations between contractor
and client (pp. 35–38), the latter often imposes conditions which, though per-
haps acceptable in other respects, render efficient training very difficult indeed.
Here as everywhere insufficient funds obstruct ideal solutions. It has already
been indicated above that, in the case of many a commission, limited support
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 3 83

forced the Bureau to concern itself strictly with the practical problems raised by
the sponsor even though it would have liked, of course, to carry research beyond
them into areas of greater scientific interest. Since such assignments cannot be
used to acquaint advanced trainees with the more sophisticated and least codi-
fied research operations, educational frustrations add to the scientific ones. They
may to deepened by stipulations as to the time period within which the project
must be finished. Indeed, the client usually expects the research center to base its
time schedule on an estimate of how long it would take an experienced staff to
conduct the research involved. Hence the probability that there is rarely enough
time left for adequate training. In the Bureau the trainee is frequently put on a
job tailored not so much to his specific needs as the needs of the commission
under way. And the instruction he receives mainly serves to secure adequate
execution of this commission. Many a Bureau trainee realizes that his position is
that of a hired help or a technical assistant rather than a trainee. “If the Bureau,”
says one of them,” is to keep on having to furnish work for money, it will be dif-
ficult to train people well since this work is more important and always comes
first. It cannot be held up for training periods or for responsibilities in the hand
of inexperienced people.”14 This appears to be all the more plausible since the
necessity of meeting the deadline more often than not puts the project staff
under heavy pressure, especially in the crucial final stages. Considering the fre-
quent incidence of rush work in connection with commissions, some thought
should be given to its implications. On the surface, it just seems to reduce fur-
ther the time for training, in particular high-level training. On the other hand,
it might have the advantage of conditioning the trainee to a common real-life
situation.
At this point the training process itself comes into view. It can be conceived
of as a resultant of the efforts made to attain the ideal training goal and the orga-
nizational aims and obligations interfering with them. Assuming a beginner
holds a job as a coder. The task of training not only consists in teaching him, by
way of practice and theory, everything that there is to teach in matters of cod-
ing, but also requires that he be prepared for more difficult research operations
and then actually promoted according to his capacities. Inclusive training, then,
comprises three interrelated steps or activities: (a) training on a specific job; (b)
instruction beyond job training proper; and © promotion to successively higher
positions. This cycle is likely to renew itself until the highest position is reached.
(a) Training on the job. Along with the above-mentioned constraints arising
from the needs of commissioned projects, the research center’s commitments
may also cause it to keep, say, a coder much longer on his relatively simple job—if
simple it is—than would be justified from the viewpoint of training. This
3 84 l Cold War T en si o ns

possibility is illustrated by the fact that Bureau trainees, mostly beginners, are
often retained in one and the same low-level position far beyond the period nor-
mally required to get the hang of it. External pressures may thus defeat the beat
educational intentions.
(b) Instruction. Training on the job alone is not enough. In order to enable
trainees to rise from the ranks, they will have to be initiated into the total
aspects of the project in which they participate and also introduced to research
procedures on higher levels. This indoctrination may be provided in the form of
seminars, such as the Bureau’s “tutorial” seminars mentioned at the beginning
of the training chapter, or through staff meetings of varying range. Within the
framework of its professions program, the Bureau has held regular meetings ral-
lying the staff members of the medical project down to the rank and file. There
are also committee sessions which offer interested trainees an opportunity to learn
about Bureau activities with which they are not directly concerned. Altogether
these measures represent an attempt to reduce the dangerous consequences—
dangerous to training— of the Bureau’s strong dependence on commercial
assignments. As has been hinted above, it is true that Bureau staff members in
charge of a commission have often too much work on their hands—what with
client meetings, organization of the project, its representation, etc.—to expand
training beyond the immediate job requirements. But it is equally true that the
Bureau is aware of the strangling effects of its organizational set-up and tries
hard to alleviate them. Of course, whether its countermeasures—those meet-
ings and seminars which, incidentally, tax heavily the time of its staff—really
serve the purpose, cannot be answered offhand.
Nor should be it be forgotten that trainees may also be indoctrinated in a
casual way; private discussions are likely to ventilate harassing problems and
yield lacking bits of information, thus effectively supplementing the more offi-
cial occasions. According to Pratt, the advanced trainees in the Bureau are very
positive about this informal extension of their training, while the trainees in
lower positions feel that the personal contact they were able to develop did not
prove very helpful. Obviously a certain training period is needed for apprentices
to learn to participate in the peculiar life of the Bureau which owes so much to
communications through informal channels.
(c) Promotion. Any research center will want to give its trainees a fair chance
of moving on to higher positions in accordance with their abilities and interests.
And evidently the purposes of this job rotation is served best if the supervisors
keep a watchful eye on the performances of their charges and evaluate them
thoroughly. In other words, meaningful upward mobility calls for constant
“reselection” and sifting. These selective processes, along with disturbing
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 3 85

interferences from organizational necessities, will be touched upon in the subse-

quent section.
3. So much for the training procedures. And what about the human
“material” processed? Analysis will have to differentiate between (a) the initial
selection of the trainees, and (b) their just-mentioned reselection in the course of
training.
(a) Initial selection can be effected by way of two methods or a combination
of them. There is, first, the active approach: the research center selects from
among the graduate students those whom it believes to be most gifted or most fit
for the jobs available—here is where organizational needs come in—or both.
This approach requires competitions of various types, with the winners being
hired. The same result may also be obtained in less formal ways. For instance, in
selecting trainees, the Bureau sometimes consults members of the Sociology
Department and/or follows their spontaneous suggestions; or it acts according
to the judgment of those of its own members who are acquainted with eligible
individuals.
And there is, secondly, the passive type of recruitment which leaves most of
the initiative to the future trainee himself. This method raises several questions
which, of course, can be satisfactorily answered only with the aid of interviews
on the campus. To begin with, how do those who approach the research center
upon their own initiative learn about it? No doubt the center’s popularity among
students correlates with its general prestige. In many cases the applicant’s aware-
ness of the Bureau was due to its publications, references to it by university
instructors, student gossip, etc.
Another question concerns the image which the student forms of the research
center on the basis of what he heard of it. Interestingly enough, the Bureau seems
to be envisioned not as a training center but as a place where certain skills may
be learned. Applicants, that is, do as a rule not except to be really trained there;
rather, they anticipate jobs which incidentally provide training.
Finally, for what reasons may sociology students—or students from neigh-
boring departments, for that matter—feel attracted to the institute on the cam-
pus? Some of them are perhaps all the more eager to complete their education
in it since empirical research has visibly gained foothold in the university cur-
riculum—a fact likely to increase the institute’s reputation as a center of learn-
ing. Other may believe that they are predisposed for the kind of activities they
attribute to organized research. Add to the ideological incentives motivations of
a more practical nature—among the acute need for money and the hope,
founded or not, of the aspirants that their association with the institute will
help them in preparing a doctoral thesis and/or prove an asset later on. Actually,
386 l Cold War T en si ons

many trainees flocked to the Bureau because they had to make a living, wanted
to learn practical skills, and planned a research career. Whether or not such dif-
ferences in intention affect the character of training remains to be seen; but the
hypothesis that they do influence its outcome sounds very plausible indeed.— It
might be added that the Bureau relies largely on passive recruitment.
No matter how applicants are preselected, the final decision will more likely
than not hinge on personal interviews with them, at least this holds true of the
Bureau. It would seem indicated here to pose again the familiar question as to
the implications of conflicts between the research centers’ multiple aspirations:
for instance, to what extent are appointments determined by considerations
bearing on the training goals proper and to what extent by the center’s obliga-
tions toward its clients? Various alternatives are possible. Assuming the con-
flicting tendencies usually result in a compromise, then analysis will, in each
case, have to bring out its specific nature and trace the organizational factor
responsible for it. Regarding the Bureau, inferences drawn by applicants from
the interview questions they were asked confirm what has already been stated
above—that the prospective trainee is often “hired” not so much for his own
good as in the interest of running commissions.15 And since there is as a rule not
time and money for experimenting in the highest dimensions of research, lead-
ing Bureau positions—those requiring some experience in advanced analysis
and organizational skills—may well be entrusted to already-tested young scien-
tists rather than staff members having reached the training stage before the last.
Pratt has it that otherwise capable apprentices have risen only to positions which
did not involve full professional responsibilities. The policy, well-nigh inevitable
for academic research centers in need of outside support, of hiring for specific
jobs thus represents a danger to training; but it should not be forgotten either
that in each academic generation relatively few students belong among the
elected.
(b) Once the applicant has been accepted and put on a job. his fate as a trainee
depends to a large extent on the “reselection” processes. In the ideal case his
supervisors will watch his gropings, evaluate his performances and in the end
promote his accordingly. They may wish to find out about the trainee’s special
abilities and inclinations and then give him tasks in keeping with them. Or
they may attempt to overcome outspoken one-sidedness by entrusting, for
instance, the predominantly theory-minded with assignments which force
them to concentrate on the technical side of research. And of course, they will
always see to it that the student learns as many skills on as many levels as desir-
able in his particular case. It need hardly be mentioned that here as elsewhere
organizational constraints, well-know by now, call for makeshift solutions, thus
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 3 87

interfering with systematic sifting and advancement. In the Bureau job mobility
often seems to be a matter of sheer chance and of persistence on the part of the
trainee.16 Analysis is faced with the task of tracing and assessing the various
influences that come to bear on reselection. For instance, its irrationality may be
a variable of the research center’s size. In fact, if an organization grows beyond a
certain size, the result is frequently lack of coordination between its depart-
ments, and this in turn is likely to affect the promotion prospects. Take the
Bureau with its currently variegated activities: the odds are that trainees with
approximately the same record may nevertheless have unequal opportunities if
attached to different administrative units.
A final remark on the whole training effort suggests itself. One might ask
whether a more formal or a more informal approach to training yields better
results. Should activities in this field be completely systematized? Or rather, is it
preferable to handle things in a somewhat loose manner, placing only moderate
trust, say, in unified measurements of student performances and the like? It is
meaningful to speculate on the pros and cons of these two alternatives. Suffice it
here to advance an assumption in favor of the second. Informality in matters of
training carries at least the advantage of precluding mechanization of the proce-
dures and ratings involved—that kind of mechanization which threatens to
blunt sensitivity to the individual trainee’s potentialities. Presumably this also
applies to the research center’s autonomous pursuits; they too may suffer from
over-rigid control of their scope and direction. In scientific ventures as well as
delicate human affairs something must be left to intuition and spontaneous
action. It is perhaps to the credit of the Bureau that it has never aspired to
streamlined organization.
The second section of the scheme of analysis is devoted to the effect of in-
service training. What type of social scientists have actually been produced by
the institute on the campus? One thing is sure: however purposeful its training
efforts, the ultimate result does not depend upon them alone. As has been sug-
gested above, the trainee’s motives and expectations may well play a part in
forming his intellectual physiognomy. And is not, in addition, each generation
prompted by urges of its own, urges pregnant with changes in perspective and
direction?
In order to uncover the effect of training, one will have to construct a typol-
ogy which virtually encompasses all possible varieties of sociologists. A fairly
convenient typology can be developed from a breakdown according to the dif-
ferent relations which scientists may entertain to social theory and empirical
research—those two branches of knowledge whose interdependence has been
stressed throughout the essay. If the idea of such a breakdown is adopted, two
388 l Cold War T en si ons

major groups present themselves to the mind: scientists sufficiently “integrated”

to work in both the theoretical and empirical fields; and scientists who are not
integrated in this sense.
This last group comprises two types—not to mention transitions and border-
line cases. There is, first, the technician; he would have to be defined as a profes-
sional versed in the established techniques of research yet relatively unconcerned
for the basic problems of sociology. As has been pointed out in the introductory
chapter, the critics of organized research hold that this precisely is the type
which the research center on the campus tends to produce. In the case of the
Bureau the situation is not so simple. Due, perhaps, to its traditional interest in
methodological issues, the Bureau discourages rather than challenges its staff
members to specialize in any one technical operation.
The second type of interest in this group is the technicians opposite number—
scientists with an outspoken penchant for theorizing but not inclined or
equipped to verify their grouping empirically. The technician, as imagined
here, lacks sensitivity to theoretical thought, while the theorizer fails to enter
into the spirit of empirical research and therefore misses the kind of insight
accessible to it.
The other major group includes, by definition, all those who have a good
grasp of theoretical concerns as well as empirical procedures. It appears that the
Bureau’s training effort favors the emergence of such fairly integrated scientists;
in Pratt’s words, they represent the “middle class” of the Bureau. Another
observer familiar with the inside story of the Bureau characterizes this type as
follows: “He will be sell grounded in the empirical research which has been done
in his field and will probably have the ability to integrate this knowledge in any
new research he may undertake. He will be equipped if confronted with a
research problem to express an intelligent judgment as to the methodology to be
employed to best solve the problem and to ably design a study to this effect. . . .
Where he is likely to fall down, however, is in not having a real sense of direc-
tion; of being a man with many tools without having a real sense of what to use
them on; of being well acquainted with the means but of groping for the ends.”
True as this description may be, its emotional overtones are not entirely justi-
fied. A sense of direction is extremely rare, and trading cannot possibly aim at
producing geniuses.
Yet even though they achieve a measure of integration, these “middle-class”
scientists may nevertheless be specialists in on dimension or another. The actual
types of integrated specialists are unforeseeable; hence the tentative character
of the following alternatives. It is possible to distinguish between the more
theory-minded and the more research-oriented—the latter coming close to the
 T h e So c i a l R es e a r c h C en t er o n t h e C a m p us m 3 89

technician, the former having traits of the theorizer. (However, they should not
be confused with either of these nonintegrated types). And it is equally possible
to group the pertinent types according to their affinity for methodological
questions or substantive issues. The last subgroup evidently calls for further dif-
ferentiation since each important issue requires special treatment. There
remains the type of the fully integrated social scientist who masters both the-
ory and practice with an inclusiveness denied to specialists. His pursuits in
various dimensions of research might lead him to evolve and follow up theories
on the highest level of significance.
This typology serves to frame (and evaluate) interviews with scientists who
have received their training in the Bureau. In view of the changes which the
Bureau has presumably undergone in the course of its evolution one will have to
approach ex-trainees of different years. To round out the picture selected scien-
tists from other research institutes should be interviewed also. On the basis of
the findings it is perhaps possible to trace the actual results of training to the
different factors instrumental in the training effort itself and thus isolate the
particular contribution of each of them. This in turn might induce the institute
on the campus to reconsider its training program and try to improve it if needed.

Notes

1. See Robert K. Merton and Alice S. Kitt, “Contributions to the Theory of Reference
Group Behavior,” in Continuities in Social Research (New York: Free Press, 1950),
40–105. There the authors remark: “As is not infrequently the case with applied
research, the by-product may prove more significant for the discipline of sociology
than the direct application of findings” (81).
2. For “significant” studies in the area of communications research, see, for instance,
Suchman, “Invitation to Music” (Radio Research 1942–1943), Herzog, “What Do
We Really Know About Daytime Serials Listeners?” (Radio Research, 1942–1943),
Lazarsfeld, “The People Look at Radio” (1946), etc. What characterizes these
authors is the imaginative circumspection with which they incorporate their
data—data either purposefully assembled or drawn from available sources—into
large and socially relevant contexts. In “The People Look at Radio,” Lazarsfeld
examines not only audience responses but also the “social structure and social
implications of the radio industry” (4). And his follow-up study of 1948, “Radio
Listening in America,” adds to these two yardsticks for evaluation a third one: the
query of whether radio lives up to a high standard.
3. Robert K. Merton, “Role of the Intellectual in Public Bureaucracy,” in Social The-
ory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1949), 169–70.
4. W. W. McPhee, “New Strategies for Research on the Mass Media.”
390 l Cold War T en si o ns

5. Elihu Katz, “The Part Played by People: A New Focus for the Study of Mass Media
Effects.”
6. With interpersonal relations coming into focus, sociometric analyses gain momen-
tum. The housing study is largely devoted to them.
7. To be sure, scope and continuity of a research center’s autonomous activities also
depend upon its organizational needs. But the organizational factor will be treated
separately.
8. Benjamin B. Ringer and David L. Sills, “Political Extremists in Iran: A Secondary
Analysis of Communications Data,” Public Opinion Quarterly (Winter 1952–1953):
689–701.
9. Samuel A. Stouffer, “Some Afterthoughts of a Contributor to ‘The American Sol-
dier,’ ” in Continuities in Social Research (New York: Free Press, 1950), 199.
10. What they cannot prevent, however, is the distortion of their findings by the client.
Take the following case: the Bureau undertook a study for a newspaper organiza-
tion to measure the relative impact of newspaper and radio advertising. Even
though the findings were inconclusive in that either medium was found to have
certain positive qualities not present in the other, the sponsoring organization
actively promoted only these figures that were in favor of newspaper advertising
while suppressing the balance. This led to attacks against the study by the radio
industry. To be sure, it was easy to prove that they were unwarranted, but one is safe
in assuming that they nevertheless left a residue of ill-feeling and bias against the
Bureau. Such unpreventable manipulations are apt to injure the reputation of the
research center and strengthen the position of its academic opponents.
11. It might be mentioned here that the Bureau receives a $16,000 university subsidy
per year for training purposes.
12. See the unpublished Bureau report “The In-Service Training Program of the
Bureau of Applied Social Research,” by Samuel Pratt. Its factual findings are used
throughout this chapter.
13. See Pratt, “In-Service Training Program.”
14. See Pratt.
15. “In most cases,” says Pratt, “the specific selective factor was the ability to do the
given job then available. The applicant was in competition with others only on this
point. He was not considered as a whole. His student record and qualifications were
not considered comparatively with other possible candidates. It was a hiring pro-
cess. It was not a trainee selection process.”
16. “According to the long-term trainees,” says Pratt, “selection for an advancement is
based on luck and other non-rational factors.”
 Appendix 1
Report on the Work “Totalitarian Propaganda in
Germany and Italy,” by Siegfried Kracauer, pp. 1–106
T. W. Adorno

I
n evaluating Kracauer’s text, which in terms of length will comprise
approximately half the overall piece, it seems to me insufficient simply
to confront him with our categories and to examine the extent to
which he is in unison with them.1 Instead, we should presume from the outset
that Kracauer is neither committed to us in terms of his theoretical approach,
nor does he rank as a scholarly {wissenschaftlich} writer in terms of his working
methods. The question then is, having acknowledged these preconditions famil-
iar to us, does his work have anything to offer us, and what can we best use—be
it for publication or for developing our own theory.
I would like to formulate my impression as a preliminary thesis as follows:
the work is neither of real theoretical value nor sufficiently grounded in the
empirical material, but it does occasionally express in highly useful literary for-
mulations particular experiences and observations whose validity transcends
the outsider position of the author.
As regards the theoretical side, it should be noted that Kracauer is not a
trained Marxist and as a result constructs the relationship of fascism and fascis-
tic propaganda with the current phase of capitalism in more or less vague analo-
gies and sometimes betrays an aversion to Marxist methodology itself, springing
from individualistic reservations. Furthermore, his social-psychological reflec-
tions are not truly grounded, and psychoanalysis, in particular, plays the role of
stopgap. This becomes clear, for example, in his remarks about sadomasochism,
where the decisive difference between repressed and practised sadism is com-
pletely overlooked, so that Kracauer, who constantly refers to Horkheimer’s
theses, twists them to mean just the opposite. In the place of a sound theoretical
foundation, Kracauer’s text relies instead on a trove of convictions popular
3 92 l Appen di x 1

among present-day left-wing intellectuals, in which Marxist and psychoanalytic

concepts quietly take their place alongside vulgar psychological and sociological
notions and common-sense argumentation. Kracauer’s inventory of categories is
not so far removed from the leftist bourgeois writer of Stefan Zweig’s ilk, as the
pretension of the expression makes us think. The consequence of this is a certain
non-binding informality and contingency of the theoretical underpinnings,
which at times borders on the amateurish. This is particularly true of the deriva-
tion of fascism from the principle of the war, which is conceptualized in a
socially neutral way. Thus, the entire introduction of the work, at least up to
p. 30, probably even longer, is unusable—about which, incidentally, our group
appears to be unanimous.
As for its empirical-scholarly {empirisch-wissenschaftlich} credentials, it
should be stated that Kracauer—for reasons, I assume, connected with his pre-
carious situation—has not studied the sources enough. His citations are mostly
second hand, and the direct quotations from Hitler, some of which are extraor-
dinarily interesting, are not evaluated sufficiently. The material about Italy is
taken almost exclusively from Silone, who seems to me in no way above suspi-
cion as a Marxist authority. I would therefore like to propose that all sections
referring to Italy are dropped from any publication.
The strengths of the work lie for me in the quality of observation, of the liter-
ary experience of many formulations (we are not overly blessed with contribu-
tions of such writerly quality) and in a certain ability to arrange the factual
material which at times compensates for what the work lacks in actual theoreti-
cal prowess. I would like to draw particular attention to pp. 53–57, which remain
strictly within a purely phenomenological framework, but must, by these stan-
dards, be considered truly extraordinary. The thesis of the mobility of partial
ideologies in fascism; much in the representation of Terror; the method and
insights of drawing conclusions about fascism from the “mirror reflection”—
that is, from the fascist representation of non-fascist facts; what’s more, the the-
ses about the constant reproduction of the mass through fascism and the cri-
tique of the opposition between the personality of the leader and the mass as a
mere pseudo-opposition (a critique, incidentally, which could be made even
sharper). I find all this so illuminating, and also new, that we should publish it.
Even though all these analyses lack economic rigor, one can say in Kracau-
er’s defense that an economic theory of monopoly capitalism, which could
support the analysis of fascism, does not yet exist; but also that precisely the
detailed description of the fascist propaganda mechanism can call into ques-
tion the kind of naively economistic approach which hinders Marxism at the
current stage. One could, so to speak, make a Marxist virtue of Kracauer’s
 Appen di x 1 m 393

theoretical necessity. Regarding this point, I would like to draw particular

attention to the passage in Kracauer’s text where he criticizes the argument
that fascist mass events and the fascist construction of façades, more generally,
are “unprofitable.”
Since the positive elements of the work are beset throughout with theoretical
improvisation and naiveties, and furthermore, since the work extends far beyond
the space available in the journal—even if the first 30 or pages were omitted—I
would like to suggest working through to find the usable sections, to note these
down under headings and separate them out from Kracauer’s context, inasmuch
as this context appears arbitrary. On the other hand, Kracauer’s useful classifica-
tions ought to be retained. This material would then be used to produce a new
article no longer than two journal signatures {Zeitschriftenbogen}.2 I am willing
to commit to completing this task.
I would like us to bear in mind one thing: Kracauer has clearly made a her-
culean effort in this work to work his way out of the sphere of market-driven
writing, to which the Offenbach book belongs. I commend his effort highly.
Essentially, the quality of the work improves as it progresses. I therefore consider
it entirely possible that the as yet uncompleted second part of the work will be
better than the first. It therefore perhaps makes sense to wait for the arrival of
the second part before we embark upon editing.
Finally, I don’t think I’m guilty of any sentimentality if I say that, in the case
of a victim of emigration like Kracauer who is, after all, making an honest effort
to regain his intellectual standard, the morale boost that a publication has on an
author should be taken seriously and not left out of our considerations as we
reach a decision.
At the same time, in the course of the European propaganda campaign I have
repeatedly encountered the wish for more contributions on political sociology,
and the edited Kracauer essay could well meet this desideratum, without overly
burdening us politically.
New York, 5 March 1938

Translated by John Abromeit

Notes
1. {Adorno was reviewing the sections of the text that Kracauer had finished and sent
to him and Horkheimer by the beginning of March, 1938. Adorno did not yet have
the complete text at his disposal. See the editor Bernd Stiegler’s “Nachwort,” in
3 94 l Appen di x 1

Siegfried Kracauer, Totalitäre Propaganda, ed. Bernd Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp

Verlag, 2013), 322–23.}
2. {In printing, a “signature” (the equivalent of a “Druckbogen”) is four sheets cut and
bound together to form sixteen pages. So, this means that the article was intended
to be two signatures—that is, thirty-two pages long.}
 Appendix 2
Siegfried Kracauer and the Early Frankfurt School’s
Analysis of Fascism as Right-Wing Populism
John Abromeit

Introduction

Contrary to the traditional historicist approach to studying the past “wie es

eigentlich gewesen ist,” theoretically reflexive scholars have long recognized that
our understanding of the past is always shaped by current social conditions and
political tendencies.1 The remarkable—and ominous—growth of right-wing
populist movements and parties in Europe, the United States, and many other
parts of the world in the past three decades has heightened public and scholarly
interest in both the history of populism and the relationship of populism to fas-
cism. As Theodor Adorno dramatically emphasized in his reformulation of
Kant’s categorical imperative “after Auschwitz,” the subjective and objective
conditions that made fascism possible did not disappear with its military defeat
in 1945.2 The recrudescence of authoritarian populist movements in Europe, the
United States, and elsewhere since Adorno’s death in 1969 underscores the truth
content of his new categorical imperative. Part of the task of arranging our
thoughts and actions so that something like Auschwitz will not happen again is
certainly the effort to gain a better historical and theoretical understanding of
how and why fascist movements so successfully appropriated populist political
strategies and ideology. This essay aims to contribute to that effort.
In what follows, I will build upon my own research on the historical links
between populism and fascism, in general, and the early Frankfurt School’s
analysis of those links, in particular. I will focus on a lengthy essay Kracauer
wrote between 1936 and 1938, “Totalitarian Propaganda,” which he submitted
for publication in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, the house journal of Max
Horkheimer’s Institute for Social Research. Due to its excessive length and
3 96 l Appen di x 2

alleged theoretical shortcomings—identified primarily by Adorno—Kracauer’s

essay did not appear in the Zeitschrift. The full, original German version of the
essay was not published until 2012. In this volume we have translated into Eng-
lish and published for the first time two of the seven sections of the essay.3 Kra-
cauer’s essay is noteworthy for several reasons. First, it offers unparalleled
insights into Kracauer’s understanding of fascism and the crucial role that
authoritarian populist ideology played in its historical triumph. Second, Kra-
cauer’s essay has never been translated and remains virtually unknown outside
of Germany. Third, Kracauer draws extensively upon Horkheimer’s and Erich
Fromm’s writings from the 1930s—what I have called elsewhere the “early model
of Critical Theory.”4 Kracauer is able to address some of the weaknesses in his
own analysis of fascism by drawing upon Horkheimer and Fromm’s work. But,
as we shall see, Kracauer’s analysis also complements and supplements Hork-
heimer’s and Fromm’s writings in important ways. After discussing the main
arguments in Kracauer’s essay, the way it sheds light on the authoritarian popu-
list aspects of fascism, and its relationship to Horkheimer and Fromm’s writ-
ings, I will briefly discuss Theodor Adorno’s critique of the essay, which we are
also publishing here for the first time in English translation. Adorno’s predomi-
nately negative evaluation of it sheds light on some important differences between
Kracauer’s theoretical approach to fascism, and the approach of the Institute,
which Adorno was in the process of assimilating during this time, the late 1930s.
Here again, though, I will argue that not all of Adorno’s criticisms are compel-
ling, and that certain aspects of Kracauer’s analysis can supplement the Institute’s
own important—and still very relevant—work on fascism and authoritarian
populism. In other words, when taken together as a whole—along with other key
Institute studies, such as Adorno’s contributions to The Authoritarian Personal-
ity and Leo Löwenthal and Norbert Gutermann’s Prophets of Deceit—Kracauer
and the early Critical Theorists’ writings can still provide us with an excellent
theoretical foundation for grasping the persistence of right-wing populist move-
ments into the present.5 Throughout the essay I will also discuss the many ways
in which Kracauer and the early Frankfurt School’s analyses of fascism and
authoritarian populism have anticipated more recent scholarly findings in these
fields.

Kracauer’s Essay on Totalitarian Propaganda

Kracauer’s essay “Totalitarian Propaganda” is divided into seven sections. In

what follows I will first provide a brief overview of each section and then focus
 Appen di x 2 m 397

on his analysis of fascism as a form of right-wing populism. Section A of the

essay addresses the recent historical origins of fascism—in Germany’s defeat in
World War I—and the central role of demobilized soldiers and officers, but also
politicized workers who were disappointed with the reformist stance of the
Social Democratic Party.6 In the first section Kracauer also introduces key ele-
ments of his theoretical interpretation of fascism. He distinguishes his own
approach from the traditional Marxist “base-superstructure” model, and from
any version of sociological reductionism, which would explain fascism as a man-
ifestation of the material interests of any distinct class or social group. Like
Horkheimer, Kracauer moves beyond traditional Marxism in his defense of the
relative autonomy of culture and psychological character structures, which
allows him to place propaganda—as a complex and overdetermined form of
ideology—at the very center of his analysis of fascism.7 As we shall see, for Kra-
cauer propaganda as ideology is not a mere reflex, but is socially necessary—
indeed, even more necessary in a fascist than in a liberal capitalist society.
The specifically populist elements in the first section of Kracauer’s essay are
his emphasis on the broad appeal of fascist ideology and its strong emphasis on
national unity, especially as expressed in the concept of “das Volk.” Historians
and political theorists have long recognized that what set the National Socialist
German Workers Party (NSDAP) apart from others parties in the Weimar
Republic, and what secured their electoral breakthroughs in 1930 and 1932, was
their ability to attract voters from across the social and political spectrum.8
Whereas the relatively stable, middle phase of the Weimar Republic (1924–1929)
was characterized by a fragmentation of voters into diverse interest-group par-
ties, in its final phase (1930–1933) many voters abandoned these small parties—
but also the larger, more established parties as well—in order to cast their lot
with the NSDAP.9 Kracauer acknowledges this fact when he writes, “One can-
not understand the constitution of totalitarian dictatorships, if one views them
only as the product of bourgeois or also petty bourgeois movements.”10 Related
to this point, Kracauer also emphasizes the important role not only of demobi-
lized soldiers and officers in the early stages of the fascist movements in Germany
and Italy, but also of radicalized workers who were disappointed with the social-
ist parties. Anticipating the important research done later on Italian fascism by
Zeev Sternhell, Kracauer emphasizes the crucial role of “national-syndicalist
workers” in the formation of Mussolini’s movement.11 Kracauer concludes that
the social background of the fascist movement was “rather mixed.”12
The ideological expression of such a movement that drew support from across
the social and political spectrum was a strong emphasis on national unity,
pushed to the point of “national fanaticism.”13 Kracauer cites Ignaz Silone’s
398 l Appen di x 2

argument that an “enraged, revolutionary patriotism” was the defining feature

of the early Italian fascist movement,14 and Kracauer himself argues that “not so
much the state, as the racially chosen people” is the central concept of Hitler’s
ideology.15 Just as all the social differences of bourgeois society disappeared in
the trenches of World War I, so the Nazis’ concept of the Volksgemeinschaft
(community of the people) appealed to the desires of many Germans to over-
come the deep social divisions of the Weimar Republic. Of course, Kracauer was
aware of the ideological content of such concepts. The leading question of his
essay is “What is being concealed behind the ‘enraged and revolutionary patrio-
tism’ of the core troops of fascism and National Socialism?”16 The first and
rather unsatisfying answer that Kracauer provides to this question is that Nazi
ideology was driven by a “nihilistic will to power.” This response begs the ques-
tion of what lies behind such a “will to power” and, more important, how and
why it was successful. In subsequent sections of his essay, Kracauer presents the-
oretical and sociological insights that point beyond this initial and inadequate
answer.
In section B, Kracauer focuses on the role of fascist propaganda in establish-
ing an emotional bond between the leader and his followers. Following Hork-
heimer, Kracauer emphasizes that the authority of the fascist leader cannot rest
on violence alone.17 Kracauer describes how Hitler, Gregor Strasser, Goebbels,
and other Nazi leaders in the 1920s grasped intuitively the necessity of moving
beyond a rational politics based on material interests and logical arguments to
an irrational politics based on the creation of an imagined community of follow-
ers bound together emotionally through an identification with the leader and
his “ideas.” Kracauer describes as Hitler’s main aim “to emotionally bind the
masses as a whole to himself.”18 Kracauer also cites Goebbels’s definition of the
mission of propaganda—namely, “to win people over to any idea in such an inte-
gral and vital way, that they completely succumb to it and can no longer part
with it.”19 Hitler and Goebbels both formulate here the necessity of mobilizing
certain social-psychological mechanisms with propaganda in order to create an
irrational bond between the leader and the mass. In this context Kracauer dis-
cusses Hitler’s conviction that Germany lost World War I due to the superiority
of the Entente Powers’ propaganda, which led to Hitler’s own successful efforts
to systematically develop Nazi propaganda. In this section Kracauer also dis-
cusses the crucial role of Gregor Strasser, who was the Nazis’ national leader for
propaganda in 1926 and 1927, and who helped transform the NSDAP from a
small, southern German splinter party into a national party with mass appeal.
Kracauer stresses the central role of the concept of “German community” in
Strasser’s propaganda, but also Strasser’s populist, even anticapitalist, rhetoric.
 Appen di x 2 m 399

Kracauer argues that Strasser wanted to remove nationalism from capitalism,

and socialism from internationalism, in order to create “national socialism.”
Strasser plays a similar role in Kracauer’s analysis of Germany, as does national
syndicalism in his analysis of Italy. Kracauer emphasizes the genuinely populist,
antielitist, and (and least rhetorically) anticapitalist thrust of Strasser’s propa-
ganda, which appealed not only to German workers but also to large swaths of
the middle- and lower-middle class. But, for Hitler’s taste, Strasser’s approach
was too anticapitalist and thus ran the risk of scaring away potential supporters
who would be alienated by such left-wing rhetoric. At a party gathering in Bam-
berg in 1926, Hitler cemented his own leadership of the NSDAP by criticizing
Strasser’s “National Bolshevism”; Hitler’s rivalry with Strasser continued into
the early 1930s and ended with Strasser’s murder during the Night of the Long
Knives in 1934. The displacement of Strasser’s and the consolidation of Hitler’s
ideological position can be interpreted as the triumph of a right-wing, authori-
tarian form of populism over a left-wing, anticapitalist form.
In section B, Kracauer draws explicitly on Max Horkheimer’s essay “Egoism
and Freedom Movements” in order to explain some of the social-psychological
mechanisms at work in such forms of right-wing, authoritarian populism.20
Hitler and Goebbels argued that propaganda must seek to bind the masses to
fascist leaders by winning them over to specific ideas, such as the national or
racial community of the people. Ideas play such an important role, according to
Kracauer, because they have the potential to separate individuals from their con-
crete interests. Horkheimer explained the irrational and authoritarian dynamics
existing between the leaders and followers of early modern bourgeois freedom
movements precisely in terms of such a conflict between ideology and interests.
In the case of the NSDAP, they articulated a vehement critique of both the myr-
iad interest parties that existed in Weimar Germany in the mid-1920s, and the
entire party system as such. The right-wing populism of the Nazis consisted pre-
cisely in their attempt to replace the political fragmentation of interest conflicts
with a unified “German community” or “people’s community,” in which only
one political party would continue to exist. As Horkheimer also emphasized, in
order to mobilize people to act in ways that are ultimately against their own
interest—in order to prepare them, in other words, for self-sacrifice—they must
become fixated upon an idea. Kracauer writes that Hitler is concerned not “with
the defending interests, but with controlling the masses, independently of their
interests. . . . Most important for him is that interests are transformed into
ideas.”21 Unwittingly, Kracauer also highlights here an important continuity
that existed between right-wing theorists of group psychology, such as Gustav
Le Bon, and fascist theorists, such as Giovanni Gentile. Both Le Bon and
40 0 l Appen di x 2

Gentile adamantly emphasize the idealist and antimaterialist character of

authoritarian mass mobilization. Looking back on human history (in a superfi-
cial and dilettantish way), Le Bon concludes that all great social and political
movements have been driven by “lofty” ideas, not petty material interests.22
Gentile explicitly stresses the idealist nature of fascism and opposes it to the
materialism of socialism and liberalism, which are grounded in collective or
individual interests.23 Hitler and Goebbels both believe that people are much
more willing to die for a collective idea than for their own petty interests. The
task of propaganda, and of the fascist leader, is to bind them emotionally to
these ideas.
In section C of the essay, Kracauer discusses the relationship of fascism to
democracy. He emphasizes the desire of fascism to completely erase the entire
Enlightenment tradition in politics, which includes liberalism, democracy, and
the French Revolution. As we just saw, fascists view socialism as the logical his-
torical development of these traditions. Kracauer also mentions the “democratic
deficit” in Italy and Germany. On the one hand, he does—like later defenders of
the so-called Sonderweg thesis—view the comparatively late establishment and
relatively weak institutional grounding of liberal democracy in Italy and Ger-
many (in comparison to France, Britain, and the United States) as a factor in the
success of fascism. On the other hand, and in contrast to the defenders of the
Sonderweg thesis, Kracauer has no illusions about Germany lagging behind
other Western democracies in terms of its economic development. For Kracauer
the powerful antidemocratic forces pushing for the development of new forms
of totalitarian monopoly capitalism24 are more important for the success of fas-
cism than a “democracy” or “modernization” deficit.25 Like his colleagues at the
Institute, Kracauer never equated capitalist modernization with automatic
political and social progress. On the contrary, in the essay he clearly recognizes
and emphasizes the common interests that brought advocates of monopoly capi-
talism and fascism together. The former opposed democracy because socialists
and trade unions, backed by the constitution of the Weimar Republic, fought to
safeguard the rights and secure a decent quality of living for workers and thereby
tied the hands and diminished the profits of big industry.
In section C, Kracauer also continues his analysis of fascism as a form of
right-wing populism through a lengthy discussion of the fascist concept of the
Volk, and a briefer discussion of the fascist aestheticization of politics and the
social-psychological dimensions of fascist mass spectacle. Regarding the former,
Kracauer stresses the purely ideological character of the fascist concept of the
Volk, which is grounded in the basic contradiction between fascism’s rejection
of democracy and its need to represent the will of the Führer as identical to the
 Appen di x 2 m 401

will of “the people.” This positive (if also, of course, purely ideological) concept
of “the people” is what separated fascism from traditional, nineteenth-century
European conservative political traditions, which made no attempt to conceal
their antidemocratic politics with ideological façades. Fascism represented a
qualitatively new political phenomenon precisely because of its ability to mobi-
lize the masses for an antidemocratic and antisocialist—that is, essentially
conservative—political, social, economic, and moral agenda.26 Kracauer’s
lengthy discussion of Gregor Strasser and his eventual defeat by Hitler illus-
trates well the fascist instrumentalization of democratic and even socialist
themes, as well as the fact that such themes must remain in the rhetorical realm.
Fascist populism must remain right-wing, authoritarian populism, because the
fascist concept of “the people” is used primarily to conceal the contradictions
and social domination that continue to exist (indeed, are heightened) within
fascist monopoly-state capitalism. Kracauer cites Goebbels, who expresses the
fascists’ antiliberal, anti-Enlightenment concept of the people in the following
way: “What is essential in this revolutionary development is that individualism
is destroyed and that ‘the people’ takes the place of the individual and its deifica-
tion.”27 In contrast to the liberal-democratic and socialist concept of “the peo-
ple,” which Kracauer emphatically defends, the fascist concept of “the people” is
unitary and collectivist.
Kracauer argues that fascism sees its primary task as eliminating any possibil-
ity of popular self-determination, by transforming the people into a passive
mass. The end of fascist propaganda is the creation of such a powerless mass, and
the primary means is the ideology of “the people.” Kracauer writes:

Due to its totalitarian presumptions, National Socialist propaganda must dis-

empower the real people and impose upon them its own directives; however, at
the same time, it has to replace the idea of the real people with the illusion of a
people that is worthy of divine worship. Only by pretending to serve the phan-
tom of a racially superior people can National Socialism demand for itself the
sovereign power that created it. This sovereign power deifies the will of an
imaginary people so that the real people will not notice that they are deifying
themselves. The National Socialist concept of the people is a capsule without
content.28

Kracauer’s formulation here echoes not only Marx’s Feuerbachian theory of

religion as the fetishization of one own’s alienated powers—which, in his early
writings, Marx also used to critique the ideological political forms of modern
capitalist society.29 Interestingly, Kracauer’s description of the fascist concept of
40 2 l Appen di x 2

“Volk” as a “capsule without content” also anticipates Ernesto Laclau’s later

argument that populism rests on a concept of “the people” as an “empty signi-
fier.”30 In marked contrast to Laclau—or at least his later, “post-Marxist” work
on populism—Kracauer’s approach remains essentially Marxist, insofar as he
grounds the “empty” nature of the fascists’ right-wing populist concept of “the
people” in the need to conceal underlying social contradictions. In his earlier,
very suggestive work on populism and fascism, Laclau still worked within a
Marxian framework, but in his later work he insisted upon the “primacy of the
political” and disputed any attempt to explain popular will formation in terms
of underlying social constellations.31 Whereas for Kracauer the “empty” nature
of the fascist concept of the people points unmistakably to its ideological char-
acter, Laclau views this emptiness as an opportunity to forge broad coalitions
with the potential for a revolutionary transformation of power relations.
In section D of his essay, Kracauer describes how fascist regimes use terror,
spectacle, and welfare to make propaganda “indispensable like a drug” for the
masses they dominate.32 As a tool of totalitarian propaganda, terror has two
interrelated tasks. It must, first, create fear in order to, second, separate individu-
als from their concrete interests and subordinate them to the imagined national
or racial “community of the people.” Kracauer writes, “Fear [Angst] brings peo-
ple under its power in such a way that they no longer listen to propaganda out of
fear, but instead because everything becomes uncertain—precisely as a result of
fear—which, in turn, makes them capable of belief.”33 As we have seen, however,
Kracauer also recognizes that authority—even in a fascist society—does not rest
on violence alone, which explains the crucial role of spectacle and welfare in cre-
ating a “mass addiction” to totalitarian propaganda. Terror also aims to have the
indirect effect of convincing individuals to willingly abdicate their own ability
to judge reality and to accept instead the fabricated “reality” of totalitarian pro-
paganda. Kracauer underscores the theatrical nature of fascist spectacle, which
encourages the masses to accept fiction for reality and teaches them that “the
play is more than a play, and madness is the norm.”34 Kracauer’s remarks here
presciently anticipate the Nazis’ use of film to create their own version of reality
and impose it upon the German public. One could hardly find a better example
of what Kracauer is saying here than the Nazi propaganda film Kolberg, which
was made near the end of the war to encourage Germans to fight until the bitter
end against the rapidly approaching Red Army. During the production of the
film thousands of desperately need soldiers were called back from the Eastern
Front to serve as extras in massive battle scenes, which illustrated clearly Goeb-
bels’s conviction that the maintenance of the illusory world created by propa-
ganda was every bit as important as fighting the actual war.35 Finally, the Nazi
 Appen di x 2 m 40 3

construction of a far-reaching system of welfare also aimed, as Kracauer notes,

to win willing consent to their total program. Kracauer mentions the Nazis’
Winterhilfswerk program, which ran from 1933 to 1945 and provided food,
clothing, fuel, and other items during the winter months to Germans who
needed them. Kracauer argues that the main aim of this and other Nazi welfare
programs was to provide a “feeling of security” to counteract widespread feel-
ings of impotence and anxiety, which were themselves consciously created by
Nazi propaganda.36
Kracauer adds to his analysis of the right-wing populist dimensions of fas-
cism in section D by discussing two ways in which totalitarian propaganda
relied upon a friend-enemy dichotomy. One of the essential characteristics of
populism—in both its left- and right-wing variants—is its stylized portrayal of
society as being starkly divided between “the people” and “the enemies of the
people.”37 This populist trope played a key role in the French Revolution and in
subsequent democratic and socialist movements in the nineteenth century. Fas-
cism adopts the “friend-enemy” form of the trope, while at the same transform-
ing its ideological content from the Left to the Right, by redefining the basic
contradiction in terms that obscure the actual social antagonisms in modern
capitalist societies.38 Kracauer provides a clear example of this dynamic, when he
describes the Italian fascists’ and German National Socialists’ violent attacks
upon workers’ organizations and their leaders, which are intended to “liquidate
proletarian organizations” and to force workers to identify with the ideological
concept of the “Volk” rather than with each other. More than anything else, fas-
cism must convince workers that the basic contradiction is not between capital
and wage labor, but between the virtuous and productive “people” and the
immoral and parasitic “enemies of the people”—which the Nazis referred to as
the schaffend (productive) and the raffend (parasitic) elements of the popula-
tion.39 Fascist propaganda applies the “producer-parasite” dichotomy even to
capital itself, with industrial capital portrayed as belonging the former—that is,
on the same side as productive workers and peasants—and finance capital as
belonging to the latter. In this way, workers are separated from the material
interests that bind them together as workers, and are integrated ideologically
into the false totality of the Volk.
If the primary political function of the right-wing populist “friend-enemy”
dichotomy is to separate workers from their material interests, the dichotomy
also performs a crucial social-psychological function. By portraying social con-
flict in the Manichean terms of a conflict between the Volk and its enemies,
fascists—consciously or unconsciously—succeed in heightening, harnessing,
and redirecting psychic energies created by the antagonistic relations of modern
404 l Appen di x 2

capitalism. Drawing on Erich Fromm’s introductory essay to the Institute’s

Studies on Authority and Family, Kracauer highlights the role of masochism in
maintaining social bonds and socially necessary ideology under fascism. The
feeling of security created by identifying with the imagined community of the
Volk not only counteracts what Fromm described as a “feeling of powerlessness”
that is pervasive in modern societies; it also satisfies the masochistic need to
identify with the powerful social forces that seem beyond individuals’ control.40
According to Kracauer, these individuals “obtain from the totalitarian dictator-
ship the pleasure of being subordinated to persons embodying an overwhelming
fate. These persons control him and provide his masochistic desire to obey with
delectable sensations.”41 Kracauer claims further that Fromm was right to argue
that “the liberation from autonomous decision making and, with it, from doubt
is one of the greatest satisfactions that the authoritarian state has to offer its fol-
lowers.”42 Whereas Kracauer draws on Fromm’s work from the 1930s to explain
the masochistic components of fascist ideology, he draws again on Horkheimer’s
seminal essay “Egoism and Freedom Movements” to demonstrate why sadism
fulfills such an important social-psychological function within it. As Hork-
heimer spells out in rich historical detail, when the masses are mobilized in the
name of bourgeois political, social, and moral ideas, sadism provides a form of
ersastz gratification for the demands made upon them to sacrifice their material
interests and desires. The more sacrifices are demanded and the less the bour-
geois leader is able to fulfill his promises to improve the material life conditions
of the masses, the more sadistic compensation becomes necessary to reinforce
the emotional bonds that unify the “people” against their “enemies.” Official
enemies become fair game for the ersatz sadistic gratification of libidinal drives
that individuals must repress in order to become members of the new populist
collective created by fascist propaganda.43
In section E of his essay (which we have translated and included in this vol-
ume), Kracauer first discusses the key difference between his concepts of “the
masses” and “the people.” Although Kracauer analyzes throughout the essay
how the Nazis instrumentalize the concept of “the people” for their own ideo-
logical purposes, he does preserve a positive concept of “the people,” which he
views as an essential component of democratic and socialist politics, and which
he distinguishes sharply from the concept of “the masses.” Whereas, according
to Kracauer, one of the primary aims of totalitarian propaganda is to transform
the people into atomized, passive, and obedient “mass particles,” truly demo-
cratic and socialist movements seek to abolish the conditions that give rise to
such masses by empowering the people to actively determine their own fate.44
Kracauer elaborates upon this crucial distinction by analyzing the difference
 Appen di x 2 m 405

between socialist and fascist mass rallies. Drawing once again on Horkheimer’s
essay, Kracauer points out that socialist rallies rely much more heavily upon
appeals to reason than fascist rallies, insofar as the former aim to enlighten
workers about the root causes of their exploitation and to encourage them to act
collectively to pursue their own best interests. The latter, in contrast, rely much
more heavily on appeals to emotion and on conscious attempts to manipulate
the unconscious of the masses, whom the fascist leaders hold in contempt—as
Hitler made abundantly clear in Mein Kampf. As examples of the antirational
and manipulative character of fascist rallies, Kracauer mentions their privileg-
ing of the spoken over the written word, their mind-numbing repetition of slo-
gans, their highly structured and ritualistic character, and their heavy reliance
upon irrational gestures and symbols. As Gustav Le Bon, Sigmund Freud, and
other theorists of crowd behavior and group psychology—whom Kracauer,
strangely, does not discuss in his essay—had long emphasized, individuals in
crowds have a tendency to regress. Kracauer writes, “By using the principle of
repetition, the speaker pushes the mass down to the level of children and into a
condition in which they no longer take in anything except what he constantly
repeats.”45 It is precisely such regression that fascist propaganda seeks to rein-
force with the “magical power of the spoken word.”46
The two other key characteristics of fascist propaganda, which Kracauer dis-
cusses in section E, are its “cult of personality” and its “aestheticization of poli-
tics.” He offers two different explanations of the former concept. The first links
the authoritarian fetishization of the leader to what Kracauer himself describes
earlier in the essay as the “nihilistic will to power” of fascism, its striving for
power solely for its own sake. The second, and more convincing, explanation is
based on Horkheimer’s sociohistorical analysis of leader/follower dynamics in
bourgeois social movements during the early modern period. Kracauer follows
and elaborates upon Horkheimer’s analysis of both the authoritarian “charisma”
of bourgeois leaders, and the transformation of the (progressive) bourgeois cele-
bration of individual autonomy and free development into its opposite. Kracauer
agrees with Horkheimer that the primary cause of this apotheosis of leaders
lies in “the necessity of captivating the masses to distract them from certain
social demands.”47 In fascist propaganda, “all efforts seem directed toward put-
ting the person, instead of the mass, on center stage.”48 Kracauer demonstrates
how this fascist celebration of the “personality” represents an abstract, not a
determinate, negation of the bourgeois concept of the free individual. Bourgeois
society in its “heroic” period celebrated the autonomous individual as the cor-
nerstone of a free society. In the nineteenth century, bourgeois philosophers and
poets, such as John Stuart Mill and Goethe, sang the praises of the free and
40 6 l Appen di x 2

comprehensive development of the individual personality. Kracauer argues that

the socialist movement, which also emerged in the nineteenth century, “affirms
this valuation of the individual so unreservedly, that it wants to achieve its uni-
versal recognition.”49 But, as Horkheimer argued, the regressive economic devel-
opment of bourgeois society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century—
that is, the transformation of liberal capitalism into monopoly and authoritarian
state capitalism—also robbed the central philosophical concepts of the bour-
geoisie of their content and transformed them into mere fig leaves for the new
repressive social order.50 Kracauer writes, “The interest of big capital, which has
been pushed into a defensive position and become increasingly dependent on
violence, is not the struggle of opinion . . . but instead the death of opinion;. . .
not the development of the individual into a personality, but the ‘personality’
that knows how to subdue a mass.”51 For Kracauer, in other words, the fascist
cult of personality is just the opposite of the progressive aspects of the bourgeois
concept of personality. Rather than inhibiting, it reinforces the formation of
regressive masses. In fascist propaganda, the “personality” and the mass “mutu-
ally condition each other.”52
In section E, Kracauer also elaborates upon some comments he made earlier
on the fascist aestheticization of politics.53 In section C he had argued that
“many techniques of totalitarian propaganda are calculated exclusively to be aes-
thetically fascinating,” and “the aestheticization of propaganda is intended to
anesthetize the masses.”54 Playing here, wittingly or unwittingly, on the ancient
Greek etymological roots of “aesthetic,” as having to do not only with art, but
also with the senses, Kracauer goes on to spell out the links between artistically
and sensually pleasing fascist spectacle and mass domination.55 To grasp this
phenomenon, Kracauer coins the term “Massenbildkunst,” which means liter-
ally an “art of mass images.” Kracauer points out that fascism views the constant
reconstitution of the masses as not just as a means of delivering propaganda to
the people, but itself as a form of propaganda. Seeing immaculately composed
and efficiently functioning mass events such as rallies and marches provides aes-
thetic pleasure, in a manner not unlike watching a Tiller Girls performance.
Fascist propaganda actively encouraged its audience to imagine themselves as an
integral part—what Kracauer again calls a “mass particle”—of such a Volksge-
meinschaft, in which different parts of Germany are combined into one large,
efficiently functioning and formidable machine.56 It is not a coincidence, Kra-
cauer notes, that the Nazis actively recruited representatives from different parts
of Germany to participate in their marches. This tactic is also on display in the
famous scene from Triumph of the Will, in which twelve soldiers from different
regions call out the names of their various “homelands.” When cut and edited in
 Appen di x 2 m 407

rapid succession, the calls form an aesthetically gratifying montage of a unified

national community. Kracauer takes seriously Hitler’s claim that “the correct
utilization of propaganda is a true art, of which the bourgeois parties were and
are virtually unaware.”57 Whereas Hitler became a master of this art through
long practice, Kracauer draws extensively upon Horkheimer and Fromm’s
social-psychological theoretical reflections to understand how and why the pro-
pagandist must be a “virtuoso of the instrument of the soul.”58 Drawing upon
and reinforcing the authoritaritarian character structures that are the “natural”
by-product of modern capitalist societies, the most important task of the fascist
propagandist is to bind individuals to a social order that runs contrary to their
own best interests. Kracauer writes, “the aesthetic grandiose . . . is the over-
whelming appearance of power; its function is to tear people out of the sphere of
interests into a sphere in which they imagine they have been elevated above
themselves and are partaking in the magnificence that is presented to them, or
that they themselves represent.”59 In other words, the fascist aestheticization of
politics has the same function as its cult of personality: preparing individuals to
sacrifice themselves for an imagined community that, in reality, remains domi-
nated by particular interests.
Kracauer’s discussion of the differences between fascist and socialist rallies,
but also his analysis of the fascist cult of personality, are helpful in explaining
why fascism is a form of right-wing populism, and how right-wing populism dif-
fers from left-wing populism and socialism. In addition to what was already
written above, what is crucial to emphasize is fascism’s appropriation and exploi-
tation—as Kracauer himself puts it—of political forms and strategies, such as
the mass rally, that were developed by democratic and socialist movements and
parties in the nineteenth century.60 One of the main reasons why fascism was so
effective and why it represented an historically unprecedented political forma-
tion was precisely this transformation of left-wing populist political forms and
their successful implementation for a right-wing populist political project. As
Gustav Le Bon had already pointedly remarked in his introduction to The
Crowd in 1895, if conservative elites hoped to maintain their positions of power
in the new age of democracy, they would have to learn to play the game of mass
politics and mass manipulation.61 Fascism’s successful transformation of left-
wing into right-wing populist political forms, whose mass appeal eventually
outstripped the appeal of socialism, can certainly be seen as fulfilling Le Bon’s
prognostication.62 Like Horkheimer, Kracauer pays very close attention to the
subtle and not so subtle shifts in the movement from left to right that occurs in
the fascists’ appropriation of populist forms. In addition to the crucial shift
from a focus on rational interests to emotional compensation, Kracauer
40 8 l Appen di x 2

emphasizes the inversion of means and ends in the fascist transformation of

populism. He writes, “As soon as totalitarian propaganda exploits the proce-
dures used in the revolutionary camp, their function changes. . . . The same
actions . . . that the one side directs toward revolutionary goals, lose on the other
side any purpose transcending the mass, and now serve only to transform the
mass into a tough, rigidly structured formation. . . . The movement becomes an
end in itself.”63 One of the consequences of the movement becoming an end in
itself in this way is that a state of total mobilization must be permanently main-
tained in order to stifle any doubts about the authenticity of the illusory world
created by propaganda. This need for permanent reaffirmation of the totalitar-
ian Weltanschauung also explains the fact that leaders play a much more signifi-
cant role in right-wing populist and fascist movements than in left-wing popu-
list and socialist movements. In the latter, the leader’s function is primarily to
articulate the best means to achieve the material interests of the individuals in
the movement. In the latter, the primary function of the leader is social-
psychological: he must create and maintain the emotional ties that bind the
imagined community together. Indeed, he must become the physical embodi-
ment and symbol of that community. Neither Kracauer nor Horkheimer deny
that such emotional bonds also exist in left-wing populism and socialism, but
they insist that they are secondary to the primary, rational function of leaders in
those movements.64 If such emotional attachments to the leader begin to eclipse
the rational pursuit of material interests, than the movement runs the risk of
transforming itself into a right-wing populist movement—which is, historically,
hardly a rare phenomenon.65
Section F of Kracauer’s essay contains an important and distinctive contribu-
tion to a historically specific theory of the rise of fascism. With the possible
exception of Franz Neumann’s Behemoth, Kracauer’s analysis here of the recent
social and historical preconditions of fascism surpasses anything that the other
Institute members wrote on the topic. As we have seen, Kracauer draws liberally
upon Horkheimer’s macrological analysis of the sociohistorical roots of fascism
in modern bourgeois society as a whole, and Fromm’s analysis of the social-
psychological mechanisms at work in fascism, but neither Horkheimer nor
Fromm provide a sustained analysis of the social and political situation in Ger-
many in the 1920s, which set the stage for the triumph of National Socialism. As
Kracauer vigorously emphasizes, fascist propaganda can succeed only under spe-
cific social conditions. He writes, “If the society, into which propaganda is intro-
duced had not been receptive to it, it would have never been as successful as it
was.”66 What, then, according to Kracauer, were the specific social conditions in
Weimar Germany that made fascism possible? Above all, he stresses the political
 Appen di x 2 m 409

consequences of the hyperinflation of 1923, which hit the German middle class
particularly hard and delegitimated the ruling parties in their eyes. The inter-
lude of economic recovery brought by the Dawes Plan succeeded temporarily in
holding the anger and distrust of the middle class in abeyance, but when the
economy collapsed for a second time after the Great Crash of 1929, many came
to the conclusion that Germany’s experiment with liberal democracy had failed,
and that a radical alternative was necessary. Kracauer argues that the experience
of the hyperinflation had created anticapitalist attitudes among large section of
the middle classes. He also discusses how these attitudes were reinforced by the
strong tendencies toward the concentration of capital in the mid-1920s, with the
“rationalization” of the production process and the formation of ever larger
monopolies. Many members of the alter Mittelstand (“old” middle classes) were
further damaged by these tendencies, while at the same time the ranks of the
neuer Mittelstand (“new” middle classes) swelled, as the massive new companies
hired white-collar workers to staff their bureaucracies.
Kracauer had, of course, already established himself as a leading authority on
these Angestellten: the salaried white-collar workers who formed the most rap-
idly growing social group in Germany in the 1920s.67 As in his earlier study, here
too Kracauer stressed the social dislocation (Obdachlosigkeit) of the salaried
masses, and their illusory belief that they somehow stood outside the social
antagonisms of modern capitalist society. Kracauer points explicitly to Marx’s
remarks about the social position of the petty bourgeoisie, which leads them
falsely to believe they were “extra-territorial in relation to class,” and to yearn for
a reconciliation of class antagonisms brought about by a powerful outside
force—such as the state.68 Kracauer argues that Marx’s analysis “can also be
applied to the new middle class masses.”69 Like Freder in the sickly sentimental
ending of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis,70 who extends one hand to his father (the cap-
italist boss) and the other to the representative of the working class, in a naïve
effort to mediate between the “head” and the “hands” of the industrial society
of the future, the new middle classes dream of playing a “constructive mediating
role” between wage labor and capital.71 Despite their anticapitalist attitudes—
which were, according to Kracauer, more pronounced among the German than
the Italian middle class—they refused to join their logical ally, the workers, for
two main reasons. The first reason was that the Socialist and Communist Parties
had become too fixated on the industrial working class as the sole “subject” of
revolution and failed to welcome the politically radicalized middle classes. The
second reason (and here Kracauer draws on Horkheimer’s concept of a “cultural
lag” in his introduction to the Institute’s Studies on Authority and Family) was
that the consciousness of middle class remained firmly bourgeois even though
4 10 l Appen di x 2

the material life conditions of much of the old and new middle class differed
little from that of the working class—especially after the hyperinflation.72
Kracauer concludes section F with a discussion of how the Nazis adapted
their own propaganda to fit perfectly with the confused belief system of the
downwardly mobile, and politically mobilized, middle class. If fascist propa-
ganda must adapt itself to the preexisting attitudes of its audience in order to
strike a chord with them, “National Socialist propaganda plays every string cor-
rectly and resonates perfectly with the impoverished middle classes.”73 Rather
than dismissing it as an obvious contradiction, the middle class recognizes its
own inchoate feelings and beliefs in the Nazis’ amalgamation of anticapitalist
and anti-Marxist propaganda. Above all, however, they recognize the Nazis’
determination to reestablish strong authority. As Kracauer puts it, “The middle
classes know instinctively that a class reconciliation within the framework of
the dominant economic system could only be imposed and maintained by
unlimited authority.”74
Kracauer’s analysis in this section of the dynamic social relations in Weimar
Germany, as a necessary condition of the success of Nazi propaganda, contrib-
utes to our understanding of the essential right-wing populist dimensions of fas-
cism in at least three ways. First, his critique of the Social Democratic (SPD) and
German Communist (KPD) Parties anticipate a suggestive argument made
nearly four decades later by Ernesto Laclau.75 Like Laclau, Kracauer castigates
both the SPD and the KPD for focusing too narrowly on the working class as
the sole possible subject of the revolutionary transformation of society. In so
doing, the SPD and KPD leave the door wide open for fascists to appeal to the
déclassé middle classes, who had developed anticapitalist attitudes, but who
were spurned by the Socialists and the Communists. Drawing on progressive
populist (democratic and republican) and socialist ideas from the nineteenth
century, fascism transforms these ideas into a right-wing populist direction,
which culminates in their radical nationalist concept of “das Volk.” Kracauer
describes this failure to reach out to the disaffected middle classes in terms of
the socialists’ loss of a “total vision of society.”76 He argues that “during the cri-
sis the workers’ parties completely lost sight of their former vision of society as
a whole, even though the surge of new masses should have drawn their atten-
tion to society as a whole.” 77 Also, importantly, Kracauer criticizes the SPD for
its reluctance to carry out a true revolution. Even though power fell right into
its lap, the Social Democrats did not understand how to use it, and their pusil-
lanimous revisionism made them “forgot to take control of the judicial and
military apparatus,” thereby leaving the conservative elites from the Kaiserreich
firmly entrenched in their positions, where they would patiently wait for their
 Appen di x 2 m 4 11

opportunity to undermine the Republic. Kracauer concludes that “the absence

of a real revolution heightens the appeal of a pseudo-revolution among the prole-
tarianized middle classes.”78
The second, closely related way in which Kracauer underscores the right-wing
populist dimensions of fascism is his description of how the Nazis steal the very
idea of socialism from the SPD and KPD. Here he develops further arguments
from earlier in the essay relating to the aim of propaganda to separate people
from their material interests, and how the delegitimation of the party system—
which was based precisely on representing those interests—greatly facilitated
this task. Kracauer writes:

The dissolution of structures, which totalitarian propaganda was determined

to destroy, had already been set in motion by the collapse of the party system.
This collapse set the stage for this propaganda by creating a breach into which it
could leap. The more the German workers’ parties failed to meet expectations,
the easier it was for National Socialist propaganda to attract the masses pro-
duced by the crisis with the idea of socialism, while at the same time suppress-
ing the interests upon which socialism was based.79

Here Kracauer gives us not only an excellent example of the fascist appropria-
tion of left-wing political ideas and their transformation into right-wing pop-
ulist ideology; he also provides us with a compelling explanation of why such
transformations are socially necessary—in precisely the sense Marx discussed
in his theory of ideology. If liberal political and economic ideas were the
socially necessary form of ideology in the liberal capitalist societies of the
nineteenth century, the rapid concentration of capital in the monopoly and
state capitalist societies of the twentieth century created the need for new
forms of right-wing populist ideology, which assume their most extreme and
virulent form in fascist and National Socialist propaganda. Kracauer but-
tresses his argument here with the following statement from Ignacio Silone:
“In a country like Germany, in which almost three-quarters of all voters are
employees, a bourgeois parliamentary majority is only possible if the capitalist
parties present themselves as populists [volkstümlich auftreten] and make all
kinds of promises to the poor masses. . . . The dictatorship in Germany was
necessary.” 80 In short, as society becomes dominated by an increasingly nar-
row group of particular interests, ideology must become increasingly intense
and sophisticated in order to conceal blatant contradictions and to cajole the
majority into sacrificing their clear interest in an emancipatory transforma-
tion of capitalist social relations.
4 12 l Appen di x 2

As we have seen, social-psychological mechanisms come to play an increas-

ingly important role in this transformation of capitalist ideology from liberal-
ism to right-wing populism. According to Horkheimer, psychoanalysis has little
to teach us about rational social movements, which are grounded in the pursuit
of individuals’ material interests, but it has much to teach us about the irrational
mobilization of masses for aims that run contrary to their own interests.81 The
third and final lesson to be learned in this section about fascism and right-wing
populism is related to the social psychology of totalitarian propaganda. Elabo-
rating upon the remarks he made in section E, on the crucial role of sadism in
fascist movements, Kracauer identifies the basic social-psychological mechanism
of totalitarian propaganda as “arousing elementary passions and directing them
against external objects.”82 The consciously pursued end of this tactic is mass
deception: “The more intense the rage that is fixated on such objects, the less capa-
ble the bedazzled masses are of seeing the contradictions in the propaganda.”83 So,
Kracauer clearly recognizes the central importance of such psychological mecha-
nisms at work in the right-wing populists’ need to constantly fabricate a clear and
present danger posed to the people by their internal and external enemies. Yet, as
Adorno points out in his critique of Kracauer’s essay, his appropriation of psycho-
analysis is not sophisticated enough to articulate theoretically how and why these
mechanisms functioned. For this reason, Kracauer also relies heavily on the more
theoretically sophisticated synthesis of Marx and Freud developed in the 1930s
by Horkheimer and Fromm.
A brief discussion of the final section will suffice, since it mainly summarizes
the rest the essay and since we have included a translation of it in this volume for
the reader’s own perusal. In section G, Kracauer reiterates the crucial point that
propaganda is socially necessary for fascist regimes. He writes, “Propaganda is
not just something used occasionally by modern dictators, it is anchored in the
foundations of these dictatorships.”84 He discusses the fascist instrumentaliza-
tion of law, and its reduction to “whatever is useful to the German people.”85 But
for a much more penetrating theory of the fascist destruction of the rule of law,
one should rely on Franz Neumann, not Kracauer.86 Pointing to the organiza-
tion of leisure time in fascist Germany by the Nazis’ Kraft durch Freude, and
in Italy by Mussolini’s Dopolavoro programs, Kracauer gives further concrete
examples of the important role of psychological compensation and the mainte-
nance of the illusion of class equality in both regimes. Perhaps the most impor-
tant point, however, in the conclusion of Kracauer’s essay, is his strong emphasis
on the social origins of fascism, and on the concomitant necessity to develop a
critical social theory of fascism. In contrast to Carl Schmitt and later theorists
such as Ernesto Laclau who were influenced by him, who move away from social
 Appen di x 2 m 413

theory, and who see in the pronounced populist dimensions of fascism evidence
of the “primacy of the political,” Kracauer remains—like Horkheimer, Fromm,
and Adorno—a critical Marxist who rejects the autonomy of “the political”
from social and socioeconomic relations. Kracauer states clearly his convic-
tion that “the autonomous life [Eigenleben] of social reality determines the
dictatorships.”87

Adorno’s Critique of Kracauer’s Essay

Next, I would like to briefly examine Theodor Adorno’s evaluation of Kracauer’s

essay in order to reflect more generally upon the strengths and weaknesses of
Kracauer’s analysis of fascism, and also upon the ways in which his analysis was
indebted to Horkheimer and Fromm. In March 1938, Adorno wrote an evalua-
tion of Kracauer’s essay for Horkheimer, to aid him in deciding whether or not
Horkheimer should publish it in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. Adorno
argues first that Kracauer is not rigorous enough theoretically, especially in
regard to his inadequate grasp of historical materialism and psychoanalysis. For
Adorno, this alleged shortcoming also meant that Kracauer did not share the
same theoretical premises as the Institute, and that he did not adequately grasp
Horkheimer’s writings, upon which he had relied so heavily in the essay. Ador-
no’s second main criticism of Kracauer was that his essay was not sufficiently
grounded empirically, that his conclusions were based on a spotty sampling of
the scholarly literature on fascism up to that point. Although Adorno’s overall
evaluation of Kracauer’s essay was negative, he did find some things to praise.
Adorno states that Kracauer had succeeded in giving clear and nuanced expres-
sion in literary form to many important features of fascism, which he and others
had experienced personally in the 1920s and early 1930s. Adorno praises the
astuteness of Kracauer’s observations and attributes their high quality to his
“phenomenological” approach to the subject. Adorno also appreciates Kracau-
er’s argument that fascism must constantly produce the masses, and that the
fetishization of the personality of the leader cannot be separated from this ideo-
logical necessity.
Adorno’s criticisms of Kracauer are most justified in relation to his inade-
quate grasp of psychoanalysis, and of social psychology and mass psychology
more generally. Kracauer’s theoretical weaknesses in these areas are precisely
what led him to draw so heavily upon Horkheimer and Fromm’s writings from
the 1930s, which pioneered a qualitatively new approach to critical social theory
that was grounded in a sophisticated synthesis of historical materialism and
4 14 l Appen di x 2

psychoanalysis. Although many of Kracauer’s astute observations could be used

as examples of the social-psychological mechanisms at work in fascism, one
should not seek in his work a rigorous, conceptual explanation of how they
function. In this regard, Horkheimer and Fromm’s writings from the 1930s, as
well as Adorno’s writings on the social psychology of fascism in the 1940s, are
without doubt superior to Kracauer’s essay.88 Also, as noted, Kracauer’s failure
to address the literature on mass psychology, from Gustav Le Bon and William
McDougall (among others) to Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the
Ego (which was published in 1921), also underscores Kracauer’s inadequate theo-
retical grasp of social psychology, group psychology, and psychoanalysis. With
regard to Kracauer’s allegedly insufficient understanding of Marx’s theoretical
categories, Adorno’s argument is less convincing. We have seen here how Kra-
cauer avoided the reductionism of traditional Marxist approaches, which failed
to grasp the crucial right-wing populist dimensions of fascism. Kracauer’s more
supple interpretation of Marx, combined with his astute sociological observa-
tions, led him to focus precisely on this key aspect of fascism, particularly as it
manifested itself in the realm of fascist propaganda. Although Lukacs’s inter-
pretation of Marx was certainly more sophisticated than Kracauer’s—Adorno
drew liberally upon Lukacs’s pathbreaking reinterpretation of Marx in his own
writings—Lukacs’s fetishization of the proletariat as the “subject-object” of his-
tory prevented him from grasping the crucial populist dimensions of fascism in
the way that Kracauer had.89 At the same time, Kracauer remained enough of a
Marxist to see through the spurious claim, made by theorists then (Schmitt) and
later (Laclau), that fascism signified the replacement of socioeconomic relations
by politics as the new foundation of society.
Adorno’s second main criticism of Kracauer’s essay, that it lacked solid empir-
ical foundations and was not adequately grounded in the scholarly literature on
fascism, is justified to a certain extent. As Adorno points out, in the sections of
his essay on Italian fascism Kracauer relies almost exclusively on Ignazio Silone’s
writings. Kracauer stands on firmer ground in the sections on National Social-
ism, in which he draws not only upon studies by respected contemporary
scholars—such as Arthur Rosenberg, Erwin von Beckerath, and Eric Wernert—
but also extensively upon the writings and speeches of Nazi leaders, such as
Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Gregor Strasser, Hermann Göring, and Rudolf
Hess. Kracauer also makes us of a number of studies of propaganda from both
German and English-speaking scholars. Finally, Kracauer draws extensively on
the writings of Fromm and, to an even greater extent, Horkheimer throughout
the essay. Although Kracauer’s theoretical premises were not the same as Hork-
heimer’s, it is not the case, as Adorno claimed, that Kracauer failed to
 Appen di x 2 m 415

understand their writings. On the contrary, Kracauer seemed to have intuited

his own theoretical weaknesses and to have used Horkheimer and Fromm’s
writings effectively to supplement his own analysis of fascism. The fact that
Adorno was engaged at this time in an intense and ultimately successful attempt
to win Horkheimer’s loyalty, not to mention Adorno’s troubled personal rela-
tions with Kracauer and his rivalry with Erich Fromm, probably contributed to
Adorno’s tendentiously negative evaluation of Kracauer’s essay and of his appro-
priation of Horkheimer and Fromm’s writings.90 That said, Adorno did praise
the power of Kracauer’s “literary” and “phenomenological” observations, which
could themselves be seen as a form of “empirical” evidence. In any case, Kracau-
er’s analysis of fascism was grounded in earlier “empirical” studies he had carried
out—most notably, of the burgeoning group of white-collar workers (Die Ang-
estellten) in Weimar Germany. As I have argued here, some of Kracauer’s most
original and insightful analyses of fascism (especially in section F) are clearly
indebted to these earlier analyses. Finally, I have also tried to point out through-
out this essay the many remarkable ways in which Kracauer’s analyses antici-
pated later scholarship on a variety of issues, including Zeev Sternhell’s writings
on the important role of national-syndicalist workers in the formation of Italian
fascism, Ernesto Laclau’s early writings on fascism and populism, to Peter Frit-
zsche’s and Geoff Eley’s emphasis on the centrality of populist ideology to the
success of Nazism.91 Even if Kracauer’s essay may not have had sufficient empiri-
cal foundations, subsequent scholarship has demonstrated the truth content of
many of his insights.

In addition to summarizing the main arguments in Kracauer’s essay, I have

attempted to demonstrate here what the essay can still teach us about the crucial
links between right-wing, authoritarian populism and fascism. Kracauer’s
lengthy essay on fascism provides us with many important insights into the ways
in which Italian fascism and German National Socialism relied upon right-wing
populist ideology and political tactics to secure their catastrophic victory. These
include the following: the Manichean—and ideologically motivated—division
of society into the friends and enemies of the people, with the former portrayed
as virtuous and productive, and the latter as immoral and parasitic; the stress on
patriotism and national unity, and the suppression of individual and group
interests in the name of the good of the imagined community as a whole; the
mobilization of the masses, with the seemingly contrary aim of making people
politically passive, individually isolated, and powerless; the central role of
4 16 l Appen di x 2

psychological compensation, in the form of both sadism (permission to hate and

harm official enemies) and masochism (identification with the overwhelming
power of the rulers); identification with powerful leaders;, the replacement of
one’s own ego ideal with the ego ideal of the leader; the crucial role of economic
crises in greatly enhancing the appeal of populist movements and parties; the
ideological appropriation of key concepts (“the people,” “socialism”) and strate-
gies (mass rallies) from the left and their transformation into tools of social
domination.
The resurgence of right-wing, authoritarian populist movements and parties
in Europe, the United States, Latin America, and other parts of the globe in
more recent times has generated new interest in both the history of populism
and fascism, and the historical links between them.92 Although it may be con-
ceptually imprecise to label contemporary right-wing, authoritarian populist
movements as “fascist,” it is justified, conversely, to view fascism as a subspecies
of the larger category of “right-wing populism.” Fascism can be seen as an
extreme, and National Socialism as perhaps the most extreme, form of right-
wing, authoritarian populism. Hence, we can still learn important lessons about
contemporary right-wing, authoritarian populist movements by studying the
history of fascism, and the historical transformation of populism from left to
right, that was so essential to the success of fascist movements in Europe in the
1920s and 1930s. The analysis of fascism by Kracauer and the other Frankfurt
School Critical Theorists can also teach us important lessons about why right-
wing populist ideology has persisted—in other words, why it has remained
socially necessary—in advanced capitalist societies right up to the present day.93

Notes
1. “As it actually was,” here referring to Leopold von Ranke’s famous dictum about the
study of history. On the difference between Ranke’s traditional historicism and the
critical historicism of Marx, see John Abromeit, review of Gareth Stedman Jones,
Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion, Journal of Modern History 90, no. 4 (Decem-
ber 2018): 968–71. On the centrality of critical historicism to Horkheimer’s early
Critical Theory, see John Abromeit, “Reconsidering the Critical Historicism of Karl
Korsch and the Early Max Horkheimer,” in Karl Korsch zwischen Rechts- und Sozi-
alwissenschaft: ein Beitrag zur Thüringischen Rechts- und Justizgeschichte, ed. A. Seif-
ert, K. Vieweg, A. Ecker, and E. Eichenhofer (Stuttgart: Boorberg, 2018), 151–76.
2. Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialektik (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1966), 358.
3. As mentioned in the introduction to the first section of our volume, sections E and
G of “Totalitarian Propaganda” were the ones that Kracauer himself saw as most
important and had proposed to Horkheimer for publication in 1938.
 Appen di x 2 m 417

4. John Abromeit, Max Horkheimer and the Foundations of the Frankfurt School
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 1–5.
5. John Abromeit, “Critical Theory and the Persistence of Right-Wing Populism,”
Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture 15, no. 2 (September 2016): http://
logosjournal.com/2016/abromeit/ (accessed June 28, 2021).
6. Here we follow the designation of the different sections of the essay with successive
capital letters (e.g., section A, section B) as it appears in Siegfried Kracauer,
Totalitäre Propaganda (hereafter TP), ed. Bernd Stiegler (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 2013).
7. John Abromeit, “Max Horkheimer et le concept matérialiste de la culture,” in Les
Normes et le possible: Héritage et perspectives de l’École de Francfort, ed. P. F. Nop-
pen, G. Raulet, and I. Macdonald (Paris: Éditions de la Maison des sciences de
l’homme, 2012), 53–70.
8. Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Popu-
lism (London: New Left, 1977); Peter Fritzsche, Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism
and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1990); and Peter Fritzsche, Germans Into Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998).
9. Peter Fritzsche, “The Role of ‘the People’ and the Rise of the Nazis,” in Transforma-
tions of Populism in Europe and the Americas, ed. J. Abromeit, B. Chesterton, G.
Marotta, and Y. Norman (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 5–14.
10. TP, 16.
11. Zeev Sternhell, with Mario Sznaider and Maia Asheri, The Birth of Fascist Ideology:
From Political Rebellion to Political Revolution, trans. David Maisel (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
12. TP, 16.
13. TP, 20.
14. TP, 18.
15. TP, 26.
16. TP, 23.
17. TP, 29; Max Horkheimer, “Authority and the Family,” trans. M. J. O’Connell, in
Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: Continuum, 1992), 68ff.
18. TP, 29.
19. TP, 39.
20. Max Horkheimer, “Egoism and Freedom Movements: On the Anthropology of the
Bourgeois Epoch,” trans. G. F. Hunter, in Between Philosophy and Social Science:
Selected Early Writings (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 49–110.
21. TP, 34–35.
22. Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (New York: Penguin,
1977), 13–14.
23. Giovanni Gentile, “The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism,” in Origins and Doctrine
of Fascism: With Selections from Other Works, ed. and trans. A. James Gregor (New
York: Routledge, 2017), 1–11.
24. To use Franz Neumann’s term; Kracauer speaks mainly of “monopoly capitalism,”
but also emphasizes the desire of monopoly capitalism to establish a much stronger
4 18 l Appen di x 2

state, in order to run the economy in a more authoritarian and autonomous man-
ner. Franz Neumann, Behemoth: Struktur und Praxis des Nationalsozialismus,
1933–1944 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1984), 269–86.
25. For one astute critique of the Sonderweg thesis as applied to Germany, see Geoff
Eley, “In Search of the Bourgeois Revolution: The Peculiarities of German His-
tory,” Political Power and Social Theory 7 (1988): 105–33.
26. Symptomatic of the new right-wing populist strategy was the arch-conservative Kreuz-
Zeitung, which changed its masthead after World War I from “Vorwärts mit Gott für
König und Vaterland” (Forward with God for king and fatherland) to “Für das
deutsche Volk” (For the German people). Peter Fritzsche, Germans Into Nazis, 111.
27. TP, 48.
28. TP, 57.
29. Karl Marx, “Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” in The
Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. R. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1978), 16–23.
30. Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason (New York: Verso, 2005), 67–128.
31. Laclau, Politics and Ideology.
32. TP, 78.
33. TP, 69.
34. TP, 72.
35. On Kolberg as Goebbels’s last desperate attempt to maintain the illusory world of
Nazi propaganda, see David Welch, “Nazi Film Policy: Control, Ideology, and Pro-
paganda,” in National Socialist Cultural Policy, ed. G. R. Cuomo (New York:
St. Martin’s, 1995), 115–18.
36. For a more recent study of Nazi Germany that emphasizes the importance of the
Nazis’ creation of a “welfare state,” see Götz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder,
Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, trans. Jefferson Chase (New York: Henry
Holt, 2008).
37. For an ideal typical analysis of the commonalities and differences between left and
right-wing populism, see Abromeit et al., eds., Transformations of Populism, xvi.
38. See John Abromeit, “Transformations of Producerist Populism in Western
Europe,” in Transformations of Populism, 231–64.
39. See Horkheimer and Adorno’s analysis of this important trope of Nazi ideol-
ogy—in terms of what they call “bourgeois anti-Semitism”— in Dialectic of
Enlightenment, ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 2002), 141–44. Kracauer also mentions this same
trope in his essay; he cites Hitler’s statement that “schaffende Arbeit” (productive
labor) is “ewig anti-Semitisch” (eternally anti-Semitic). TP, 87.
40. Erich Fromm, “Zum Gefühl der Ohnmacht,” in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 6
(1937): 95–119.
41. TP, 76.
42. Erich Fromm, “Theoretische Entwürfe über Autorität und Familie,” in Studien
über Autorität und Familie, ed. Max Horkheimer (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1936), 127,
cited here by Kracauer, TP, 76.
43. TP, 75–76. One of the most striking examples of the links between sadism and
populism in Nazi propaganda can be found in the film Jud Süβ, which was
 Appen di x 2 m 4 19

commissioned by Goebbels and released in 1940 to prepare the German popula-

tion for the so-called “final solution” to the Jewish question. In the film, which is
set in eighteenth-century Württemberg, the virtuous and hard-working German
people are portrayed as the victims of a sinister, lecherous, and parasitic Jew by
the name of Joseph Süβ Oppenheimer, who succeeds in bringing the guileless
and profligate Duke of Württemberg under his control by granting him loans he
is unable to pay back. Oppenheimer uses his influence over the Duke to repeal the
laws against Jews living in Stuttgart, the capital city of Württemberg. Oppenheimer
also aggressively pursues a married Christian woman, and, after she repeatedly
refuses his advances, he rapes her. Soon thereafter the virtuous German people
rise up to liberate Stuttgart and Württemberg from the sinister machinations of
Oppenheimer, who is given a summary trial and executed (to great fanfare) at the
end of the film.
44. Here a more detailed comparison of Kracauer’s emphasis on the centrality of atom-
ization in totalitarian regimes with Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the same in The
Origins of Totalitarianism would be interesting.
45. P. 65.
46. P. 64.
47. P. 68. Kracauer is paraphrasing Horkheimer here.
48. P. 68.
49. P. 69.
50. See, for example, Horkheimer’s critical historicist analysis of the concept of “skepti-
cism” in these terms, or Herbert Marcuse’s analysis of the concept of “Kultur”
along the same lines: Max Horkheimer, “Montaigne and the Function of Skepti-
cism,” in Hunter, ed., Between Philosophy and Social Science, 265–312; Herbert
Marcuse, “On the Affirmative Character of Culture,” in Negations: Essays in Criti-
cal Theory, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon, 1969), 88–133.
51. P. 69.
52. P. 70.
53. Kracauer does mention Walter Benjamin’s famous essay “The Work of Art in the
Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in which he develops the concepts of the “aes-
theticization of politics.” But Kracauer mentions the essay in the context of a differ-
ent discussion, and seems to develop his ideas on the aestheticization of politics
independently of Benjamin. TP, 80.
54. TP, 64.
55. For a more detailed discussion of the evolution of the concept of the aesthetic from
“pertaining to the senses” to the “philosophical study of art,” see Herbert Marcuse,
Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud (Boston: Beacon, 1955),
172–96.
56. P. 72.
57. TP, 63.
58. TP, 64.
59. P. 75.
60. Pp. 60–67.
61. Le Bon, Crowd, 13–21.
4 20 l Appen di x 2

62. For an elaboration and case study of this argument, see Abromeit, “Transforma-
tions of Producerist Populism in Western Europe.”
63. P. 72.
64. Pp. 60–62. For Horkheimer’s discussion of the crucial differences between genu-
inely progressive and authoritarian leaders, see “Egoism and Freedom Movements,”
77–79. In the more recent literature on populism there is also a lively debate about
the role of the leader in contemporary right-wing populist movements. See John
Abromeit, “A Critical Review of the Recent Literature on Populism,” Politics and
Governance 5, no. 4 (2017): 177–86.
65. Abromeit et al., eds., Transformations of Populism, xvii–ix.
66. TP, 106.
67. Siegfried Kracauer, The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Ger-
many, trans. Quintin Hoare (London: Verso, 1998).
68. As Kracauer puts it: “Beyond class.” TP, 119.
69. TP, 119.
70. In his own analysis of Metropolis about ten years later, Kracauer states that “Maria’s
demand that the heart mediate between hand and brain could well have been for-
mulated by Goebbels. He, too, appealed to the heart—in the interest of totalitarian
propaganda.” Siegfried Kracauer, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of
the German Film (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1947), 163–64.
71. TP, 120.
72. Max Horkheimer, “Authority and the Family,” in Critical Theory: Selected Essays
(New York: Continuum, 1965), 65.
73. TP, 126.
74. TP, 124.
75. Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Populism, Fas-
cism (London: New Left, 1977), 81–142.
76. TP, 112. He takes this idea from Ignacio Silone.
77. TP, 111–12.
78. TP, 115.
79. TP, 115.
80. TP, 115.
81. See Horkheimer, “Egoism and Freedom Movements,” 95–110.
82. TP, 130.
83. TP, 130.
84. TP, 132.
85. TP, 132, 134.
86. Franz Neumann, The Democratic and the Authoritarian State: Essays in Political
and Legal Theory, ed. Herbert Marcuse (New York: Free Press, 1957).
87. TP, 146.
88. See, for example, Theodor Adorno, “Anti-Semitism and Fascist Propaganda”; and
“Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda,” in Soziologische Schriften,
vol. 1 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1979), 397–433.
89. Lukacs’s notorious rejection of psychoanalysis certainly also played a role in his
inability to move beyond a traditional Marxist interpretation of fascism.
 Appen di x 2 m 4 21

90. On Adorno’s efforts to win Horkheimer’s loyalty in the mid- to late 1930s, and his
rivalry with Erich Fromm, see John Abromeit, Max Horkheimer and the Founda-
tions of the Frankfurt School (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 349–
82; on Adorno’s difficult relationship with Kracauer, see Martin Jay, “Adorno and
Kracauer: Notes on a Trouble Friendship,” in Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intel-
lectual Migration from Germany to America (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1986), 217–36.
91. Sternhell, Birth of Fascist Ideology; Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory;
Fritzsche, Germans Into Nazis; Geoff Eley, Nazism as Fascism: Violence, Ideology,
and the Ground of Consent in Germany, 1930–1945 (New York: Routledge, 2013).
92. For one suggestive attempt to conceptualize the historical relationship between
fascism and right-wing populism, see Federico Finchelstein, From Fascism to Popu-
lism in History (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017).
93. Abromeit, “Critical Theory.”
 Bibliography

Works by Siegfried Kracauer

Siegfried Kracauer Werke, 9 vols., edited by Inka Mülder-Bach and Ingrid Belke
(Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2004–2012).

Vol. 1 Soziologie als Wissenschaft. Der Detektiv-Roman. Die Angestellten

Vol. 2.1 Von Caligari zu Hitler
Vol. 2.2 Studien zu Massenmedien und Propaganda
Vol. 3 Theorie des Films: Die Errettung der äußeren Wirklichkeit
Vol. 4 Geschichte—Vor den letzten Dingen
Vol. 5.1 Essays, Feuilletons, Rezensionen, 1906–1923
Vol. 5.2 Essays, Feuilletons, Rezensionen, 1924–1927
Vol. 5.3 Essays, Feuilletons, Rezensionen, 1908–1931
Vol. 5.4 Essays, Feuilletons, Rezensionen, 1932–1965
Vol. 6.1 Kleine Schriften zum Film, 1921–1927
Vol. 6.2 Kleine Schriften zum Film, 1928–1931
Vol. 6.3 Kleine Schriften zum Film 1932–1961
Vol. 7 Romane und Erzählungen
Vol. 8 Jacques Offenbach und das Paris seiner Zeit
Vol. 9 Frühe Schriften aus dem Nachlaß

Totalitäre Propaganda, edited by Bernd Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag,

2013).
4 24 l B i b li o gr a p h y

Books in English
The Salaried Masses: Duty and Distraction in Weimar Germany. Translated by Quintin Hoare. New
York: Verso, [1930] 1998.
Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time. Translated by Gwenda David and Eric Mosbacher. New
York: Zone, [1937] 2002.
From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, [1947] 2019.
Theory of Film: The Redemption of Physical Reality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [1960]
1997.
The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays. Translated by Thomas Y. Levin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, [1963] 1995.
History: The Last Things Before the Last. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Sieg fried Kracauer’s American Writings: Essays on Film and Popular Culture. Edited by Johannes von
Moltke and Kristy Rawson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
The Past’s Threshold: Essays on Photography. Edited by Philippe Despoix and Maria Zinfert. Translated by
Conor Joyce. Berlin: Diaphanes, 2014.
Georg. Translated by Carl Skoggard. Troy, NY: Publication Studio Hudson, 2016.
Theodor W. Adorno and Sieg fried Kracauer: Correspondence, 1923–1966. Edited by Wolfgang Schopf.
Translated by Susan Reynolds and Michael Winkler. Cambridge: Polity, 2020.

Selected Secondary Literature

(English, Since 1991)
Books

Barnouw, Dagmar. Critical Realism: History, Photography, and the Work of Sieg fried Kracauer. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Craver, Harry T. Reluctant Skeptic: Sieg fried Kracauer and the Crises of Weimar Culture. New York:
Berghahn, 2017.
Fisher, Peter S. Weimar Controversies: Explorations in Popular Culture with Sieg fried Kracauer. Berlin:
Transcript, 2020.
Forrest, Tara. The Politics of Imagination: Benjamin, Kracauer, Kluge. New York: Columbia University
Press, 2007.
Gemünden, Gerd, and Johannes Von Moltke, eds. Culture in the Anteroom: The Legacies of Sieg fried Kra-
cauer. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012.
Gilloch, Graeme. Sieg fried Kracauer: Our Companion in Misfortune. Cambridge: Polity, 2015.
Hansen, Miriam B. Cinema and Experience: Sieg fried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W.
Adorno. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
Koch, Gertrud. Sieg fried Kracauer: An Introduction. Translated by Jeremy Gaines. Princeton, NJ: Princ-
eton University Press, 2000.
Martin, Adrian. Last Day Every Day: Figural Thinking from Auerbach and Kracauer to Agamben and
Brenez. Santa Barbara, CA: Punctum, 2012.
Reeh, Henrik. Ornaments of the Metropolis: Sieg fried Kracauer and Modern Urban Culture. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 2004.
Später, Jörg. Kracauer: A Biography. Translated by Daniel Steuer. Cambridge: Polity, 2020.
Vedda, Miguel. Sieg fried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisation. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.
 B i b li o gr a p h y m 4 25

von Moltke, Johannes. The Curious Humanist: Sieg fried Kracauer in America. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2016.

Book Chapters

Elsaesser, Thomas. “Expressionist Film or Weimar Cinema? With Siegfried Kracauer and Lotte Eisner
(Once More) to the Movies.” In Weimar Cinema and After: Germany’s Historical Imaginary, 18–60.
New York: Routledge, 2000.
Gilloch, Graeme. “ ‘Hamlet wird Detekiv’: Reflections on Kracauer, Benjamin, and (Neo)-Noir.” In The
Detective of Modernity: Essays on the Work of David Frisby, edited by Georgia Giannakopoulou and
Graeme Gilloch, 181–95. New York: Routledge, 2020.
——. “Impromptus of a Great City: Siegfried Kracauer’s Strassen in Berlin und Anderswo.” In Tracing
Modernity: Manifestations of the Modern in Architecture and the City, edited by Mari Hvattum and
Christian Hermansen, 291–306. New York: Routledge, 2004.
——. “Orpheus in Hollywood: Siegfried Kracauer’s Offenbach Film.” In Tracing Modernity: Manifesta-
tions of the Modern in Architecture and the City, edited by Mari Hvattum and Christian Hermansen,
307–23. New York: Routledge, 2004.
——. “Sunshine and Noir: Benjamin, Kracauer, and Roth Visit the White Cities.” In Walter Benjamin
and the Aesthetics of Change, edited by Anca M. Pusca, 82–94. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
2010.
Hansen, Miriam B. “America, Paris, the Alps: Kracauer (and Benjamin) on Cinema and Modernity.” In
Cinema and the Invention of Modern Life, edited by Leo Charney and Vanessa R. Schwartz, 362–402.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
Infante, Ignacio. “States of Exile: Kracauer’s Extraterritoriality, and the Poetics of Memory in Cristina
Peri Rossi’s Estado de exilio (2003).” In Liquid Borders: Migration as Resistance, edited by Mabel
Moraña, 131–42. London: Routledge, 2021.
Jarosinski, Eric. “Urban Mediations: The Theoretical Space of Siegfried Kracauer’s Ginster.” In Spatial
Turns: Space, Place, and Mobility in German Literary and Visual Culture, edited by Jaimey Fisher and
Barbara C. Mennel, 171–88. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2010.
Jennings, Michael W. “Walter Benjamin, Siegfried Kracauer, and Weimar Criticism.” In Weimar
Thought: A Contested Legacy, edited by Peter E. Gordon and John P. McCormick, 203–19. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013.
Kaes, Anton. “Siegfried Kracauer: The Film Historian in Exile.” In “Escape to Life”: German Intellectuals
in New York—A Compendium on Exile After 1933, edited by Eckart Goebel and Sigrid Weigel, 236–
69. Vienna: De Gruyter, 2012.
Leslie, Esther. “Siegfried Kracauer and Walter Benjamin: Memory from Weimar to Hitler.” In Memory:
Histories, Theories, Debates, edited by Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz, 123–35. New York: Ford-
ham University Press, 2010.
Linfield, Susan. “Kael and Kracauer: The (Very) Odd Couple.” In Talking About Pauline Kael: Critics,
Filmmakers, and Scholars Remember an Icon, edited by Wayne Stengel, 145–58. Washington, DC:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2015.
Martins, Ansgar. “Siegfried Kracauer: Documentary Realist and Critic of Ideological ‘Homelessness.’ ”
Translated by Lars Fischer. In The sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, edited by Bev-
erley Best, Werner Bonefeld, and Chris O’Kane, 234–51. Newbuy Park, CA: sage, 2018.
Miller, Sanda. “Siegfried Kracauer: Critical Observations on the Discreet Charm of the Metropolis.” In
Revisiting the Frankfurt School: Essays on Culture, Media, and Theory, edited by David Berry, 7–25.
New York: Routledge, 2012.
Morelock, Jeremiah. “Siegfried Kracauer and the Interpretation of Films.” In How to Critique Authori-
tarian Populism: Methodologies of the Frankfurt School, 391-411. Leiden: Brill, 2021.
4 26 l B i b li o gr a p h y

Reeh, Henrik. “Fragmentation, Improvisation, and Urban Quality: A Heterotopian Motif in Siegfried
Kracauer.” In Chora, Vol. 3: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture, edited by Alberto Perez-Gomez
and Stephen Parcell, 157–78. Toronoto: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999.
Richter, Gerhard. “Homeless Images: Kracauer’s Extraterritoriality, Derrida’s Monolingualism of the
Other.” In Thought-Images: Frankfurt School Writers’ Reflections from Damaged Life, 107–46. Stan-
ford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
Robnik, Drehli. “Siegfried Kracauer.” In Film, Theory, and Philosophy: The Key Thinkers, edited by Felic-
ity Colman, 40–50. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009.
Steiner, Henriette. “The Sea, the City, the Ruin, and the Whore: Siegfried Kracauer in Marseilles.” In
New Essays on the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, edited by Alfred J. Drake, 285–305. Cambridge:
Cambridge Scholars, 2009.
Tanca, Marcello. “Corpore praesenti: Walking in Urbanscape with Siegfried Kracauer and Georges
Perec.” In Philosophy of Landscape: Think, Walk, Act, edited by Adriana V. Serrão and Moirika Reker,
221–37. Lisbon: Centre for Philosophy at the University of Lisbon, 2019.
Taylor, Paul A., and Jan LI Harris. “Siegfried Kracauer’s Mass Ornament.” In Critical Theories of Mass
Media: Then and Now, 39–61. London: Open University Press, 2008.
von Moltke, Johannes. “2 February, 1956: Siegfried Kracauer Advocates a Socio-Aesthetic Approach to
Film in a Letter to Enno Patalas.” In A New History of German Cinema, edited by Jennifer M. Kapc-
zynski and Michael D. Richardson, 359–64. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2012.
Wils, Tyson. “Phenomenology, Theology, and ‘Physical Reality’: The Film Theory Realism of Siegfried
Kracauer.” In The Major Realist Film Theorists: A Critical Anthology, edited by Ian Aitken, 67–80.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016.
Zakai, Avihu. “Siegfried Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler: Weimar Cinema as Pandora’s Box.” In Jewish
Exiles’ Psychological Interpretations of Nazism, 71–116. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.
Zaslove, Jerry. “ ‘The Reparation of Dead Souls’: Siegfried Kracauer’s Archimedean Exile—The Prophetic
Journey from Death to Bildung.” In Exile, Science, and Bildung: The Contested Legacies of German
Émigré Intellectuals, edited by David Kettler and Gerhard Lauer, 139–55. New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2005.

Journal Articles

Abbate, Carolyn. “Offenbach, Kracauer, and Ethical Frivolity.” Opera Quarterly 33, no. 1 (2017): 62–86.
Aitken, Ian. “Distraction and Redemption: Kracauer, Surrealism, and Phenomenology.” Screen 39, no. 2
(1998): 124–40.
——. “Physical Reality: The Role of the Empirical in the Film Theory of Siegfried Kracauer, John Grier-
son, André Bazin, and Georg Lukács.” Studies in Documentary Film 1, no. 2 (2007): 105–21.
Allen, John. “The Cultural Spaces of Siegfried Kracauer: The Many Surfaces of Berlin.” New Formations,
no. 61 (2007): 20–33.
Anderson, Mark M. “Siegfried Kracauer and Meyer Schapiro: A Friendship.” New German Critique,
no. 54 (1991): 19–29.
Baer, Nicholas. “Historical Turns: On Caligari, Kracauer, and New Film History.” Research in Film and
History, no. 1 (2018): 1–16.
Bardach-Yalov, Elina. “Analyzing Russian Propaganda: Application of Siegfried Kracauer’s Qualitative
Content Analysis Method.” Journal of Information Warfare 11, no. 2 (2012): 24–36.
Benjamin, Andrew. “What, in Truth, Is Photography? Notes After Kracauer.” Oxford Literary Review 32,
no. 2 (2010): 189–201.
Blatterer, Harry. “Siegfried Kracauer’s Differentiating Approach to Friendship.” Journal of Historical
Sociology 32, no. 2 (2019): 173–88.
 B i b li o gr a p h y m 4 27

Brett, Donna MF. “The Uncanny Return: Documenting Place in Post-war German Photography.” Pho-
tographies 3, no. 1 (2010): 7–22.
Campbell, Jan. “Are Your Dreams Wishes or Desires? Hysteria as Distraction and Character in the Work
of Siegfried Kracauer.” New Formations, no. 61 (2007): 132–48.
Carroll, Noël. “The Cabinet of Dr. Kracauer.” Millennium Film Journal 1, no. 2 (1998): 77–85.
Clucas, Stephen. “Cultural Phenomenology and the Everyday.” Critical Quarterly 42, no. 1 (2000): 8–34.
Craver, Harry T. “Dismantling the Subject: Concepts of the Individual in the Weimar Writings of Sieg-
fried Kracauer and Gottfried Benn.” New German Critique, no. 127 (2016): 1–35.
Culbert, David. “The Rockefeller Foundation, the Museum of Modern Art Film Library, and Siegfried
Kracauer, 1941.” Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television 13, no. 4 (1993): 495–511.
Dimendberg, Edward. “Down These Seen Streets a Man Must Go: Siegfried Kracauer, ‘Hollywood’s Ter-
ror Films,’ and the Spatiality of Film Noir.” New German Critique, no. 89 (2003): 113–43.
Donald, James. “Kracauer and the Dancing Girls.” New Formations, no. 61 (2007): 49–63.
Eksteins, Modris. “Rag-picker: Siegfried Kracauer and the Mass Ornament.” International Journal of
Politics, Culture, and Society 10, no. 4 (1997): 609–13.
Elsaesser, Thomas. “Siegfried Kracauer’s Affinities.” NECSUS: European Journal of Media Studies 3, no. 1
(2014): 5–20.
Ermarth, Michael. “Girls Gone Wild in Weimar Germany: Siegfried Kracauer on Girlkultur and the Un-
kultur of Americanism.” Modernism/Modernity 19, no. 1 (2012): 1–18.
Ethis, Emmanuel. “From Siegfried Kracauer to Darth Vader: Shots on Cinema and Social Sciences.”
Sociétés 96, no. 2 (2007): 9–20.
Fay, Jennifer. “Antarctica and Siegfried Kracauer’s Cold Love.” Discourse 33, no. 3 (2011): 291–321.
Fleischer, Molly. “The Gaze of the Flaneur in Siegfried Kracauer’s ‘Das Ornament Der Masse.’ ” German
Life and Letters 54, no. 1 (2001): 10–24.
Frey, Mattias. “Filmkritik, with and Without Italics: Kracauerism and Its Limits in Postwar German
Film Criticism.” New German Critique, no. 120 (2013): 85–110.
Frisby, David. “Between the Spheres: Siegfried Kracauer and the Detective Novel.” Theory, Culture &
Society 9, no. 2 (1992): 1–22.
Giles, Steve. “Making Visible, Making Strange: Photography and Representation in Kracauer, Brecht,
and Benjamin.” New Formations, no. 61 (2007): 64-75.
Gilloch, Graeme. “Fragments, Cityscapes, Modernity: Kracauer on the Cannebière.” Journal of Classical
Sociology 13, no. 1 (2012): 20–29.
——. “Urban Optics: Film, Phantasmagoria, and the City in Benjamin and Kracauer.” New Formations,
no. 61 (2007): 115–31.
Gilloch, Graeme, and Jaeho Kang. “ ‘Below the Surface’: Siegfried Kracauer’s ‘Test-Film’ Project.” New
Formations, no. 61 (2007): 149–60.
Hales, Barbara. “Taming the Technological Shrew: Woman as Machine in Weimar Culture.” Neophilolo-
gus 94, no. 2 (2010): 301–16.
Handelman, Matthew. “The Dialectics of Otherness: Siegfried Kracauer’s Figurations of the Jew, Juda-
ism, and Jewishness.” Yearbook for European Jewish Literature Studies 2, no. 1 (2015): 90–111.
——. “The Forgotten Conversation: Five Letters from Franz Rosenzweig to Siegfried Kracauer, 1921–
1923.” Scientia Poetica 15, no. 2011 (2011): 234–51.
Hansen, Miriam B. “Decentric Perspectives: Kracauer’s Early Writings on Film and Mass Culture.” New
German Critique, no. 54 (1991): 47–76.
——. “Mass Culture as Hieroglyphic Writing: Adorno, Derrida, Kracauer.” New German Critique, no. 56
(1992): 43–73.
Itkin, Alan. “Orpheus, Perseus, Ahasuerus: Reflection and Representation in Siegfried Kracauer’s Under-
worlds of History.” Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory 87, no. 2 (2012): 175–202.
4 28 l B i b li o gr a p h y

Jacobs, Steven, and Hilde D’haeyere. “Frankfurter Slapstick: Benjamin, Kracauer, and Adorno on Ameri-
can Screen Comedy.” October, no. 160 (2017): 30–50.
Jay, Martin. “The Little Shopgirls Enter the Public Sphere.” New German Critique, no. 122 (2014):
159–69.
Katz, Marc. “The Hotel Kracauer.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 11, no. 2 (1999):
134–52.
Kent, James. “The Present’s Historical Task: Kracauer as Reader of Collingwood.” Critical Horizons 17,
nos. 3–4 (2016): 338–57.
Koch, Gertrud. “A Curious Realism: Redeeming Kracauer’s Film Theory Through Whitehead’s Process
Philosophy.” Screen 61, no. 2 (2020): 280–87.
Koch, Gertrud, and Jeremy Gaines. “ ‘Not Yet Accepted Anywhere’: Exile, Memory, and Image in Kra-
cauer’s Conception of History.” New German Critique, no. 54 (1991): 95-109.
Kouvaros, George. “The Old Greeks.” Cultural Studies Review 22, no. 2 (2016): 149–57.
Langfor, Barry. “ ‘The strangest of station names’: Changing Trains with Kracauer and Benjamin.” New
Formations, no. 61 (2007): 104–14.
Lauterbach, Burkhart. “ ‘The New Majority’ Scholarly Folklore Studies on German White-collar Cul-
ture.” Studies in Cultures, Organizations, and Societies 3, no. 2 (1997): 211–28.
Lovett, Dustin. “The Politics of Translation in the Press: Siegfried Kracauer and Cultural Mediation in
the Periodicals of the Weimar Republic.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 14, no. 2 (2019):
265–82.
Luke, Megan R. “The Photographic Reproduction of Space: Wölfflin, Panofsky, Kracauer.” RES: Anthro-
pology and Aesthetics 57, no. 1 (2010): 339–43.
Mack, Michael. “Film as Memory: Siegfried Kracauer’s Psychological History of German ‘National Cul-
ture.’ ”Journal of European Studies 30, no. 118 (2000): 157–81.
——. “Literature and Theory: Siegfried Kracauer’s Law, Walter Benjamin’s Allegory, and G. K. Chester-
ton’s The Innocence of Father Brown.” Orbis Litterarum 54, no. 6 (1999): 399–423.
McCann, Andrew. “Melancholy and the Masses: Siegfried Kracauer and the Media Concept.” Discourse
43, no. 1 (2021): 150–70.
Mehring, Christine. “Siegfried Kracauer’s Theories of Photography: From Weimar to New York.” History
of Photography 21, no. 2 (1997): 129–36.
Mülder-Bach, Inka. “Cinematic Ethnology: Siegfried Kracauer’s ‘The White-collar Masses.’ ” New Left
Review, no. 226 (1997): 41–56.
Ockman, Joan. “Between Ornament and Monument: Siegfried Kracauer and the Architectural Implica-
tions of the Mass Ornament.” Thesis: wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar 49,
no. 3 (2003): 75–91.
Petro, Patrice. “Kracauer’s Epistemological Shift.” New German Critique, no. 54 (1991): 127–38.
Ponten, Frederic. “Tremor, Tick, and Trance: Siegfried Kracauer and Gregory Bateson in the Film
Library of the Museum of Modern Art.” New German Critique, no. 139 (2020): 141–72.
Rabot, Jean-Martin. “Siegfried Kracauer: From Critical Sociology to Aesthetic Sociology.” Sociétés 110,
no. 4 (2010): 47–56.
Rheindorf, Markus. “Film as Language: The Politics of Early Film Theory (1920–1960).” Journal of Lan-
guage and Politics 4, no. 1 (2005): 143–59.
Richter, Gerhard. “Siegfried Kracauer and the Folds of Friendship.” German Quarterly 70, no. 3 (1997):
233–46.
Rühse, Viola. “Luxurious Cinema Palaces in the Roaring Twenties and the Twenty-First Century: Criti-
cal Analyses of Movie Theatres by Siegfried Kracauer and Their Relevance Today.” Cultural Intertexts
10, no. 10 (2020): 13–30.
Schlüpmann, Heide, and Drehli Robnik. “History: From ‘the Other Frankfurt School” to ‘Cinema and
Experience.’ ” New German Critique, no. 122 (2014): 3–6.
 B i b li o gr a p h y m 4 29

Schlüpmann, Heide, and Ishbel Flett. “Re-reading Nietzsche through Kracauer: Towards a Feminist Per-
spective on Film History.” Film History 6, no. 1 (1994): 80–93.
Schroeder, Tyler. “Siegfried Kracauer and Ernst Jünger: Writing Between History and the Beyond.” New
German Critique, no. 136 (2019): 167–96.
Sieg, Christian. “Beyond Realism: Siegfried Kracauer and the Ornaments of the Ordinary.” New German
Critique, no. 109 (2010): 99–118.
von Arburg, Hans-Georg. “The Last Dwelling Before the Last: Siegfried Kracauer’s Critical Contribu-
tion to the Modernist Housing Debate in Weimar Germany.” New German Critique, no. 141 (2020):
99–140.
von Moltke, Johannes. “The Anonymity of Siegfried Kracauer.” New German Critique, no. 132 (2017):
83–103.
——. “Teddie and Friedel: Theodor W. Adorno, Siegfried Kracauer, and the Erotics of Friendship.” Criti-
cism 51, no. 4 (2009): 683–94.
Wigoder, Meir. “History Begins at Home: Photography and Memory in the Writings of Siegfried Kra-
cauer and Roland Barthes.” History & Memory 13, no. 1 (2001): 19–59.
Zinfert, Maria. “On the Photographic Practice of Lili and Siegfried Kracauer: Portrait Photographs from
the Estate in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (Marbach am Neckar).” Germanic Review: Literature,
Culture, Theory 88, no. 4 (2013): 435–43.
 Sources

1. Studies of Totalitarianism, Propaganda, and

the Masses (1936– 1940)

1. “Exposé. Mass and Propaganda. An Inquiry Into Fascist Propaganda

[Exposé: Masse und Propaganda],” in Siegfried Kracauer Werke Band 2.2.
Studien zu Massenmedien und Propaganda, ed. Christian Fleck and Bernd
Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012), 9–16.
2. “Totalitarian Propaganda [Totalitäre Propaganda],” in Siegfried Kracauer
Werke Band 2.2. Studien zu Massenmedien und Propaganda, ed. Christian
Fleck and Bernd Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2012), 90–119, 147–73.
3. “Abridged Restricted Schema [Abgekürztes gestrafftes Schema],” in
Totalitäre Propaganda, ed. Bernd Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013),
238–39.
4. “Schema [Schemata],” in Totalitäre Propaganda, ed. Bernd Stiegler (Berlin:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013), 240–43.
5. “Disposition,” in Totalitäre Propaganda, ed. Bernd Stiegler (Berlin:
Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013), 244–58.

2. The Caligari Complex (1943– 1947)

6. “The Conquest of Europe on the Screen: The Nazi Newsreel, 1939–1940,”

Social Research 10, no. 3 (September 1943): 337–57. Originally written as a
report: Document No. 50, May 1, 1943, Experimental Division for the Study
of War Time Communications, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
432 l Sources

7. “The Hitler Image,” New Republic 110, no. 1 (1944): 22.

8. “Below the Surface: Project of a Test Film,” typescript, 38 pages, Max
Horkheimer and Leo Löwenthal Archives, Archivzentrum of the Stadt-
und Universitätsbibliothek, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frank-
furt am Main, and Kracauer-Nachlaß, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach
am Neckar.

3. Postwar Publics (1948– 1950)

9. “Reeducation Program for the Reich,” review of And Call It Peace by Mar-
shall Knappen, New York Times Book Review, January 4, 1948, 6, 18.
10. “How and Why the Public Responds to the Propagandist,” review of Public
Opinion and Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, New York Times Book
Review, July 4, 1948, 3.
11. “Popular Advertisements,” typescript, 19 pages, January 15, 1949, Kracauer
Nachlaß.
12. “A Duck Crosses Main Street” (with Joseph Lyford), New Republic, Decem-
ber 13, 1948, 13–15.
13. “National Types as Hollywood Presents Them,” Public Opinion Quarterly
13, no. 1 (Spring 1949): 53–72.
14. “Deluge of Pictures” review of From Cave Painting to Comic Strip by Lance-
lot Hogben, Reporter, January 31, 1950, 39–40.

4. Cold War Tensions (1952– 1958)

15. “Appeals to the Near and Middle East: Implications of the Communica-
tions Studies Along the Soviet Periphery,” May 1952, prepared for the
Bureau of Applied Social Research Columbia University, Max Horkheimer
and Leo Löwenthal Archives, Archivzentrum of the Stadt- und Univer-
sitätsbibliothek, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main.
16. “Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types in Hungary, Poland, and
Czechoslovakia” (with Paul L. Berkman), Social Problems 3, no. 2 (Octo-
ber 1955): 109–14.
17. Proposal for a Research Project Designed to Promote the Use of Qualitative
Analysis in the Social Sciences, typescript, 9 pages, December 10, 1950, Kra-
cauer Nachlaß, DLA Marbach, H: Kracauer, Siegfried.
 Sources m 433

18. “The Challenge of Qualitative Content Analysis,” in “International Com-

munications Research,” special issue, Public Opinion Quarterly 16, no. 4.
(Winter 1952/53): 631–42.
19. “On the Relation of Analysis to the Situational Factors in Case Studies,”
typescript. 26 pages, April 1958. Max Horkheimer and Leo Löwenthal
Archives, Archivzentrum of the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Johann
Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main.
20. “The Social Research Center on the Campus: Its Significance for the Social
Sciences and Its Relations to the University and Society at Large,” type-
script. 67 pages, ca. 1954. Kracauer Nachlaß, DLA Marbach, A: Kracauer,
Siegfried / Bureau of Applied Social Research.

Appendices

1. T. W. Adorno, “Report on the Work ‘Totalitarian Propaganda in Germany

and Italy’ by Siegfried Kracauer, 1–106” in Totalitäre Propaganda, ed. Bernd
Stiegler (Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2013), 262–65.
2. John Abromeit, “Siegfried Kracauer and the Early Frankfurt School’s Anal-
ysis of Fascism as Right-Wing Populism,” in Théorie critique de la propa-
ganda, ed. Pierre-François Noppen and Gérard Raulet (Paris: Éditions de la
Maison des sciences de l’homme, 2020), 251–77.
 Index

Aachen Pilgrimage, 96 All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), 241, 244
AAPOR. See American Association for Public American Association for Public Opinion
Opinion Research Research (AAPOR), 268
Abromeit, John, 32 American civilization, 264
Abstractness, 18 American Democracy, The (Laski), 232
Academic organizations, 375 American dream, 227
Academic research centers, 368 American Jewish Committee, 15, 130
Administrative communication research, 268 American Military Government, 217
Administrative units, 387 American newsreels, 28, 214
Adorno, Theodor W., 2, 3, 5, 8, 22, 273, 340; on Analytical procedures, 360
advertising, 54n1; “Below the Surface” and, And Call It Peace (Knappen), 26
130, 131; categorical imperative and, 395; Angel (1937), 243
critique of Kracauer, 31–32, 38, 413, 415; Anglo-American relations, 253
culture industry and, 211; on Jacques Anglo-Saxon countries, 221
Offenbach and the Paris of His Time Anglo-Saxon films, 143
(Kracauer), 39; Lazarsfeld and, 269; on Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 254
radio broadcasting, 48n19 Anti-Americanism, 303
Adult education, 343–44 Anti-Bolshevism, 103
Adventure in Sardinia (1950), 301 Anti-intellectualism, 156
Advertising, 27, 54n1, 223; American dream Anti-Jewish legislation, 89
and, 227; characters in, 224, 225, 226, 227, Anti-Semitism, 2, 3, 53; film and, 155–56; in
229, 231; conformity and, 224, 232; dream U.S., 127, 130
quality of, 230; emptiness revealed by, 229; “Appeals to the Near and Middle East”
illusion of heaven on earth in, 226; impact (Kracauer), 29, 269, 275–308
of, 230; Kracauer on, 213; life as presented Appearance (Schein), 42
by, 224–25; security, preoccupation with, Applied communications research, 325
228; for Whiskey, 228 Applied research, 379
Aestheticized politics, 44, 400, 405, 406 Applied social research, 318, 374
Alcohol, 146 Apprenticeship, 380
Alexander Nevsky (Eisenstein), 246 Architecture, 88
Alienation, 19 Arnheim, Rudolf, 273, 360
436 l i n dex

Artistic freedom, 76 10; on Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of

“Art of mass images” (Massenbildkunst), 44 His Time (Kracauer), 39; on proletariat, 57
Atlantic Charter, 217 Berelson, Bernard, 324, 325, 328, 329
Atomistic units of text, 329 Berkman, Paul L., 30, 269, 340
Atomization, 21 Berlin, 7, 8, 41; Hitler in, 148, 151n3, 153;
Attenuation of consciousness, 60 Kracauer move to, 9; white-collar workers
“Attitudes Toward Various Communist Types in, 30
in Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia” Berliner Börsen-Zeitung (newspaper), 96
(Kracauer), 269, 309–15 Berlin Express (1948), 256
Audience research, 359 Berlin movement, 57–58
Auschwitz, 395 Best Years of our Lives, The (1946), 243
Authenticity, 248 Beville, H. M. Jr., 354
Authoritarianism, 3; embrace of, 14; Frankfurt Bildung (Education), 9
School on, 20 “Biographies in Popular Magazines”
Authoritarian mass mobilization, 400 (Löwenthal), 273
Authoritarian Personality, The (Adorno), 273, “Biography as an Art Form of the New
340, 396 Bourgeoisie, The” (Kracauer), 5
Authoritarian populism, 32, 395, 396, 399, 415, blitz, 153
416 Blockade (1938), 245, 246
Authoritarian propaganda, 2 Bolshevism, 103, 107, 253
Autonomous activities, 365 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 11, 152
Autonomous interests, 368 Boomerang (1947), 243, 260
Autonomous research, 351, 352, 355, 356; Born Yesterday (1950), 294
commissioned research and, 345, 368, Bourgeois philosophers, 405
379; dimensions of, 378; evaluation of, Bourgeois prejudices, 132
365; large-scale, 367; meaning and range Bourgeois revolutions, 68–69
of, 353; projects advancing, 382; significance British Agent (1934), 254
of, 366 British Broadcasting Company (BBC), 284,
Axis powers, 245 289, 290, 327
Broad mass, 72
Balabanoff, Angelica, 86 Brussels, 139
Baptism of Fire (1940), 128, 151n6 Bureaucratic intellectuals, 357
Barry, Iris, 128 Bureau of Applied Social Research (BASR), 29,
Base-superstructure model, 397 30, 31, 268, 269, 272, 273, 275, 325, 353
BASR. See Bureau of Applied Social Research Bureau of Overseas Intelligence, 220
Bastille Square, 142
Battle of Britain, 135, 145 Caligari complex, 43
Baudelaire, Charles, 10 “Camaraderie of the trenches”
BBC. See British Broadcasting Company (Schutzenkamaradschaft), 40
Beckerath, Erwin von, 414 Campaign films, 137, 151n6
Bedouins, 280, 282, 294 Capitalism, 13, 19, 51, 109, 293; fascism and, 391;
Behavior patterns, 360 ideology of, 412; liberal, 69, 411; monopoly,
Behemoth (Neumann), 408 74, 79, 101, 392, 400; revolutionary
Being (Sein), 42 overthrow of, 41; totalitarianism and, 22
“Below the Surface” project (Kracauer), 130, Caribbean islands, 359
131, 132, 155–209, 214, 271 Carnegie, Dale, 227, 230
Benedict, Ruth, 240 Case studies, 333, 344; numbers of, 337; rarely
Benjamin, Walter, 2, 7, 13; dreams and, 214; on followed, 338; unoriented, 335, 347
fascism, 22, 44, 129; financial existence of, Categorical imperative, 395
 i n dex m 4 37

Catherine the Great, 239, 244 Communications research, 322, 325, 331, 361, 366
Catholic priests, 99 Communications studies, 327
Cavalcade (1933), 239, 243, 248, 250, 253 Communism, 41, 50, 256, 277, 278, 282;
Cave paintings, 264 disillusioned Communists, 311–12, 315;
Censorship, 123 forced Communists, 311–12; jobkeeper
Chesterton, G. K., 76 Communists, 311; nominal Communists,
China, 235 311, 313, 315; Satellite Communism, 309
Christianity and National Socialism (Stapel), 65 Communist Party, 269, 309–11
Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Benedict), 240 Communist propaganda, 30, 52, 54, 267, 269, 375
Church communities, 362 Comparative studies, 338, 339, 353
Churchill, Winston, 140 Comrade X (1940), 244, 255, 257
Church policy, 97 Concentration of power, 221
Cinematic approach, 17 Confessions of a Nazi Spy, The (1939), 246
Cinematic language, 287 Conformity, 213, 224, 232
Cinematic realism, 138 “Conquest of Europe on the Screen, The”
Citadel, The (1938), 243 (Kracauer), 24, 128
Civic bonds, 40 Consciousness, 59, 60
Civic projects, 11 Consumer attitudes, 371
Civilian government, 40 Content analysis, 317, 318, 319, 320, 322
Civil liberties, 85 Continuity, 360
Class antagonism, 87 Contractor-client relationships, 370–71
Class division, 118 Coolidge, Calvin, 230
Class equality, 86 Cooper, Duff, 140
Class-mindedness, 249 Copenhagen, 139
Class reconciliation, 42 Correlations, 324
Class society, 41 Countable characteristics, 328
Class struggle, 89, 109, 115, 122 Coward, Noel, 248
Clofine, M. D., 235 Creative energies, 231
Cluny Brown (1946), 244 Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), 254
Coffee houses, 285 Crimes against morality
Cold War, 4, 16, 29 (Sittlichkeitsverbrechen), 112
Cole, Margaret, 249 Critical references, 329
Collective action, 77 Critical Theory, 3, 7, 20, 32, 132, 396; concrete
Collective farms, 253 application of, 24; Lazarsfeld and, 268
Collective security, 301 Crosby, John, 235
Columbia University, 267 Crowd, The (Le Bon), 407
Comic strips, 264, 265 Crowds, 148, 149
Commentary (journal), 212 Crowther, Bosley, 235, 255
Commercial film production, 245 Cult of personality, 405
Commissioned research, 352, 369–70; Culture (Kultur), 9
acceptance or rejection of, 374; autonomous Culture industry, 2, 5, 211
research and, 345, 368, 379; character of, Czarist regime, 252
378; dynamics of, 377; scientifically Czechoslovakia, 30, 269, 309, 313
insignificant commissions, 375
Commodity culture, 214 Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (Wiene), 14
Communication research, 272–73 Das deutsche Wirtschaftswunder (Priester), 91
Communications content, 343 Das Mittelstandsproblem im Dritten Reich
Communications habits, 360 (Schmittmann), 94
Communications process, 344 Das Schwarze Korps (magazine), 95
438 l i n dex

Daugherty, Dan, 235 “Egoism and Freedom Movements”

Dawes Plan, 409 (Horkheimer), 46n11, 399, 404
Decatur study, 367, 370, 372, 373 Egypt, 277, 278, 284, 289, 305, 307; elite in, 294,
Deindividualized mass existence, 4 299, 304; leading role in Middle East, 303;
Deindustrialization, 212, 218 nationalism in, 292
Demobilized soldiers, 40 Eisenstein, Sergei, 246
Democracy, 57, 107, 114; fascism and, 400; Eley, Geoff, 415
liberal, 2; movements for, 404 Elmira study, 359, 361, 362, 367
Denazification, 26, 211, 219 Emotional intensity, 327
Department of State, U.S., 268, 275 Emotional stability, 227
Destruction of consciousness, 59 Empirical data, 351
Detached scientific approach, 376 Empirical facts, 360
Deutsches Recht (magazine), 95 Empirical procedures, 388
Deviant attitudes, 325 Empirical research, 20, 350, 366
Dialectical critique, 6 Empirical-scholarly (empirisch-
Dialectic of Enlightenment (Horkheimer and wissenschaftlich), 392
Adorno), 5, 211 Empirical social research, 354
Dickens, Charles, 76 Empirisch-wissenschaftlich (empirical-
Dictators, 43 scholarly), 392
Dictatorships, 20, 84, 97, 122, 123 Employment law, 87
Didacticism, 271 Emptiness, 229
Die Nibelungen (1924), 148 England, 136, 140, 144, 247, 251
Differentiated group psychology, 46n11 English characters in film, 238, 239, 243, 247;
Direction, sense of, 388 misrepresentation of, 252; snobbishness
Direction of communication, 323, 324 and, 249, 250, 257; traits of, 248; upper-class
Disillusioned Communists, 311–12, 315 people, 251
Doctoral dissertations, 343 Entertainment films, 259
Documentary films, 271, 284, 287, 288 Entertainment industry, 9, 242
Domestic propaganda, 122–23 Entrepreneurial personality, 95
Doob, Leonard W., 212, 220, 221 Environmental changes, 221
Dopolavoro programs, 412 Environmental conditions, 381
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 254 Escapism, 230
Double Crime in the Maginot Line (1939), 246 Ethically desirable drudgery, 376
Dreams, 213–14 Ethically undesirable projects, 376
Dressler-Andress, Horst, 76, 78 Ethico-political bias, 376
Drug study, 333, 334, 335, 336, 338, 370 Europe, right-wing populist movements in,
“Duck Crosses Main Street, A” (Kracauer and 395, 416
Lyford), 28, 214, 233–37 European conservatives, 47n17
Exact science: believers in, 331; content analysis
Eastern Europe, 30 and, 318; emulation of, 352, 366; evidences
East Prussia, 90 of, 320; ideal of, 316; objectivity of, 351, 357;
Economic crises, 11, 50, 377 status of, 317
Economic decline, 124 Exclusivity, 116
Economic policy, 95
Economic progress, 299 Fallada, Hans, 244
Economic rivalry, 223 Fascism, 3, 411; aestheticized politics and, 44,
Economic theory, 392 400, 405, 406; Benjamin on, 22, 44, 129;
Education (Bildung), 9 capitalism and, 391; democracy and, 400;
Educational approach, 381 foreign policy of, 84; formation of, 83;
 i n dex m 439

Frankfurt School and, 20, 32, 416; idealist Flinn, John C., 246
nature of, 400; impulse to power of, 101; Flowers, propagandistic value of, 148, 149
Italian, 10, 39, 397–98, 414, 415; Kracauer Forced Communists, 311–12
on, 22, 396, 401, 408; Laclau on, 415; leaders Ford Foundation, 379
and, 54; mass as political phenomenon and, Foreign Affair, A (1948), 256
41; mass rallies for, 61, 405, 407; monopoly Foreign Correspondent (1940), 243
capitalism and, 392; objectives of, 109; politics Foreign policy, 84, 102, 103, 282; propagandist
of conquest of, 102; populism and, 395; tools of, 104; of U.S., 236, 293, 302, 305, 308
protofascist psychological predispositions, Formal education, 379, 382
40; pseudo-reality of, 42, 90; pseudo-solution Formal propaganda, 100
of, 51, 54; rise of, 408; social origins of, 412; Formative tendency, 17
social-psychological mechanisms of, 412, France, 16, 127, 263
414; sociohistorical roots of, 408 Franco, Francisco, 246
Fascist agitators, 20 Frankfurter Zeitung (FZ), 7, 8, 12, 16, 37, 213
Fascist mass events, 393 Frankfurt School, 2, 3; authoritarian populism
Fascist propaganda, 21, 22, 75, 405; aims of, 42; and, 39, 396; fascism and, 20, 32, 416
communist propaganda and, 52; cult of Frankness, 290
mass and, 53; as form of mass culture, 24; in Freedom of expression, 88
Germany, 49; imaginative powers of, 73; Free-world solidarity, 282
implementation of, 110; leaders and, 398; Freikorps, 94
National Socialist propaganda and, 84; French Revolution, 116, 400
personality and, 406; “producer-parasite” Frequency counts, 328, 329, 330
dichotomy and, 403; susceptibility to, 108; Freud, Sigmund, 405, 412, 414
white-collar workers and, 128 Freund, Karl, 17
Fatalism, 292 “Friendship As a Social Process” (Lazarsfeld
Faulhaber (Cardinal), 218 and Merton), 364
Feder, Gottfried, 95 Fritzsche, Peter, 415
Feeling of Hostility, The (1948), 228 From Caligari to Hitler (Kracauer), 7, 12, 15, 127,
Feme murders, 117 211; Cold War and, 16; German cinema and,
Fertility, 359 23; interpretive scheme underpinning, 272
Fiction films, 239, 241, 242, 243, 257 From Cave Painting to Comic Strip (Hogben),
Film, 1, 132, 241; aesthetics of, 268; analysis 28, 214, 263
of, 13, 19; Anglo- Saxon films, 143; Fromm, Erich, 46n11, 61, 396, 403, 407, 412,
anti-Semitism and, 155–56; campaign 414–15
films, 137, 151n6; commercial production Fugitive, The (1947), 256
of, 245; documentary, 271, 284, 287, 288; Führer, figure of, 42, 43, 68, 107, 153; Nazi
entertainment, 259; fiction, 239, 241, 242, newsreels and, 130; will of, 400
243, 257; German cinema, 23; Greece and, “Für Uns” (Nazi documentary), 154
286; industry, 242, 259; Kracauer and, 2, 12, Future, belief in, 231, 232
14, 24, 268; national images as presented in, FZ. See Frankfurter Zeitung
238, 248; Nazi films, 145; realistic
tendency of, 16, 17; reviews of, 16; Turkey Garbo, Greta, 254
and, 286; Weimar cinema, 28, 215. See also Generality, 334, 337; aspiration to, 339; genuine,
English characters in film; German film; 348; indeterminate, 347; levels of, 333, 344;
Hollywood; Russian characters in film minimizing, 335; natural sciences and, 347
Financial attractiveness, 371 Genocide, 4
Financial crisis, 369 Gentile, Giovanni, 399–400
Financial speculation, 11 Gentiles, 158, 163
Flaherty, Robert J., 300 Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), 243
4 40 l i n dex

Georg (Kracauer), 10 Gros, Antoine-Jean, 152

George (King), 146 Group psychology, 405
German Communist Party (KPD), 410 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego
German community, 398, 399 (Freud), 414
German film, 13, 23, 127, 137, 238; early, 129; Grune, Karl, 138
Hollywood and, 249 Gunga Din (1939), 251
German Labor Front, 87 Gutermann, Norbert, 396
German Labor Service, 140
German middle-class, 409 Hack work, 374, 375, 376, 378
German Protestantism, 218 Hadamovsky, Eugen, 74
“German Radio Propaganda” (Kris), 24 Hamburg, 140
German reeducation, 212, 217 Hansen, Miriam, 129
German women, 100 Happy consciousness, 213
German works councils, 85 Harper’s (magazine), 249
Germany, 37, 93; chaos spreading in, 137; defeat Harvard, 365, 378
of, 217; deindustrialization of, 218; Haute bourgeoisie, 40
economic situation of, 102; fascist Heiden, Konrad, 62, 84, 93
propaganda in, 49; Hollywood and, 244; Heimat (“homeland”), 41, 71
post war situation in, 114 Herm, Hans, 23, 24, 129
German Youth Movement, 144 Hess, Rudolf, 414
Gestapo, 85 He Stayed for Breakfast (1940), 254
Global collective properties, 341 Hierl, Oberst, 58
Goebbels, Joseph, 57–59, 61, 63–65, 83–84, 90, High finance, 124
227, 398, 418n43; artistic freedom and, 76; Historical exegesis, 362
on miesmacher, 94; personality and, 70; Historical factor, 340, 362
popular culture and, 76; principles guiding Historical materialist analysis, 12
totalitarian propaganda and, 78; radio “History and Psychology” (Horkheimer), 46n11
broadcasting and, 73; totalitarian Hitler, Adolf, 24, 58–59, 62, 102, 105, 130,
propaganda and, 66 398, 405, 407; in Berlin, 148, 151n3, 153;
“Goebbels’ Conception of Propaganda” idolization of, 67; Königsberg address, 103;
(Herm), 23, 24, 129 Kracauer quotations of, 392; at Maginot
“Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda” Line, 147; Marxism, liquidation of, 70; mass
(Kracauer), 212 as political phenomenon and, 150; masses
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 69, 405 and, 60, 61; military success of, 153; in Nazi
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), 247 newsreels, 146, 152; Old Guard and, 72–73;
Goods, producing and selling, 231 Reichskanzlei and, 148–49; rise to power of,
Göring, Hermann, 150, 414 26; spoken word and, 64–65; at Strassburg
Government agencies, 371 cathedral, 139; G. Strasser and, 399, 401;
Governmental departments, 351 terror and, 111; uneasiness with horse, 154
Grand Illusion (1938), 246 “Hitler Image, The” (Kracauer), 130
Great Depression, 230 “Hitlerjunge Quex” (Nazi film), 145
Great War, 40 Hogben, Lancelot, 28, 214, 215, 263, 264, 266
Greece, 277, 289; admission to NATO of, 278; Hollywood, 28, 238, 239, 242, 252, 258, 260, 286,
domestic affairs in, 288; film and, 286; 295; audiences of, 241; authenticity and,
rural, 280; Soviet Union and, 295; U.S. 248; clichés used by, 254; desires created by,
popularity in, 302; well-educated people in, 259; domestic self-interest of, 255; economic
291; word-of-mouth communications in, risks and, 245; English characters in, 247;
286 entertainment formula of, 243; German
Griffith, D. W., 258 film and, 249; Germany and, 244; impact
 i n dex m 4 41

of, 287; public opinion and, 251; Russian Individualization, 76

heroism in, 244; Soviet Union and, 254 Individual personality, 21, 213
“Hollywood, the Movie Colony” (Kracauer), 128 Industrialization, 355
Holocaust, 4, 25 Infrastructural renewal, 11
“Homeland” (Heimat), 41, 71 Injustice, 292
Horkheimer, Max, 3, 5, 10, 12, 22, 395–96, 399, INRA. See International Research Associates,
404, 407, 414–15; “Below the Surface” and, Inc.
130, 131; on bourgeois revolutions, 68; Insecurity, pathological condition of, 41
culture industry and, 211; Kracauer and, In-service training, 379, 380, 387
38, 46n11; on leader/follower dynamics, Institute for Social Research, 2, 7, 10, 15, 268;
405; Marxism and, 397; on revolutionary American Jewish Committee and, 130;
mass, 57; sadomasochism and, 391; on empirical research agenda of, 20; Kracauer
sociohistorical roots of fascism, 408; relationship with, 27, 37. See also Frankfurt
synthesis Marx and Freud by, 412; School
“Traditional and Critical Theory,” 268 Institutionalized research, 351
How Green Was My Valley (1941), 243 Institutional research, 363, 373
“How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” Institutional stability, 367
(Carnegie), 227, 230 Instruction, 384
“How U.S. Films Portray Foreign Types” Intellectual climate, 365
(Kracauer), 215 Intellectualism, 76
Huber, Ernst Rudolf, 85 Intelligentsia, 280
Huckleberry Finn (fictional character), 250 Internal accuracy, 337
Human behavior, 319 Internal variables, 344
Hungary, 30, 269, 309, 313, 314 International Broadcasting Service, 268
Hyperinflation, 121, 409 International communications, 280, 281, 325
Hypertension, 362, 363, 372 International Information Administration
Hypnotic effects, 43, 61, 62, 66, 67, 69 (IIA), 269, 271, 276, 277, 279, 282
Internationalism, 76
Idealism, 400 International Research Associates, Inc.
Ideal-types, 330, 339 (INRA), 309, 340, 341
Idea-montages, 84 “International Tensions” report (Kracauer), 215
Ideology, 19 International understanding, 238
Ignorance, 132 Interpersonal relations, 273, 359, 360, 362
IIA. See International Information Iron Curtain, 295, 296, 297, 298, 309, 372, 375
Administration Iron Curtain, The (1948), 246–47, 256
Illegal power, 85 Irrationalism, 13, 32, 132
Illinois, 334 Israel, 308
Illiteracy, 299 Italian fascism, 10, 39, 397–98, 414, 415
Imagination, 265 Italy, 10, 85, 93; economic situation of, 102;
Imperialism, 103, 104, 224, 232, 251, 270, 307 post war situation in, 114
Important categories of qualitative analysis, Ivy (1947), 244
329
Impressionism, 317, 318, 327, 330 Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Time
Impulse to power, 101 (Kracauer), 7, 21, 39
Inclusive training, 383 Jannings, Emil, 254
Indeterminacy, 357, 358 Japan, 235
India, 287 Jewish people, 155–56, 158, 305–6
Individual consciousness, 119 Jobkeeper Communists, 311
Individualism, 4, 40, 297 Johnson, Alvin, 23, 128
442 l i n dex

Johnston, Eric, 243 and, 399; “test film” project, 3, 15; theoretical
Jordan, 277, 280, 283, 284, 306; Bedouins in, approach of, 391; on total situation, 216;
294; Judge of Islamic Legislation, 291; lower trajectory of, 15; on traumatic experiences
middle-class people in, 296; middle class of Great War, 40; white-collar workers and,
in, 303, 307 272; work with U.S. governmental agencies,
Journey for Margaret (1942), 243 267; World War I and, 3; Zweig and, 392.
Judge of Islamic Legislation, 291 See also specific writings
Jud Süβ (1940), 418n43 Kraft durch Freude (KdF), 87–88
Kremlin, 245
Kant, Immanuel, 8, 364, 395 Krieck, Ernst, 63, 66, 72
KdF. See Kraft durch Freude Kris, Ernst, 23, 24, 128
Keaton, Buster, 293 Kultur (Culture), 9
Knappen, Marshall, 26, 212, 217–18, 219 Kulturkampf (magazine), 95
Kolberg (Nazi propaganda), 402
Königsberg address (Hitler), 103 Laclau, Ernesto, 402, 410, 412, 415
KPD. See German Communist Party Lady Eve (1941), 250
Kracauer, Siegfried, 1, 214, 215, 233–37, 309–15, Lang, Fritz, 14, 148, 409
393; on abstractness, 18; Adorno critique of, Large-scale industry, 124
31–32, 38, 413, 415; on advertising, 213; L’art dans le Troisième Reich (Wernert), 75
American newsreels and, 28; “Appeals to Laski, Harold J., 232
the Near and Middle East,” 29, 269, Last Chance, The (1945), 258, 260
275–308; “Below the Surface” project, 130, Last Command, The (1928), 254
131, 132, 155–209, 214, 271; on cinematic Latent content, 329
approach, 17; Cold War and, 16; on Latent structure analysis, 371
democracy, 400; dialectical critique and, 6; Latin America, 416
discontinuities in work of, 20; Eastern Laudatory references, 329
Europe and, 30; embrace of U.S. ideologies, Law school, 336
270; on fascism, 22, 396, 401, 408; film and, Lazarsfeld, Paul, 268, 269, 273, 333, 350, 356,
2, 12, 14, 24, 268; financial existence of, 10; 364, 365, 376
first U.S. publication of, 128; on formative Leader/follower dynamics, 405
tendency, 17; Frankfurt School and, 39; Leaders, 42; fascism and, 54; fascist
Fromm and, 415; German cinema and, 23; propaganda and, 398; personality of, 413
Horkheimer and, 38, 46n11; on hyperinflation, Lean years, 225
409; on interpersonal relations, 273; Lebanon, 277, 278, 281, 284
journalistic career of, 8; Knappen and, 212; Le Bon, Gustav, 399–400, 405, 407, 414
Lazarsfeld and, 268, 269; leaving occupied Left-wing intellectuals, 392
France, 127; Löwenthal friendship with, 37; Left-wing populism, 407
main books by, 7; Marseilles notebooks of, Legal power, 85–86
129; Marx and, 414; Marxism and, 397; on Leisure, 292
mass as political phenomenon, 41; move to Lewis, Sinclair, 229
Berlin, 9; on Nazi newsreels, 128, 130; New Liberal capitalism, 69, 411
York Museum of Modern Art and, 13; Liberal democracy, 2
Orientalism and, 271, 285; on party system, Liberalism, 400
411; in postwar New York, 211; on qualitative Libidinal drives, 404
analysis, 322; quotations of Hitler, 392; on Liebman, Joshua L., 227
radio broadcasting, 43, 48n19; remaining in Listener opinions, 360
America, 25, 26; Simmel and, 4; “The Social Literacy, 355
Research Center on the Campus,” 31, 271, 273, Literature policy, 99
350–90; on SPD and KPD, 410; G. Strasser Little Man, What Now? (1934), 244
 i n dex m 443

Lives of a Bengal Lancer, The (1935), 243, 248, 251 expansion of, 57; formation of, 79, 122;
Lloyd, Harold, 293 Hitler and, 60, 61; masterless, 59;
Local influence, 335 personality and, 69; production of, 108;
London, 140 proletarian, 71; reabsorption of, 51;
Lost Horizon (1937), 243 reproduction of, 78; revolutionary mass
Louisiana Story (1948), 300 and, 57; spiritual homelessness of, 50;
Löwenthal, Leo, 25, 27, 130, 268, 273, 396; on totalitarian propaganda and, 70, 213
Jacques Offenbach and the Paris of His Mass-man, 60, 61
Time (Kracuaer), 39; Kracauer friendship Mass media, 14, 211, 264, 267, 279, 280, 355;
with, 37; study of biographies in popular Middle East and, 359; rise of, 5
magazines, 340 Mass mobilization, authoritarian, 400
Lower-middle-class office workers, 41 “Mass Ornament, The” (Kracauer), 6, 11, 13;
Lower-middle-class people, 296 The Salaried Masses, 40; “Totalitarian
Low-income groups, 354 Propaganda” study and, 40
Lubitsch, Ernst, 244, 254 Mass particles, 74
Lukacs, György, 414 Mass production, 229
Lumpen proletariat, 122 Mass propaganda, 43
Lyford, Joseph, 28, 214, 233–37 Mass rallies, 61, 62, 405, 407
Mass soul, 67
MacArthur, Douglas, 236 Mass speeches, 66, 67
Maginot Line, 136, 147 Materialism, 400
Malaria, 301 Material issues, 333
Marcuse, Herbert, 25, 27, 213 Material propaganda, 100
Market research, 348 Mathematics, 263
Marquand, John, 229 Matteotti Crisis, 93
Marshall Plan, 26, 212, 219 Matter-of-factness, 327
Martial sensibility, 40 Matter-of-fact neutralism, 323
Marx, Karl, 401, 412, 414 Mayer, Carl, 17, 18
Marxism, 12, 19, 79, 95, 121; base-superstructure McDougall, William, 414
model of, 397; Hitler liquidation of, 70; McPhee, W. W., 339, 359
Horkheimer and, 397; Kracauer and, Meaninglessness, pathological condition
397; left-wing intellectuals and, 392; of, 41
methodology of, 391; post-Marxism, 402 Media and communications, 31
Mason and Dixon line, 334 Medical schools, 336, 338, 363
Mass as political phenomenon, 40, 47n17; cult Medium significance, 361, 362
of, 53; formation of, 72; Hitler and, 150; Mein Kampf (Hitler), 70, 405
leaders and, 42; significance of, 52; Meisel, Edmund, 17
structure of, 119; totalitarianism and, 42 Meltzer, Newton, 235
Mass communication, 238, 261n15, 273, 355; Menzel, Herbert, 333
effects of, 358–59; techniques of, 264 Merton, Robert K., 341, 357, 361, 364, 365,
Mass culture, 213; Fascist propaganda as, 24; as 373–74
ideology, 19 Methodological explorations, 364
Mass desires, 253 Metropolis (1927), 14, 409
Mass dispositions, 259, 260 “Metropolis and Mental Life, The” (Simmel), 4
Massenbildkunst (“Art of mass images”), 44 Metropolitan society, 11
Mass entertainment, 257 Mickey Mouse (fictional character), 250
Masses, 404; appealing character of, 74; Middle class, 50, 56, 410; German, 409; in
artificial creation of, 100; common Jordan, 303, 307; Lebanese, 281; lower, 296;
characteristics of, 56; credulity of, 152; proletarianized, 121; youth, 144
444 l i n dex

Middle East, 278, 279, 282, 283, 287; BBC in, 41; mass rallies and, 61; objectives of, 109;
290; coffee houses in, 285; educated personality and, 68, 70; politics of conquest
populations in, 289; Egypt leading role in, of, 102; pseudo-reality of, 90; science and,
303; leisure in, 292; mass media and, 359; 112; symbols of, 63; white-collar workers
social changes in, 293, 308; Voice of and, 40; will to power of, 91
America and, 284 National Socialist German Workers Party
Middle-ground theories, 361 (NSDAP), 397, 398, 399
Miesmacher (moaners), 94 National Socialist propaganda, 10, 40, 72, 75, 411;
Military marches, 67 fascist propaganda and, 84; imaginative
Mill, John Stuart, 405 powers of, 73; relativism and, 125
Mission to Moscow (1943), 255 National Socialist Reichstag, 92
Moaners (miesmacher), 94 Nationalsozialistischen Monatshefte
Mockery (1927), 254 (magazine), 96
Moderne Politische Propaganda (Goebbels), Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund (NSLB), 98
66 National-syndicalist workers, 397
Modernity, 4, 7 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Moehl, Ernst, 119 Natural sciences, 347
Monopoly capitalism, 74, 79, 101, 392, 400 Navigator, The (1924), 293
Morgenthau Plan, 212, 218 Nazi campaign films, 151n6
Moss Rose (1947), 244 Nazi films, 145
“Mother” (Pudovkin), 149 Nazi Germany, 7, 11, 15, 140, 153
Motion Picture Association, 243 Nazi newsreels, 24, 127, 128, 136, 140; beautiful
Moviegoers, 242 natural settings in, 145; commentary in,
Movietone, 235 137; crowds in, 148, 149; effectiveness of, 135;
Mrs. Miniver (1942), 243, 251 Führer and, 130; German film and, 129;
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), 294 Hitler in, 146, 152; information in, 141;
Museum of Modern Art Film Library, 23, 128 music of, 139; panning shots in, 145;
Music, 129, 139, 152 pictorial content of, 141–42, 144
Mussolini, Benito, 58, 72, 90, 100, 105, 397, 412; Nazi propaganda, 28; Kolberg, 402;
idolization of, 67; terror and, 111 Winterhilfswerk program and, 403
Mutually assured destruction, 4 “Nazi Propaganda and Its Decline” (Speier),
Mutual understanding, 242 24, 129
Nazism, 3, 415
National Bolshevism, 399 Nazi soldiers, 147
National Council of the Protestant Episcopal Neoliberalism, 3
Church, 356 Neumann, Franz, 408
National fanaticism, 397 Neutralism, 323
National figures, 5 Nevsky, Alexander, 253
National humiliation, 114 New media, 5
National images as presented in film, 238, 248 New School for Social Research, 23
Nationalism, 292, 304 Newspaper consumption, 285
National power apparatus, 122 Newsreel audiences, 236
National Socialism, 20, 39, 50, 59, 75, 408; Newsreel cameramen, 235
architecture of, 88; church policy and, 97; Newsreel companies, 234, 237
colonial program of, 104; crisis of 1934, 94; Newsreel editors, 235, 236
employment law of, 87; foreign policy of, Newsreel theaters, 233, 234
84; formation of, 83; Heiden and, 62; New York Museum of Modern Art, 13
impulse to power of, 101; literature policy New York Times (newspaper), 26, 235
of, 99; mass as political phenomenon and, New York Times Book Review (magazine), 211
 i n dex m 4 45

Niemoeller, Martin, 218 Out-service training, 379

Night of the Long Knives, 399 Over-fine categorization, 324
Nihilism, 79, 83, 97, 100, 101, 102, 117, 124, 125, OWI. See Office of War Information
398, 405 Oxford Conference of World Churches, 96
Ninotchka (1939), 239, 244, 254, 256
Nominal Communists, 311, 313, 315 Pabst, G. W., 138
Non-Communists, 309, 312, 314 Paisan (1946), 258, 260
Nonconformity, 232 Palestine, 282, 297, 305–6, 307
Nonfiction bestseller lists, 227 Paradine Case (1948), 243
Non-quantifiable frequencies, 329 Paris, 37, 147
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Parliamentarism, 69
278, 288, 302 Parsonian dichotomic variable patterns, 339
North Star, The (1943), 255, 256 Passive recruitment, 385, 386
NSDAP. See National Socialist German Patriotism, 247
Workers Party “Peace of Mind” (Liebman), 227
NSLB. See Nationalsozialistischer Lehrerbund Peasants, 122, 280
“People without space” (Volk ohne Raum), 103
Obdachlosigkeit (Social dislocation), 409 Permanence, 367, 368
Objective information, 240 Permanent research organizations, 355
Objectivity, 317, 318, 327; of exact science, 351, Personality, 120, 413; cult of, 405; entrepreneurial,
357; organized research and, 351; of 95; fascist propaganda and, 406; individual,
quantitative analysis, 331–32 21, 213; masses and, 69; National Socialism
Occupied France, 16, 127 and, 68, 70
Offenbach, Jacques, 10, 11, 39, 393 Personality traits, 344
Office of War Information (OWI), 220 Petty bourgeoisie, 281
Of Human Bondage (1934), 243, 247 Photography, 5
Old Guard, 72–73 “Photography” (Kracauer), 28
“On the Relation Between Individual and Pick, Lupu, 138
Collective Properties” (Lazarsfeld and Pictorialization, 265, 266
Menzel), 333 Pied Piper, The (1942), 243, 248, 251
Open City (1945), 258 Plebiscites, 92
Open terror, 118 Point Four Program, 300
Operational significance, 339 Poland, 30, 141, 269, 309
Opinion formation, 355, 358 Polio, 363
Opinion leaders, 359, 363, 370 Political behavior, 358, 363, 366, 381
Orchestration of power, 44 Political consciousness, 282
Organizational continuity, 367 Political fanaticism, 6
Organizational measures, 371 Political organizations, 362
Organizational rigidity, 368 Political power, 85
Organizational separation, 364 Political propaganda, 49
Organized research, 379; critics of, 352; Political struggle, 79
fragmentary results of, 358; objectivity Political superstructure, 107
and, 351 Politics of conquest, 102
Organized social research, 366 Pollock, Friedrich, 38
Orientalism, 271, 285 Polls, 232
Oriented case studies, 335 “Popular Advertisements” (Kracauer), 27, 212
Ornament, 22, 44 Popular art, 78
Ortega y Gasset, José, 59 Popular culture, 1, 4, 5, 12, 76
“Our Russian Ally” (World in Action short), 143 Popular sovereignty, 47n17
446 l i n dex

Population groups, 326 Psychological imperialism, 224, 232

Populism: authoritarian, 32, 395, 396, 399, 415, Psychological resistance, 146
416; “friend-enemy” dichotomy of, 403; Psychological-sociological-historical thesis, 14
Laclau on, 415; left-wing, 407; right-wing, Psychological states of population groups, 326
395, 397, 399, 407, 411, 412, 415, 416 Psychological warfare, 15, 241
Post-Marxism, 402 Psycho-physical structure of people, 56
Postwar period, 50 Psycho-physical upheaval, 104
Postwar reconstruction, 211 Psychotherapy, 342
Potsdam Agreement, 219 Public listening, 284–85
Poverty, 292 Public opinion, 221, 227, 245; Hollywood and,
Practical indoctrination, 381 251; manipulation of, 241; in U.S., 242
Practical skills, 386 Public Opinion and Propaganda (Doob), 212
Pratt, Samuel, 382, 384, 386, 388 Public Opinion Quarterly (journal), 268
Prejudice, 3, 6, 15 Public social agencies, 373
Priester, Hans Erich, 91, 102 Pudovkin, Vsevolod, 149, 258, 287
Primary data, 351
Princeton Office of Radio Research, 354 Qualifications, 324
Princeton Radio Research Project, 269 Qualitative analysis, 319, 320; communications
Printed material, 285–86, 298 studies and, 327; first exercises in, 360;
Printers’ Union study, 358, 362 important categories of, 329;
Private discussions, 384 impressionism of, 330; Kracauer on, 322;
Private social agencies, 373 precision attained by, 331; quantitative
Probabilities, 324 analysis and, 328, 340
“Producer-parasite” dichotomy, 403 Qualitative exegesis, 329–30
Professional integrity, 274, 352, 374 Qualitative reasoning, 326
Professionally problematic assignments, 377 Quantifiable categories of latent content, 329
Proletarian collectivism, 41 Quantification processes, 326
Proletarianized middle class, 121 Quantitative analysis, 316, 317, 325, 346; of BBC,
Proletarian mass, 71 327; direction of communication
Proletariat, 50, 88, 414; collectivism, 41; determined by, 323; nonquantitative
emancipation of, 57; revolutionary mass explorations and, 326; objectivity of,
of, 58 331–32; qualitative analysis and, 328, 340; of
Propaganda and National Power Voice of America, 327
(Hadamovsky), 74 Quantitative content analysis, 322
Propaganda and the Nazi War Film Quantitative investigations, 324
(pamphlet), 23, 128 Quantitative techniques, 324
Property rights, 116 Quick study, 372
Prophets of Deceit (Löwenthal and Quiet One, The (1948), 305
Gutermann), 396
Protestantism, 218 Radio broadcasting, 43, 48n19, 52, 272, 314;
Protofascist psychological predispositions, 40 Goebbels and, 73; Kris on, 128; meaning of,
Pseudo-reality, 90, 92, 100, 123 351; objective information and, 240; public
Psychoanalytic concepts, 392, 412, 413 listening to, 284–85
Psychological components, 345 Radio Free Europe, 30, 269, 314
Psychological constants, 342 Radio Research, 1942–1943 (Stanton), 273
Psychological dimension, 341 Railway line, 140
Psychological domination, 223 Random Harvest (1942), 252
Psychological fallacy, 348 Ratio, 7, 18, 41, 43, 60
 i n dex m 4 47

Realisierungs-Überzeugungen (Realization- Salaried Masses, The (Kracauer), 7, 9, 40

convictions), 93 Satellite Communism, 309
Realistic tendency, 16, 17 Satellite mentality, 340, 375
Realization-convictions (Realisierungs- “Satellite Mentality” (Kracauer and Berkman),
Überzeugungen), 93 30, 269
Rebecca (1940), 243, 247 Schein (Appearance), 42
Refugees, 269 Scheinwelt (World of spurious appearances),
Reich Chamber of Radio, 76 39, 42, 43
Reichskanzlei, 148–49 Schmitt, Carl, 47n17, 412
Reichstag Fire, 7 Schmittmann, Benedict, 94
Relativism, 100, 125 Scholarly standards, 375
Relevant causes, 342 Schutzenkamaradschaft (“Camaraderie of the
Reliability, 290, 323 trenches”), 40
Religious affiliation, 363 Scientific accomplishments, 354
Religious mysticism, 6 Scientifically insignificant commissions, 375
Religious persecution, 298 Scientifically oriented doctors, 338
“Remarks on Administrative and Critical Scientific potentialities, 371
Communication Research” (Lazarsfeld), 268 Search, The (1948), 258, 260
Remarque, Erich Maria, 241, 244 Secondary analysis, 372
Repetition and rhythm of totalitarian Second Empire, 10, 11, 30, 39
propaganda, 43 Security, 228
Research designs, 359, 378 Sein (Being), 42
Research institutes, 389 Self-determination, 401
Research intentions, 367 Self-identification, 240
Research organizations, 353, 380 Sex appeal, 229
Research propositions, 365 Shakespeare, William, 239
Respect, 329 Silone, Ignazio, 39, 72, 84, 90, 92, 93, 397, 414
Revolutionary mass, 57, 119; gatherings of, 62; Simmel, Georg, 4, 8, 16, 273
of proletariat, 58 Sittlichkeitsverbrechen (Crimes against
Riefenstahl, Leni, 19 morality), 112
Right To Know, The (Johnston), 243 Situational determinants: selection of, 340;
Right-wing populism, 32, 395, 397, 399, 407, 411, survey of relevant causes oriented toward,
412, 415, 416 342
Road Back, The (1937), 244 Situational factors, 333, 337, 338, 339; attempts
Rocco, Alfredo, 85 to account for, 345; consideration of, 342;
Rosenberg, Arthur, 414 omitted, 348; relevant, 341
Rossellini, Roberto, 258 Smith, Howard K., 150
Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), 243, 247, 250, 251, 305 Snobbishness, 249, 250
Rural masses, 281, 300 Social agencies, 373, 382
Russian characters in film, 238, 239, 244; actors Social antagonisms, 124
portraying, 254; clichés in, 253; as sheer Social bonds, 40
abstractions, 257 Social contradictions, 402
Russian Five-Year Plan, 253 Social Democratic Party (SPD), 107, 110, 111,
Russian stereotypes, 216 118, 119, 397, 410
Ruttmann, Walter, 17, 18, 19, 138 Social dislocation (Obdachlosigkeit), 409
Social dynamics, 363
Sadomasochism, 391 Social environment, 359
SA Gruppenführer Schöne, 89 Social factors, 362
448 l i n dex

Socialism, 50, 69, 107, 109, 115, 400, 411; forceful SPD. See Social Democratic Party
subjugation of, 114; mass rallies for, 405, 407; Special research programs, 373
movements for, 404; in one country, 116 Spectacle, 7, 21, 22, 44
Socialization, 337, 356, 357 Spectators, 265
Social laboratories, 352 Specter of the Rose, The (1946), 244
Socially problematic assignments, 377 Speier, Hans, 23, 24, 128, 129
Social mobility, 334 Spellman, Francis, 236
Social phenomena, 316, 318 Spiritual shelterlessness, 16, 21
Social problems, 351 Spoken word, 64–65
Social progress, 299 Spontaneous research designs, 378
Social-psychological mechanisms, 412, 414 Stalin, Joseph, 244, 255, 296
Social psychology, 339, 352 Stalinism, 3
Social reality, 361, 362 Standardized goods, 224
Social Research (journal), 23, 128 Stanton, Frank, 273
“Social Research Center on the Campus, The” Stapel, Wilhelm, 65
(Kracauer), 31, 271, 273, 350–90 States of exception, 20
Social research centers, 350, 351 Statistical analysis, 346
Social sciences, 316–17 Statistical measurements, 360
“Social Stratification of the Radio Audience” Sternhell, Zeev, 397
(Beville), 354 Strassburg cathedral, 139
Social theory, 366 Strasser, Gregor, 398, 399, 401
Societal interests, 83, 86 Strasser, Otto, 58
Socio-economic status, 279 Studies in Philosophy and Social Science
Sociological analysis, 362 (journal), 268
Sociological configurations, 339 Studies on Authority and Family (Fromm), 404
Sociological determinants, 336, 341, 346, 347 Study of War Time Communication, 128
Sociological dimension, 341 Sturges, Preston, 242, 250
Sociological reductionism, 397 Subjectivity, 21, 240, 248, 257
Sociology of culture, 343 Subpropaganda campaigns, 221
Sociology of professions, 356 Substantive problems, 364
Sociology students, 385 Success, planning of, 228
So Evil My Love (1948), 244 Sullivan’s Travels (1941), 242
Soft power, 272 Sun Never Sets, The (1939), 243
Solidarity, 40 Superstructure, 107, 109, 117; base-
“Some Comparisons of Entrants to Medical superstructure model, 397; terror and, 120
and Law School” (Thielens), 336 Supreme Court, 237
Sonderweg thesis, 400 Susceptibility, 215
Sophistication, degree of, 156, 324 Swastika, 44, 63, 139, 143
Soviet bloc, 30, 267 Syria, 277, 278, 283, 296, 298–99
Soviet mentality, 239 Systematic analysis, 377
Soviet periphery, 282, 295, 325 Systematic quantification, 330
Soviet propaganda, 29 System references, 344
Soviet Union, 30, 49, 83, 252, 269, 278, 295–96;
Hollywood and, 254; U.S. relations with, Tales of Hoffmann (Offenbach), 11
216 Taylor, Paul A., 138
So Well Remembered (1947), 244 Teachers Apprehension study, 343
Spain, 263 Teaching performances, 344
Spanish civil war, 245 Technical assistance, 379
 i n dex m 4 49

Technocratic reason, 7 Totalitarian regimes, 73, 241

Technocratic systems, 6 Total propaganda, 113, 117; character of, 116;
Technological advances, 229 influence of, 119; terror and, 118
Teen-agers, 224, 230 Total situation, 216, 333, 335, 337, 339; isolation
Telenews, 235, 237 from, 345; reconstructing, 341; variables
Tempest, The (1928), 254 and, 346
“Tensions Project” (UNESCO), 238 Total war, 3
Terror, 41, 51, 56, 74, 84, 108; formation of To the Victor (1948), 256
masses and, 79; implementation of, 100; Tovarich (1937), 244, 254
Mussolini and, 111; open terror, 118; Trade unions, 86
pressure of, 91; superstructure and, 120; “Traditional and Critical Theory”
systematic use of, 117; totalitarian (Horkheimer), 268
propaganda and, 402 Traditionalism, 359, 372
“Test film” project, 3, 15 Traditions, 367
Teutonic Knights, 253 Training, 352, 371, 387; activities, 379; formal
Theory of Film (Kracauer), 5, 25; Cold War education and, 382; inclusive, 383; initial
and, 16; film aesthetics and, 268; precepts selection for, 385; instruction and, 384;
of, 17, 18 intensive, 381; procedures, 380; process of,
Thielens, Wagner, 336 383; results of, 389
Thingspiel, 78 Triumph of the Will (1934), 19, 245, 406
Third Reich, 39, 63, 77, 91, 212 Truman, Harry S., 236
Three Comrades (1938), 244 Turkey, 277, 280, 302; admission to NATO
Tiller Girls, 6–7, 18, 43–44, 213, 406 of, 278; documentary films in, 287; film
Tolerance, 298 and, 286; rural, 282; Soviet Union and,
Tolstoy, Leo, 239, 254 295; word-of-mouth communications
Totalitarian dictatorships, 75, 90, 93, 397 in, 286
Totalitarianism, 3, 270; capitalism and, 22;
embrace of, 14; mass as political Ultra-nationalism, 217
phenomenon and, 42 U.N. See United Nations
Totalitarian movements, 60, 83, 86, 101 Unattached intellectuals, 357
Totalitarian propaganda, 2, 10, 58, 59, 90, Unemployed people, 50, 122
91, 138; aestheticized politics and, 44; Unemployment, 86, 225, 244
aims of, 404; broad mass and, 72; UNESCO. See United Nations Educational,
effective, 84; examination of, 37; foreign Scientific and Cultural Organization
policy and, 102; Goebbels and, 66; Union elections, 92
imposition of, 68; masses and, 70, 213; Unions, 362
mass-man and, 61; mass rallies and, 62; United Nations (U.N.), 300, 301
mass speeches and, 66; mechanism of, 67; United Nations Educational, Scientific and
point of departure for, 40; power Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 211, 215,
sustained by, 41; principles guiding, 78; 238, 260, 288
psycho-physical structure of people and, United States (U.S.), 269; American
56; quintessence of power and, 75; civilization, 264; American dream, 227;
repetition and rhythm of, 43; spoken word American expansionism, 270; anti-Semitism
and, 64; terror and, 402 in, 127, 130; audiences in, 241; creative
“Totalitarian Propaganda” study, 12, 15, 21, 24, energies instrumental in, 231; Department
27, 32, 395; afterword to, 39; sections of, of State, 268, 275; distrust of, 289–90;
396–97; theoretical shortcomings of, 396; England and, 247; foreign policy of, 236,
works underpinning, 40 293, 302, 305, 308; government, 15;
4 50 l i n dex

United States (U.S.) (continued) Volk ohne Raum (“People without space”),
imperialism of, 307; Kracauer embrace 103
of ideologies of, 270; Kracauer first Volksgemeinschaft, 40, 41, 78, 88, 90, 398
publication in, 128; Kracauer work with
governmental agencies of, 267; mass Wagnerian music, 152
production in, 229; newsreel companies in, Wanger, Walter, 245
237; Palestine and, 305–6; political process Warner, Jack L., 243
in, 358, 363; popularity in Greece of, 302; War propaganda, 135
propaganda, 375; public opinion in, 242; Waugh, Evelyn, 223
right-wing populist movements in, 395, 416; We Are Not Alone (1939), 243
role in international affairs, 299; Soviet Weber, Max, 9, 330
relations with, 216 Weimar cinema, 28, 215
United World Federalists, 376 Weimar culture, 12
Units of communication, 323 Weimar Germany, 40
University curriculum, 379 Weimar Republic, 8, 46n11, 127, 244, 397; inner
University of Chicago, 365, 378 dispositions among Germans of, 342; social
University of Michigan, 365, 378 divisions of, 398
Unoriented case studies, 335, 347 Welfare, 403
Unoriented research, 337 Well-balanced neutralism, 323
Upper-class ideology, 247 Weltanschauung, 224, 408
Upward mobility, 384 Werke (Kracauer), 1, 23, 39
Urban culture, 273 Wernert, Erich, 75, 77, 78, 88, 414
Urban elite, 281 Westdeutschen Beobachter (newspaper), 96
Urbanization, 355 Western civilization, 256
Urban renewal, 11 Western Europe, 269
U.S. See United States Westernization, 304, 359, 372
Utility art, 78 Whiskey, 228
White Cliffs of Dover, The (1944), 243, 251, 252
Variables, 344, 345, 346 White-collar workers, 12, 24, 30, 40, 46n11,
Variety (magazine), 246, 257 272, 294; fascist propaganda and, 128;
Verbal statements, 265 hyperinflation and, 121; new category
Verifiable research, 326 of, 41
Verlag, Suhrkamp, 1, 23 Wiene, Robert, 14, 42
Victorian England, 239 Wilder, David, 343
Victory in the West (1941), 128, 137, 151n6 Will to power, 59, 74, 75, 96; eruption of,
Violence, 69, 74 101; expansionism and, 102; Führer
Visual education, 266 as embodiment of, 68; logic of, 92; of
Visual media, 5 National Socialism, 91; nihilistic, 79,
Vitality, 231–32 83, 100, 398, 405; products of, 90;
Voice of America, 268, 269, 284, 288, 289, 290, suggestions of, 63
314, 317; quantitative analysis of, 327; Winsten, Archer, 256
structural characteristic of, 320 Winterhilfswerk program, 403
Volk, 85, 101, 197, 410; as “capsule without content,” Women, 100
402; conception of, 89; false totality of, 403; Word-of-mouth communications, 285
ideological character of, 400; individuals Working class, 41, 57
replaced with, 98; masses transformed into, “Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
74; mystifying concept of, 116 Reproduction, The” (Benjamin), 44, 57,
Völkische Beobachter (newspaper), 95 129
 i n dex m 451

World Health Organization, 300 Xenophobia, 2

World in Action, 143
World of spurious appearances (Scheinwelt), Yank at Oxford, A (1938), 243
39, 42, 43 Youth, 230
“World of the Daytime Serial” (Arnheim), 273, Youthfulness, 213
360
World propaganda, 123 Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (journal), 12, 25,
World War I, 3, 246 31–32, 37, 38, 44, 395–96, 413
World War II, 23, 241 Zweig, Stefan, 392
 New Directions in Critical Theory

Amy Allen, General Editor

Narrating Evil: A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment, María

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The Politics of Our Selves: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary

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Alienation, Rahel Jaeggi

The Power of Tolerance: A Debate, Wendy Brown and Rainer Forst, edited
by Luca Di Blasi and Christoph F. E. Holzhey

Radical History and the Politics of Art, Gabriel Rockhill

Starve and Immolate: The Politics of Human Weapons, Banu Bargu

The Highway of Despair: Critical Theory After Hegel, Robyn Marasco

A Political Economy of the Senses: Neoliberalism, Reification, Critique,

Anita Chari

The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical

Theory, Amy Allen

Recognition or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter on the Politics of

Freedom, Equality, and Identity, Axel Honneth and Jacques Rancière,
edited by Katia Genel and Jean-Philippe Deranty

What Is a People?, Alain Badiou, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Georges

Didi-Huberman, Sadri Khiari, and Jacques Rancière

Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late
Capitalism, Benjamin Y. Fong

Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory, Enzo

Traverso

Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruc-

tion, and Politics, edited by Olivia Custer, Penelope Deutscher, and
Samir Haddad

The Habermas Handbook, edited by Hauke Brunkhorst, Regina Kreide,

and Cristina Lafont

Birth of a New Earth: The Radical Politics of Environmentalism, Adrian

Parr

Genealogies of Terrorism: Revolution, State Violence, Empire, Verena

Erlenbusch-Anderson

The Practice of Political Theory: Rorty and Continental Thought, Clayton

Chin
Queer Terror: Life, Death, and Desire in the Settler Colony, C. Heike
Schotten

Naming Violence: A Critical Theory of Genocide, Torture, and Terrorism,

Mathias Thaler

Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left, Ernst Bloch

The Experience of Injustice: A Theory of Recognition, Emmanuel Renault

Fear of Breakdown: Politics and the Work of Psychoanalysis, Noëlle McAfee

Transitional Subjects: Critical Theory and Object Relations, edited by Amy

Allen and Brian O’Connor

Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change

Without Crisis or Utopia, Albena Azmanova

Hermeneutics as Critique: Science, Politics, Race and Culture, Lorenzo C.

Simpson

Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis, Amy

Allen

Recognition and Ambivalence, edited by Heikki Ikäheimo, Kristina

Lepold, and Titus Stahl

Praxis and Revolution: A Theory of Social Transformation, Eva von

Redecker