From Caligari to Hitler

Hans Behrendt, Atlas supporting the heavens in "Potsdam" (1927)

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 Eva May in Karl Grune's The Count of Charolais (1922)

 G. W. Pabst, The Love of Jeanne Ney, 1927

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  Fritz Lang, Die Nibelungen, 1924

Carl Theodor Dreyer, Vampir, 1932

Illustration from the German magazine Der Orchideengarten, c. 1920

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Faust, 1926

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Faust, 1926

 Emil Jannings in Murnau's "Faust"

 Arnold Fanck, Die Weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü, 1929

Mountain and Fog

A brilliant essay by  Nina Power on the pre-Nazi Bergfilms

It is the combination of physical flawlessness and the blind celebration of danger that leads Siegfried Kracauer, in his From Caligari to Hitler, to claim that the mountain films, so beloved of the young Hitler, were "rooted in a mentality kindred to Nazi spirit".

  Martin Muncácsi, Leni Riefenstahl, 1931

 Ludwig Meidner, Apocalyptic Landscape, 1912

 UFA movie poster for the original screening of Paul Wegener's The Golem, 1920

 Paul Wegener and Lya de Putti in The Golem, 1920

More about The Golem here 

 Jakob Steinhardt, The City, 1913

 Robert Wiene, Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari, 1919

 Original sketch for a scene in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari from Lotte Eisner

According to Siegfried Kracauer in From Caligari to Hitler the artist Alfred Kubin was the original choice to provide the highly stylized backdrops for the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919). Other artists were ultimately utilized, but it’s fascinating to contemplate how his macabre and surrealistic imagination could have affected the film. 

 Alfred Kubin, The Hour of Death, 1900

Conrad Veidt and Lil Dagover in Robert Wiene's The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari 

 Lyonel Feininger, The Green Bridge II, 1916

 Henrik Galeen, The Student of Prague (1926)

 G.W. Pabst, The Joyless Street (1925) with Greta Garbo (far left) in her last European film before emigrating to the United States

 Karl Grune, Die Straße, 1923

 Erich Godal, Die Straße (The Street), 1923 

 Albert Birkle, Leipziger Straße Berlin, 1923

 Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Nosferatu, 1922

 Fritz Lang, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, 1933

 Lil Dagover in The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari (1920, dir. Robert Wiene) 

 Asta Nielsen in Svend Gade's Hamlet, 1921

 Louise Brooks in "Pandora's Box" (G.W.Pabst, 1929) 

 Lotte Jacobi, Lotte Lenya, c. 1930

 Marlene Dietrich in Josef Von Sternberg's Shanghai Express, 1932

 Henrik Galeen, Alraune, 1928

  Josef von Sternberg, Der blaue Engel, 1930

 Gustav Gründgens in Fritz Lang's, M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931

 Peter Lorre as Dr. Gogol in Karl Freund's Mad Love (1935)

 Peter Lorre

 Erich von Stroheim

 Conrad Veidt in Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs (1928) 

 Sebastian Droste (Husband of Anita Berber), 1923

 Rudolf Klein Rogge in Lang's The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, 1933

 Otto Dix, The Actor Heinrich George, 1933

 Fritz Lang, M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931

 Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's, M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931

 Fritz Lang, M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931

 Heinrich Maria Davringhausen, Der Lustmörder (The Ripper), 1917

 George Grosz, John, the Lady Killer, 1918

 Caligari Movie Poster

 Fritz Lang, c. 1930

 Fritz Lang, Spies, 1928

 Fritz Lang, Spies, 1928

 Fritz Lang and his wife Thea von Harbou in their Berlin apartment, in 1923 or 1924 (which is, when they prepared the script for Metropolis)

 Metropolis original 1927 theatrical release poster

 Paul Kirnig, Town, 1923

 Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Gläsener Wolkenkratzer (Glass Skyscraper), Berlin 1922

 Art director Erich Kettelhut & crew create the futuristic city set of Metropolis 

 Fritz Kahn, Man as Industrial Palace, 1926

 Brigitte Helm in Metropolis

 Fritz Lang, Metropolis (Production Still), 1925

 Brigitte Helm as Maria in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, (1926)

 Raoul Hausmann, Mechanical Head (Spirit of Our Age), c. 1920

 Rudolf Dischinger, Bedrohung (Menace), 1935

 Fritz Lang, Woman in the Moon, 1929

 Fritz Lang, actress Gerda Maurus  & crew on the set of Woman in the Moon (1929)

 Gustav Fröhlich in Lang's Metropolis: The Seven Cardinal Sins

 Otto Dix, The Seven Cardinal Sins, 1933

 John Martin, Illustration to Paradise Lost, 1825

 Fritz Lang, Metropolis

Magnus Zeller, The Orator, 1920

Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will, 1934