From Caligari to Hitler

[Dave Monroe]

Cowart, David.  "Auguries of the Third Reich in Gravity's Rainbow."
   Literature/Film Quarterly 6, No. 4 (Fall 1978), 364-70.

"While Klein-Rogge was not in Die Frau im Mond, he did appear in a
number of Lang's other films during the 1920's, including Dr. Mabuse
der Spieler (1922), Die Nibelungen (1923-24), and Metropolis (1926).
These movies, along with Lang's Der Müde Tod, are all cited in
Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler as examples of films that
expose 'deep psychological dispositions predominant in Germany from
1918 to 1933 ... dispositions which influenced the course of events in
that time.'  Kracauer argues that characters like the master criminal
Dr. Mabuse, or the mad scientist Rotwang (in Metropolis), illustrate a
growing fascination with or. acceptance of the evil genius or tyrant.
The fatalistic plot of Der Müde Tod, on the other hand, manifests a
spirit of passivity before 'fate' or 'destiny.'  Die Nibelungen also
reveals the inexorability of fate, in addition to eliciting horror at
the anarchic indulgence of instinct and passion.  The sociological and
political relevance of these "dispositions" will be evident. When
Pynchon makes these these particular movies the favorites of the
politically apathetic cineaste Franz Pökler, he seems to have
Kracauer's theories in mind."

http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5035412473

Also ...

Cowart, David.  Thomas Pynchon and the Dark Passages of History.
   Athens: U of Georgia Press, 2011.

http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/thomas_pynchon

Ch. 3, "Strebe nach dem Unendlichen: Germany and German Culture in
Pynchon's Early Work." (pp. 57-81)

http://books.google.com/books?id=VYnorYLekEYC&pg=PA72#v=onepage&q&f=false
(p. 72)

Kracauer, Sigfried.  From Caligari to Hitler:
   A Psychological History of the German Film.
   Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1947.

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/1369.html

http://archive.org/details/fromcaligaritohi013829mbp