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For a few years, France has rediscovered Siegfried Kracauer's research studies in a work which resists classification and categorization. His life, like that of many Jewish intellectuals in the first part of the twentieth century, was marked by Germany's political and social situation that he focuses on. As he was deeply receptive to urban evolutions, he considered pictures which gave him the opportunity to suggest "glimpses of the new Germany". His relation to societal realities was made obvious through "views" concerning urbanization as a whole as much as the organization of leisure and entertainment, the organization of work or the cultural production within the capitalistic society. The following text thus suggests two hypotheses. The first one is related to Kracauer's method of observing and stating before his exile, when he might, contrary to what is usually asserted, have considered building a whole, understanding a whole society. The second hypothesis is that Kracauer's work may provide epistemological, socio-anthropological and political elements which allow the analysis of contemporary societies.