Siegfried Kracauer's Critique of Communist Propaganda

Abstract

This article aims at analysing Siegfried Kracauer’s interpretations of communist propaganda in satellite states during the Cold War. The unfinished investigation conducted in Satellitenmentalität (Satellite mentality) and unpublished sketches and reports are here studied for such purpose. The research methodology carried out by Kracauer in the United States is here compared with that used in The Salaried Masses (Die Angestellten) and other studies from the Weimar Republic. It is an objetive of this paper to show to what extent Kracauer’s interest in communist ideological manipulation and propaganda is due to his unstable working conditions as an émigré.