Herzog's film is based upon the true and mysterious story of Kasper Hauser, a young man who suddenly appears in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or walk, and bearing a strange note. Herzog discovered the lead actor, Bruno Schleinstein, in a documentary about street musicians. Fascinated, Herzog cast him as the lead in The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser despite the fact that he had no training as an actor. 

Bruno Schleinstein's own life bears some similarities to Kaspar Hauser's, and his own unbalanced personality was often expressed on set. In Herzog's commentary for the English language DVD release, he recalls that Schleinstein remained in costume for the entire duration of the production, even after shooting was done for the day. Herzog once visited him in his hotel room, to find him sleeping on the floor by the door, in his costume.

"Every Man for Himself and God Against All" is the literal translation of the original German title of Herzog's 1974 take on the story of a boy found in a Nuremberg square in 1828 with a note explaining he'd been held captive in a dungeon his entire life.

Few films could live up to such a billing – this surpasses it: a compassionate, traumatic masterpiece, every frame amazing.

- Catherine Shoard, The Observer

One seam of Werner Herzog’s formidable career has always been his interest in congenital misfits – those removed, especially by language, from living inside the norms of society. The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, his 1974 drama about a Nuremberg foundling, is the peak of these achievements, and one of his two or three finest films, not to mention surely his most humane.

Tim Robey, The Telegraph

A Werner Herzog film based upon the true and mysterious story of KASPER HAUSER, a young man who suddenly appeared in Nuremberg in 1828, barely able to speak or walk, and bearing a strange note.  Few films could live up to such a billing – this surpasses it: a compassionate, traumatic masterpiece, every frame amazing

.- Catherine Shoard, The Observer

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