Heinrich Hoffmann (photographer)

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Heinrich Hoffmann. Photo taken on November 29, 1945.

Heinrich Hoffmann (born September 12, 1885 in Fürth , † December 16, 1957 in Munich ) was a German photographer , National Socialist politician and editor , who became known as the photographer of Adolf Hitler . With his photographic and publishing activities, he played a decisive role in the development and expansion of Nazi propaganda.

Childhood, youth and education

Heinrich Hoffmann was the only child of the photographer Robert Hoffmann and his wife Maria, geb. Kargl, born. He completed his apprenticeship in his parents' company in Regensburg . His wish to study painting failed because of his father's resistance. Hoffmann studied with the Heidelberg university photographer Langbein and in the Theobald photo studio in Frankfurt am Main . In the summer season from 1903 to 1906 he worked for "Kaiserfotografen" Thomas Voigt in Bad Homburg . After working for Camillo Ruf in Zurich and working as an assistant in the Munich photo studios Elvira and Reutlinger , he finally became an employee of the press photographer Emil Otto Hoppé in London . Hoffmann photographed for Scotland Yard and contributed to Hoppé's illustrated book Famous Contemporaries of the 20th Century . He gained experience with sensational photography and settled in Munich in 1909 .

Hoffmann opened his own atelier at Schellingstraße 33 and worked as an advertising, portrait and press photographer. In 1911 Hoffmann married Therese "Nelly" Baumann in Munich, with whom he had two children: Henriette (1913–1992) and Heinrich (born October 24, 1916). Henriette married Baldur von Schirach, who later became Reich Youth Leader , on March 31, 1932 . In 1913 Hoffmann founded the photo service Photobericht Hoffmann and specialized in press photography and portraits . He also managed a large postcard sales company and, in addition to the Münchner Illustrierte Zeitung, also supplied agencies in Berlin and abroad, including Austria .

On August 2, 1914 - shortly after the outbreak of the First World War  - Hoffmann photographed the general enthusiasm on Odeonsplatz in Munich. Adolf Hitler was later identified on this black-and-white photo; possibly it is a fake. Until 1917 he worked as a freelance war photographer. In August 1917, Hoffmann was drafted as an unserved Landsturmmann to "Flieger Ersatzabteilung I" and sent to the Western Front . After the end of the war in 1918, he resumed his work as a press photographer and reported on the Munich Soviet Republic in 1919.

Career in National Socialism

Adolf Hitler practices poses for his speeches in 1927

Hoffmann joined a resident army in 1919 and published the right-wing conservative picture brochure A Year of the Bavarian Revolution in Pictures . At the same time his friendship with Dietrich Eckart , the editor of the Völkischer Beobachter began . In April 1920, the 34-year-old Hoffmann joined the NSDAP and took over sole distribution of the anti-Semitic magazine Auf gut deutsch published by Eckart . He began to take photographs of party leaders, including Hermann Göring , Rudolf Hess and soon afterwards Hitler, whose photographer he became.

Hoffmann took part in the 1923 Hitler putsch as a photo reporter. He was involved in the board of the Greater German National Community and in 1925 joined the newly founded NSDAP (membership number 59). Soon after the failed putsch, Hoffmann's first portraits of Hitler appeared. One shows Hitler with his fellow prisoners in the Landsberg Fortress . Every photo in which Hitler can be seen very close was from Hoffmann. In 1924 the photographer published the picture brochure Germany's Awakening in Pictures and Words and in 1926 played a key role in the founding of the National Socialist party organ, Illustrierter Beobachter . In 1929 he operated as a representative of the NSDAP in the Upper Bavarian district council and was a member of the Munich city council from December 1929 to December 1933 . His wife Therese died in 1928. His second wife was the composer Erna Gröbke , daughter of the opera singer Adolf Gröbke . After Hoffmann had initially relocated his studio from Schellingstrasse 33 to Schellingstrasse 50, i.e. into the same building that housed the NSDAP party headquarters from 1925 to 1931, he founded the "Photohaus Hoffmann" in October 1929 on the corner of Theresien- / Amalienstraße. Among the new employees there was 17-year-old Eva Braun , who began an apprenticeship with Hoffmann in 1929 and probably met Adolf Hitler there for the first time in October 1929.

Hoffmann operated propaganda picture reporting . In his publishing house Heinrich Hoffmann. Publishing National Socialist Pictures , he employed up to 300 people and was soon able to post sales amounting to millions of Reichsmarks through the sale of photo books in the service of the NSDAP , as payments were made to him under copyright law . He published, among other things, A people honors its leader and an illustrated book The Olympic Games 1936 . Since this work increasingly challenged him, Hoffmann resigned his seat on the Munich city council in 1933.

Heinrich Hoffmann far right (1940)

In August 1937, Hoffmann was significantly involved in the confiscation of works of art in Hamburg that were considered " degenerate art " in the eyes of the National Socialists . 770 objects fell victim to this wave of confiscations in the Hamburger Kunsthalle alone . In the same year he was commissioned by Hitler to select the artistic exhibits for the Great German Art Exhibition . For this he received the title of professor from Hitler at the opening of the Great German Art Exhibition in Munich's Haus der Kunst on July 16, 1938 . Subsequently he became a member of the commission for the “utilization of the confiscated works of degenerate art”. His job was to sell “degenerate” works of art abroad in exchange for foreign currency, with no public exposure. On the other hand, he made use of Nazi art theft , the Vlug Report contains a list of 30 items, mostly paintings, including from the Alfons Jaffé collection, which Hoffmann received from Kajetan Mühlmann from France, Belgium and the Netherlands from the Mühlmann office .

In the autumn of 1938 he also opened a studio in Vienna, Kärntnerring 19, which dealt exclusively with photo reporting.

In January 1940 he became a member of the Reichstag . From 1939 to 1944 Hoffmann published the popular science magazine Kunst dem Volk , in which the National Socialist conception of art was to be conveyed.

In April 1945 Hoffmann fled to Bavaria after his last visit to Hitler and was arrested by the US Army in Oberwössen .

After the end of the Second World War

In October 1945 Hoffmann was transferred to the cell prison of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg , where he had to organize his archives in order to secure evidence for the Nuremberg war crimes trials . In January 1946, the denazification proceedings against the “personal photographer” and close friend of Hitler were opened in Munich. Hoffmann was initially classified as the main culprit (Group I), Hoffmann's title of professor was canceled; however, he repeatedly succeeded in appealing the decision of the court, which had imposed a ten-year prison sentence. Eventually he was sentenced to four years imprisonment and to the confiscation of all his property, which in 1943 was estimated at six million Reichsmarks and contained 278 works of art alone. After his release from prison in 1950, he settled in the village of Epfach , around 80 kilometers southwest of Munich. In the Soviet occupation zone , all of Hoffmann's writings and illustrated books were placed on the list of literature to be segregated.

After his release from prison he fought in court against the confiscation of his property until 1956. Ultimately, he was awarded 20 percent of his assets. According to the corresponding denazification ruling, he should get 350,000 marks back. In October the Ministry of Finance in Bavaria ordered Hoffmann to hand over all of the pictures that were in the State Painting Collection. They formed Hoffmann's remaining share of the property. The handover was the result of settlement negotiations between Hoffmann and the Ministry of Finance. The origin of the pictures was not checked beforehand, and a more precise estimate of the value of the pictures was not made. Even before 1956, pictures from Hoffmann's previous possession had been published. Hoffmann allegedly gave these pictures away before the end of the war. In 1955 , Hoffmann's masseur received the Carl Spitzweg painting Der Angler , because it was supposed to have been given to him. He brought Kajetan Mühlmann with him to the handover. The SS man was Hermann Göring's special representative for art in the occupied eastern territories until 1945 . In 1958, the Republic of Austria requested two paintings by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller from the State Painting Collection as Nazi-looted art . These pictures were already given as an alleged earlier donation to Hoffmann confidants in 1954. Investigations into Nazi looted art against Hoffmann were never started.

Hoffmann died in 1957 at the age of 72. His grave is in the Munich North Cemetery .

Hoffmann's widow Erna lived in the same house with the former silent film star Wera Engels until 1988 . In the 2014 ZDF film Das Zeugenhaus , Heinrich Hoffmann is played by Udo Samel .

Hoffmann photo archive after 1945

Hoffmann's photo archive, which US authorities took possession of at the end of the war, is now in the National Archives and Records Administration . The images are considered public domain in the US as they are considered former Nazi property.

In the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich there is also the "Hoffmann picture archive".

Publications between 1933 and 1945

  • The Triumph of Will - The Struggle and Rise of Adolf Hitler and his Movement , 1933
  • Germany awakens , 1933
  • Youth around Hitler - 120 photo documents from the Fiihrer's surroundings , 1934
  • Hitler as nobody knows him , 1935
  • Adolf Hitler, Pictures from the Fuehrer's Life , 1936
  • The Paris World Exhibition 1937, 100 room images , 1937
  • Photos and woodcut Reichsautobahn A2: Hanover - Bad Oeynhausen - Bielefeld , 1937
  • Hitler away from everyday life , 1937
  • Mussolini experienced Germany , 1937
  • Hitler builds Greater Germany in triumph from Koenigsberg to Vienna , 1938
  • Hitler at the German Gymnastics and Sports Festival in Breslau 1938 , 1938
  • Hitler brings the Saar home , 1938
  • Hitler in his mountains , 1938
  • Hitler in his homeland , 1938
  • Hitler in Italy 126 pictures 1938
  • Congress of Greater Germany. 79 photo documents from the Nuremberg Rally in 1938 , 1938
  • The face of the Führer , 1939
  • Dr. Robert Ley and his journey to the Führer with the German worker , 1939
  • A people honors its leader April 20, 1939 in the picture , 1939
  • Hitler in Bohemia-Moravia-Memel , 1939
  • With Hitler in Poland , 1939
  • Munich. The capital of movement. , 1939
  • With Hitler in the West , 1940
  • Steel from Luxembourg , 1942

Publications after 1945

  • Hitler as I saw him. Notes from his personal photographer. Herbig, Munich and Berlin, 1974, ISBN 3-7766-0668-1 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Heinrich Hoffmann  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Hoffmann (1885–1957). German Historical Museum Foundation , accessed on July 17, 2016 (entry in the archive of the DHM).
  2. ^ A b Brigitte Bruns: Modern Photography in the Service of National Socialist Ideology . In: Diethart Kerbs, Walter Uka, Brigitte Walz-Richter (ed.): The synchronization of images. On the history of press photography 1930–36 . Frölich & Kaufmann, Berlin 1983, p. 174.
  3. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Famous Hitler photo possibly forged . In: Welt Online . October 14, 2010.
  4. ^ A b c Joachim Lilla , Martin Döring, Andreas Schulz: extras in uniform. The members of the Reichstag 1933–1945. A biographical manual. Including the ethnic and National Socialist members of the Reichstag from May 1924. Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5254-4 , p. 443.
  5. ^ A b Ernst Klee : The cultural lexicon for the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945. S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007, ISBN 978-3-10-039326-5 , p. 259.
  6. ↑ Jean Vlug: Vlug Report 25 December 1945 , parts 1 to 5
  7. ↑ Lost Art Internet Database: Jewish collectors and art dealers (victims of National Socialist persecution and expropriation): Jaffé, Dr. iur. Alfons ( Memento from February 6, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
  8. ↑ Commercial communications. Business registration. In:  Allgemeine photographic newspaper , year 1938, vol. 20, No. 5, p. 174 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / phz
  9. ↑ The magazine "Art for the People" - E-Theses . In: univie.ac.at .
  10. ^ German Administration for National Education in the Soviet Occupation Zone: List of the literature to be sorted out ; Berlin: Zentralverlag, 1946; Pp. 154-190
  11. ↑ Steffen Winter: Brown booty. Der Spiegel 5/2013, pp. 34–43.
  12. ^ Tomb in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  13. ^ David Culbert: The Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Archive: Price vs United States (United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, November 20, 1995) . In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television . 17, No. 2, 1997.
  14. ^ Angela Lambert: The Lost Life of Eva Braun . St. Martin's Press, January 2007, ISBN 0-312-36654-X , p. 4.
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician, MdR and personal photographer Adolf Hitler
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Fuerth
DATE OF DEATH December 16, 1957
Place of death Munich