Siegfried Kracauer (1889–1966) was the author of The Mass Ornament, From Caligari to Hitler, Theory of Film and many other seminal works on modernity. From 1921 to 1933 he worked as cultural editor of the Frankfurter Zeitung. He had close ties to Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. In 1941, he immigrated to the U.S., where he helped pioneer sociological film criticism.