Just one year before Hitler's rise to power, in 1932, writer and playwright Ödön von Horváth wrote the drama Kazimir and Karolina. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, inflation, and the economic crisis caused by World War I were key historical circumstances that enabled the rise of National Socialism and led to the normalization of political violence and the systematic extermination of regime opponents.

Horváth, who meticulously dissected the socio-political conditions of Central Europe in his plays, was considered a master of depicting the fates of impoverished workers and the hopeless lower middle class between the two world wars. He particularly focused on deluded officials and bourgeois citizens whose passivity or open support contributed to Hitler's rise.

Kazimir and Karolina explores the breakdown of social relationships during an economic crisis and analyzes the factors that contributed to the rise of National Socialism. Its central plot, set against the backdrop of mass unemployment, is driven by what initially appears to be a simple personal story—the breakup of a relationship between the unemployed driver Kazimir and the low-ranking clerk Karolina.

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