Hermann Hofmann (journalist)

Hermann Hofmann (born January 7, 1850 in Thuringia , † January 8, 1915 in Hamburg ) was a German journalist .

Live and act

As a trained lawyer, Hermann Hofmann wrote as a political editor for the Hamburger Nachrichten from 1879 . Emil Hartmeyer , who owned the national liberal newspaper, put Otto von Bismarck , whom he had met in 1888, in contact with his editor. Hofmann first made positive comments about Bismarck in the context of the Battenberg affair . After Kaiser Wilhelm II had withdrawn Bismarck's trust, which deeply embittered him, Bismarck looked for a press with which he could work reliably. The dismissed Chancellor recognized the growing importance of this medium early on. Hartmeyer and Hoffmann, who followed the motto “Fearless and loyal!”, Fully agreed to this.

In April 1890 Hofmann traveled to Bismarck's residence in Friedrichsruh for the first time . In the period that followed, he had more than one hundred private conversations with the former chancellor. The journalist dutifully recorded these and published them carefully prepared in the Hamburger Nachrichten. He followed the instructions of Bismarck and his secretariat reliably. Since it was politically important information, important domestic and foreign newspapers often took up the reports. Bismarck entrusted Hofmann with information from all areas. This included the tense relations between parliament and the emperor, but also delicate foreign policy conflicts. In doing so, he also disclosed state secrets such as the reinsurance treaty between the German and Russian empires . This article appeared on October 24, 1896 under the title "Prince Bismarck and Russia".

Hofmann could have become a significant and influential journalist, but failed. He became over-indebted for undocumented reasons. While he accused his wife of being responsible for this, she said that her husband was addicted to pleasure, did morally reprehensible things and had "pernicious tendencies". Bismarck and Hartmeyer recognized Hofmann's importance and repeatedly paid him comparatively large sums of money. Nevertheless, in 1895 the journalist had to file the financial report. His publisher advised him to separate from his wife. She then emigrated to Switzerland with her only daughter. Hofmann sold his house in Hamburg and then lived in a hotel in Reinbek ; much of his income was pledged.

In order to improve his financial situation, Hofmann sometimes wrote under the pseudonym "Hamburg businessman" for other papers about Bismarck, who had not approved this. When the former chancellor realized this, he threatened Hofmann to end the preferred collaboration. Hofmann therefore remained very cautious with the anonymous contributions and consistently refrained from expressing his own opinions that could have endangered his position. The contact between Hofmann and Bismarck was lifelong. After Bismarck's death in 1898, Hofmann was the first journalist present to report realistically about the circumstances surrounding the death in Friedrichsruh. The contacts to the family, which Hofmann used for their purposes, continued afterwards.

With the death of Herbert von Bismarck in 1904, Hofmann lost his last essential source of information. Thus its importance for the Hamburger Nachrichten declined. In December 1907 he had to give up the management of the political editorial office. Due to the precarious financial situation, he published transcripts of his conversations with Bismarck in 1913 and articles derived from them. The work was published in three volumes under the title “Fürst Bismarck 1890–1898”. The book was a great success, but did not improve Hofmann's situation, as he had initially promised his publisher all the proceeds. Today the work is considered an important, but also criticized source.

Hermann Hofmann died completely penniless in Hamburg in early 1915.

literature

• Michael Epkenhans: Hofmann, Hermann . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 190-192 .