Leopold Alois Hoffmann

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Leopold Alois Hoffmann

Leopold Alois Hoffmann (born on January 29, 1760 in Nieder Wittig near Kratzau in northern Bohemia; died on September 2, 1806 in Wiener Neustadt ) was an Austrian publicist and playwright.

Life

Hoffmann's father Johann Friedrich (1720–1767) was a shoemaker and tailor, the mother was Maria Apollonia, nee. Arnolt (* 1718). After attending the former Jesuit grammar school in Breslau , Hoffmann briefly studied in Vienna and from 1777 onwards he stayed in Prague . There he first published a volume of religious and patriotic poems, the friendly assessment of which by Michael Denis in Vienna prompted him to turn to writing, as well as a series of singing and comedies.

From 1782 he lived in Vienna, where he worked for the publisher Schönfeld and developed a lively journalistic activity. He published numerous mostly anonymous or pseudonymous brochures and articles in various magazines. The most important platform was Hoffmann's “Weekly Truths for and About the Preachers in Vienna”, published from 1782 to 1784, which measured the sermons given in Viennese churches against the standards of a Josephine Enlightenment. He became secretary to Freiherr von Gemmingen , who also worked for Schönfeld and was appointed editor of the weekly truths founded by Hoffmann in 1783 , and through him came into contact with Viennese Freemasons and Illuminati circles . In April 1783 he was accepted into the Lodge Zur Charity , founded by Gemmingen, and in November 1783 its secretary. In 1786 he became a member of the Lodge for the Newly Crowned Hope . As a result, there were disputes between Hoffmann and Gemmingen, which Hoffmann accused of having owed him fees and of not having kept promises to ensure Hoffmann's happiness. In fact, Gemmingen had obtained a professorship at the University of Pest through his friend Gottfried van Swieten Hoffmann . Gemmingen had also arranged for a dispensation so that Hoffmann, who was not yet 24, could even enter a box.

In 1785 Hoffmann was appointed professor for the German language in Pest , where he met the police commissioner Franz Gotthardi , for whom he began to make himself useful as a spy and informant. So it happened that when the Austrian officials had to leave Hungary in 1790, Gotthardi, who had returned to Vienna, recommended Professor Hoffmann at the highest level, whereupon Hoffmann was appointed full professor for "German language, business style and practical eloquence" by Leopold II in 1790 . was appointed to the University of Vienna , with an annual salary of 2,000 guilders. The emperor seems to have had little opinion of the writings - Hoffmann had written two writings Babel and Ninive against the rebellious Hungarians in 1790 - and of Hoffmann's intellectual abilities, at least he is said to have once said: “This fellow is a donkey, I know it; but he serves me very well as a spy. ”The services as a spy seemed so good to the emperor that Hoffmann began to be regarded as a confidante of the emperor.

Originally a radical exponent of the Josephine Enlightenment , Hoffmann turned into a reactionary who, in the Viennese magazine he founded in 1792, blamed the Enlightenment for the revolution in France and, as a confederate of the police, denounced his former Masonic and Enlightenment friends and brothers as Jacobins . These activities of Hoffmann did not go without reaction, so published Franz Xaver Huber , the editor of the magazine Daspolitische Sieb , in 1792 the anti-Hoffmann writing Can a writer, like Professor Hoffmann, Influence on the mood of the German peoples, and on the way of thinking of them Have princes? Even from the title it can be seen that some of Hoffmann at that time viewed Hoffmann as a kind of gray eminence behind the throne and whisperer at the imperial ear. Other writings followed, such as Alxinger's Anti-Hoffmann (1792) and Knigges Satire Des blessed Mr. Etatsraths Samuel Conrad von Schaafskopf's left papers in 1792 and a paper by Dalberg in 1793 .

The decisive factor for the end of Hoffmann's activities was not the campaign of his opponents, but the death of Leopold II in March 1792. Hoffmann had to stop the Viennese magazine and was retired in 1793 with a pension of 1,000 guilders. He then withdrew bitterly to Wiener Neustadt, where, until his death, he attempted to interpret the course of time in numerous writings as a conspiracy of the Freemasons and the Illuminati, who were mainly active in Hungary.

In addition to the aforementioned volume of poetry, Hoffmann wrote several plays, some of which were performed at the Burgtheater for a short time . Its literary production is considered insignificant overall.

Hoffmann was married to Maria Pfrigner († 1788) in his first marriage in 1785, and his second marriage to a Hungarian. He died in 1806 at the age of 46, despised and finally forgotten. It was only as part of the history of the Habsburg reaction and repression of the time before Metternich and the history of Austrian society that Hoffmann came back into focus in the 20th century.

Works

editor

It is possible that the magazine Der Beobachter, or Various Remarks and Stories of the Most Important Incidents in Human Life (Vienna 1781) was also published by Hoffmann, at least this is indicated by the author's statement By a friend of the truth .

swell

literature

  • Leslie Bodi: Thaw in Vienna. On the prose of the Austrian Enlightenment 1781–95. Frankfurt am Main 1977.
  • Erich Donnert: Anti-revolutionary-conservative journalism in Germany at the end of the Old Kingdom: Johann August Starck (1741–1816), Ludwig Adolf Christian von Grolman (1741–1809), Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-61301-6 , pp. 30-33.
  • Josef Fried: Leopold Alois Hoffmann (1760–1806). A monograph. Dissertation. Vienna 1930 (typescript; with list of scriptures).
  • Ingrid Fuchs: Leopold Alois Hoffmann. His ideas and his importance as Confident Emperor Leopold II. Dissertation. Vienna 1963.
  • Karl Goedeke , Edmund Goetze: Outline of the history of German poetry from the sources. 2nd Edition. Ehlermann, Leipzig 1906, vol. 6. p.  725http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3DGoedekeGrundrissZurGeschichteDerDeutschenDichtung-2-6~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn738~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D725~PUR%3D . 1900, vol. 7. p.  62http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dgrundriszzurges01jacogoog~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3Dn77~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D62~PUR%3D  f.
  • Gustav Gugitz: Leopold Alois Hoffmann and the Viennese magazine. The reactionary mission of a German Bohemian. In: German work. 10, 1911, pp. 533-538.
  • Bernhard M. Hoppe: Weekly truths for and about the preachers in Vienna. A periodical of the Josephinian Age. Dissertation. Munich 1989.
  • Bruno Jahn: The German-language press. Saur, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-598-11710-8 , p. 471.
  • Catherine Julliard: La ›Wiener Zeitschrift‹ de Leopold Alois Hoffmann. In: Voix Conservatrices et Réactionnaires dans les Périodiques Allemands de la Révolution Française à la Restauration. Edited by Pierre-André Bois et al. Bern et al. 1999, pp. 299–323.
  • Wynfrid Kriegleder : Hoffmann, Leopold Alois. In: Wilhelm Kühlmann (Ed.): Killy Literature Lexicon . Authors and works from the German-speaking cultural area. 2., completely revised Edition. de Gruyter, Berlin 2009, Volume 5, p. 527 f.
  • Gustav Krüger: The Eudaemonists: A Contribution to Journalism at the End of the 18th Century. In: Historical magazine. Volume 143, H. 3, 1931, pp. 467-500.
  • Helmut W. Lang, Ladislaus Lang: Bibliography of Austrian magazines 1704–1850. Saur, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-598-23386-8 .
  • Marianne Lunzer-Lindhausen : Leopold Alois Hoffmann - Viennese journalism in the shadow of the reaction. In: Viennese history sheets. Volume 15, 1960, p. 104 ff.
  • Helmut Reinalter : Against the 'rabies of the barbarism of the reconnaissance'. Leopold Alois Hoffmann and early conservatism in Austria. In: From ›Obscurants‹ and ›Eudaemonists‹. Edited by Christoph Weiß. St. Ingbert 1997, pp. 221-244.
  • Friedrich Sommer: The Vienna Magazine (1792–1793). The story of an anti-revolutionary journal. Phil. Diss. Univ. Bonn 1929. Sporn, Zeulenroda et al. 1932 (special print from the magazine Das Freemaurer-Museum. 7).
  • Ferenc Szäs: Hoffmann, Leopold Alois. In: Christoph König (Ed.), With the assistance of Birgit Wägenbaur u. a .: Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950 . Volume 2: H-Q. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2003, ISBN 3-11-015485-4 , pp. 776-777.
  • Fritz Valjavec: The Beginnings of Austrian Conservatism. Leopold Alois Hoffmann. In: Festschrift Karl Eder for his seventieth birthday. Edited by Helmut J. Mezler-Andelberg. Innsbruck 1959, pp. 169-179.
  • Kurt Vancsa:  Hoffmann, Leopold Alois. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 433 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Constantin von Wurzbach : Hoffmann, Leopold Alois . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 9th part. Imperial and Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1863, pp. 161–164 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to another statement, he was born in Reichenberg in 1748 , cf. International dictionary of Germanists 1800–1950. Berlin et al. 2003, p. 776.
  2. ^ Franz Xaver Huber : Contribution to the characteristics and government history of Emperors Joseph II. Leopold II. And Franz II. Paris 1799/1800, p. 117http: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3DoToAAAAAcAAJ~IA%3D~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3DPA117~ double-sided%3D~LT%3DS.%20117~PUR%3D .
  3. ↑ Even in the article in Constantin von Wurzbach's Biographical Lexicon of the Kaiserthums Oesterreich from 1863, the contempt is clearly visible.
  4. ↑ a b Internationales Germanistenlexikon 1800–1950. Volume 2, Berlin et al. 2003, p. 776.
  5. ^ Lang Lang: Bibliography of Austrian Journals 1704–1850. Munich 2006, Volume 1, p. 269.
  6. ^ Lang Lang: Bibliography of Austrian Journals 1704–1850. Volume 1, Munich 2006, p. 149.
personal data
SURNAME Hoffmann, Leopold Alois
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hoffmann, Franz Leopold (real name); Hoffmann, Leopold Aloys; Berger (pseudonym); Village schoolmaster (pseudonym); Genz (pseudonym); Hartberg (pseudonym); Kleeraube (pseudonym); Knauf (pseudonym); Schwab (pseudonym); Straus (pseudonym); Will (pseudonym); Wittinger (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian publicist and playwright
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH Lower Wittig near Kratzau , Northern Bohemia
DATE OF DEATH September 2, 1806
Place of death Wiener Neustadt