Josef Hofmann (politician, 1897)

Josef Hofmann (born May 1, 1897 in Hanover , † December 27, 1973 in Aachen ) was a journalist, newspaper editor and politician. At the end of the Weimar Republic he was one of the most influential journalists of political Catholicism and was instrumental in building up a free and democratic press after 1945. In addition, as a state politician, he had considerable influence on the formation of the education system in North Rhine-Westphalia .

Live and act

After graduating from high school, Josef Hofmann was a soldier in World War I and then in captivity from 1917 to 1918. He then studied political science and economics at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster . In 1923 Hofmann received his doctorate. rer. pole. As a student in Münster, he became an active member of the Catholic student association KStV Germania in KV , later also honorary philistine of KV associations in Cologne and Aachen. As a student, he headed the Center Party's university group in Münster . From 1930 to 1933 he was a board member of the Volksverein for Catholic Germany .

In 1923 Hofmann became editor-in-chief of the Osnabrücker Volkszeitung, from 1929 of the Kölnische Volkszeitung, one of the leading newspapers of the Center Party in Germany. After the Gestapo banned this newspaper in 1941, he became editor of the Kölnische Zeitung until the end of the war .

In the summer of 1932, Hofmann wrote in a brochure on the Reichstag election (quoted by A.Brecher): "Brüning was at the wheel of the Reich for two years. It was an extraordinary time .... The hurricane of the Great Depression had hit Germany. German State, German The people and the German economy were in danger of collapsing ..... It was thanks to Brüning's policy that Germany overcame these two years of crisis ..... A hundred meters before the finish line, the wheel was knocked out of his hands, but it remains unbroken Brüning our guide. "

For political reasons Hofmann was warned several times by the Gestapo during the Nazi era . Through the mediation of the Dominican Provincial Laurentius Siemer , Hofmann came into contact in the winter of 1944 with Johannes Albers , Wilhelm Elfes and the Aachen Bishop Johannes Joseph van der Velden , a group that was planning to found a Christian workers' party after the war.

Since 1945 he was a member of the CDU . Alongside Leo Schwering, in June 1945 he was one of the authors of the party's “Cologne Guidelines”. Between 1945 and 1947 he was a member of the state board for the Rhineland and the board of the Aachen district association .

In 1945 Hofmann was initially editor of the first daily newspaper Aachener Nachrichten to appear in Germany after the liberation . A few months later he was a license holder, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Aachener Volkszeitung . From 1962 he was editor of the paper. Hofmann was also a board member of the Rhenish-Westphalian Association of Journalists between 1945 and 1949. He was also chairman of the Union-Presse association and a member of the WDR Broadcasting Council .

Hofmann was a member of the city council in Aachen from 1946 to 1948. In 1946 and 1947 he was a member of the appointed Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia . He was then directly elected member of the state parliament for Aachen-Stadt until 1968 . Hofmann was chairman of the cultural policy committee from 1946 to 1966 and exerted an important influence on school and university legislation.

He received various honors for his activities. He was honorary senator of the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster and, by resolution of July 10, 1958, also of RWTH Aachen . In 1952 the Pope appointed Hofmann Commander of the Order of Saint Gregorius . In 1959 he received the Great Federal Cross of Merit, in 1966 the Great Federal Cross of Merit with Star and in 1968 an honorary doctorate from RWTH Aachen University .

estate

Josef Hofmann's estate is in the main state archive in Düsseldorf. Hofmann has left extensive memoirs, some of which have been published (see below). The full text can be found in the archive of the Commission for Contemporary History , Bonn. In the Archive for Christian Democratic Policy in Sankt Augustin a copy of his diary for 1945 is to 1952nd

Fonts

• Journalist in the republic, dictatorship and occupation. Memoirs 1916–1947. Edited and introduced by Rudolf Morsey . Mainz 1977. (= Publications of the Commission for Contemporary History , Series A: Sources, Vol. 23)

literature

• Bernd Haunfelder : North Rhine-Westphalia - country and people. 1946-2006. A biographical manual . Aschendorff, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-402-06615-7 , pp. 219f.
• August Brecher: Josef Hofmann . In: Siegfried Koß, Wolfgang Löhr (Hrsg.): Biographisches Lexikon des KV. 5th part (= Revocatio historiae. Volume 6). SH-Verlag, Schernfeld 1998, ISBN 3-89498-055-9 , p. 64 ff.

Web links

Josef Hofmann at the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia