Ernst Hoffmann (philosopher)

This article deals with the philosopher Ernst Hoffmann. For the historian of philosophy (1880–1952) see Ernst Hoffmann (historian of philosophy) .

Ernst Hoffmann (born August 2, 1912 in Elberfeld , † August 23, 2003 in Berlin ) was a Marxist philosopher and historian in the GDR .

Life

Ernst Hoffmann's father was Oskar Hoffmann , from 1921 to 1933 a member of the state parliament of the SPD in the Rhine Province . Ernst Hoffmann joined the KJVD in 1930 . In 1932 he began studying mathematics and natural sciences at the University of Cologne . After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he went to Berlin to take part in the illegal fight against the Nazi regime and therefore broke off his studies. He was arrested in October 1933 and sentenced to two years and eight months in prison before the People's Court in 1934 for “preparing for high treason ”. After his release in mid-1936, he continued his resistance work. When he was threatened with arrest again, he emigrated to Prague at Easter 1937 . There he was accepted into the KPD at the end of 1937 . In May 1938 he was one of the founding members of the emigrant organization FDJ .

After the situation of the emigrants in Czechoslovakia was endangered by the Munich Agreement , Ernst Hoffmann was sent by plane to London by the central emigration committee in Prague in November 1938 in order to convince the leaders of left-wing British youth organizations to allow emigrants from Czechoslovakia to enter the country Great Britain allow. Around 60 refugees were then able to flee by rail through Poland and then by ship to England. Among them was the then chairman of the FDJ, Adolf Buchholz , who continued negotiations with the youth organizations. Hoffmann moved to Manchester in December 1938 , where he was involved in building up the FDJ. He began to study chemistry, which he had to break off again because he was interned in 1940 as an " enemy alien " in Huyton . After his dismissal in 1941 he worked as a company statistician and was active in the British trade union. In the same year he married Ursula Bernhard (1921-2004), daughter of Arnold Bernhard . Their daughter was born in 1942. From 1942 he was a functionary of the national group of German trade unionists in Great Britain .

In October 1946 he returned to Berlin and joined the SED . He became Paul Wandel's personal collaborator . In 1948 he took part in the first lecturer course for philosophy at the Karl Marx party college . He then became deputy department head for philosophy at the Research Institute for Scientific Socialism in the party executive of the SED (from September 1949 Marx-Engels-Lenin Institute ), later deputy head of the institute. In 1950 and 1951 Hoffmann had a son with his wife.

In 1950 he became head of the higher education and science sector of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the SED . In the Central Committee he was responsible for the second university reform in the GDR. At the same time he was a lecturer in the philosophy of dialectical and historical materialism at the Berlin School of Economics . In 1952, by resolution of the Central Committee of the SED, the new State Secretariat for Higher Education awarded him the title of professor for philosophy. Hoffmann became deputy head of the chair in the history of Germany and the German labor movement at the Institute for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED. From 1958 to 1962 he was deputy or acting director there. From 1962 he was Professor of Theory and Method of History at the Humboldt University in Berlin . In 1977 he retired.

Honors

Ernst Hoffmann received the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1972 and the Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit in 1977 and the Karl Marx Order in 1982 .

Fonts

• Revolution and Proletarian Party in German History . Berlin 1982 (published by the Academy for Social Sciences).
• Social formation in theory and history . Humboldt University Berlin, 1983.
• In addition, numerous articles in the unit and the journal for historical science .

literature

• Hoffmann, Ernst . In: Collegium Politicum at the University of Hamburg. Historiography Working Group (Ed.): Historians in Central Germany . Ferd. Dümmerls Verlag, Bonn, Hanover, Hamburg, Munich 1965, p. 45.
• Hans-Christoph Rauh :  Hoffmann, Ernst . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Alfred Fleischhacker, (Ed.): That was our life, memories and documents on the history of the FDJ in Great Britain 1939 - 1946 ISBN 3355014753
• Volker Gerhardt, Hans-Christoph Rauh (Ed.): Beginnings of the GDR philosophy: claims, powerlessness, failure. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin, 2001, ISBN 9783861532255 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wuppertal City Archives, Genealogical Finding Aids, p. 32 (PDF; 348 kB)
2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , 3./4. September 1977, p. 4
3. ↑ see Herf, Ref.