Walter Hofmann (librarian)

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Walter Hofmann (born March 24, 1879 in Dresden , † April 24, 1952 in Leipzig ) was a German librarian , engraver and poet.

Life

Childhood and youth

Hofmann was born as the son of the engraver Emil Hofmann and Laura Hofmann, nee Steinhaus. The family, which also included three of Hofmann's sisters, lived in Dresden's Schössergasse . Hofmann became seriously ill with diphtheria as a child , but survived. The family first moved to Wilsdruffer Straße and then to Breite Straße. Hofmann was then enrolled in the 1st Citizens' School in Dresden at the age of six, but, apart from teaching mathematics, had considerable school problems which also led to serious difficulties with his parents. The mother died prematurely, Walter Hofmann was ten years old, of diabetes . Hofmann described the relationship to the stepmother who then came into the family later than when he was a child and youth. Hofmann graduated from school after eight years.

Activity as an engraver

From Easter 1893 he learned the profession of engraver in his father's workshop at his father's request. At the same time, he completed the technical and advanced training school of the General Craftsmen's Association in Dresden. The drawing teacher at the school directed by Robert Missbach was the Dresden sculptor Albert Starke . Hofmann showed a great talent for drawing and also as an engraver. After completing his apprenticeship, he wanted to take up artistic training at the Dresden Art Academy . However, his father was against it, but was ready to agree to an apprenticeship at the Dresden School of Applied Arts . After strong mediation, it was agreed to seek advice from the professor at the art academy, Leon Pohle . In the end, Pohle advised the arts and crafts school, where Hofmann began training at Easter 1896. He was instructed in drawing by Woldemar Müller . Walter Hofmann became better acquainted with Walter Ufer among the pupils . With him and other students, Hofmann belonged to a group that Hofmann described as oppositional in artistic matters. In the end, Hofmann found himself overtaxed at the school. After he had to fear expulsion from school due to considerable absenteeism and an attempt to become a writer failed, he made an unsuccessful suicide attempt after visiting the Dresden Great Garden . After severe blood loss, he was treated in the Dresden-Friedrichstadt hospital.

In fact, Hofmann left the arts and crafts school and initially resumed work as an engraver in his father's workshop. Through his father's mediation, in 1897 he received an unpaid volunteer position for six months with the Berlin master engraver Ewald Menzel, who specializes in silver engravings . Hofmann initially lived east of the Anhalter Bahnhof and then moved to Steglitzer Strasse and later to Handelstrasse at the Tiergarten . During his time in Berlin, Hofmann began to write poetry and dealt intensively with cultural issues. He subscribed to the cultural magazine Der Kunstwart . Hofmann hoped to be able to work permanently in literature and saw his work as an engraver only as a transition. First he went back to Dresden. However, since he fell out with his father, he could not work in his workshop. His father sent him to work as an assistant to an engraver in Töngesgasse in Frankfurt am Main . Hofmann lived in Frankfurt on Börneplatz. He joined the association for the promotion of art . After a short time Hofmann changed jobs and went to master engraver Max Brauer in Leipzig on Petersstrasse. In Leipzig he made friends with Hartwig Jeß, the son of the Senate President of the Reichsgericht Karl Jeß .

Hofmann joined the newly founded union of engravers and chisellers and wrote reports published in the union's journal. At times he frequented social democratic circles.

Hofmann continued to work as a poet. On March 1, 1899, the Association for the Promotion of Art organized a literary evening in the architect's house in Berlin, at which poems by Ferdinand Avenarius , Paul Remer , Max Dreyer and Carl Moenckenberg were also recited by Hofmann.

Act as a poet

At Easter 1899, Hofmann returned to Dresden with his father's consent and worked again in his father's workshop. Hofmann was now more involved in business and less in the manual aspects of the workshop. He devoted a considerable amount of time to his artistic interests and continued his education. He contacted Leonhard Lier , who wrote literary reviews in the Dresdner Anzeiger and Hofmann was already known from an earlier encounter, and Johannes Reichert , head of the Dresden Volkssingakademie. Reichert asked for permission to set Hofmann's poems to music and introduced Hofmann to many artistic personalities in Dresden, particularly the violist Richard Kaden . On a recommendation from Walter Ufer, Hofmann got to know the painter Richard Pietzschmann , who introduced him to members of the Loschwitz artist circle such as Georg Müller-Breslau , Georg Jahn and Peter Pöppelmann . He then had a lifelong friendship with the painter Otto Fischer . He succeeded in getting Ferdinand Avenarius interested in his work. Hofmann then spent about two years in the area around Avenarius and got to know Carl Meißner , Eugen Kalkschmidt and Else Avenarius . In the summer of 1901, several of Hofmann's poems were published in the magazine Deutsche Heimat . He received various positive reactions and got to know the writer Karl Söhle and his wife Maria Söhle . Nevertheless Hofmann saw his development as a poet at the end and decided in November 1901 to give up his poetic endeavors.

In 1902 Hofmann ended his work in his father's workshop and as an engraver.

Work as an art critic

Since April 1901 he wrote art reviews. A first publication appeared in the feature section of the Saxon Workers' Newspaper , headed by Gustav Morgenstern . Hofmann responded to an essay by Hans Rosenhagen in which the latter had expressed himself critical of the Dresden art scene. Several other publications followed in this newspaper. At the end of 1901 Hofmann then took up regular work for the liberal Dresdner Zeitung , which was interrupted by an operation that had become necessary at short notice in the Johannstadt hospital . Since the Dresdner Zeitung refused to print certain texts, Hofmann returned to the Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung. Hofmann was committed to making artistic events accessible to workers. The journalistic activity was problematic for Hofmann, because on the one hand he had problems with the short-term, real-time preparation of texts of a limited scope and on the other hand the payment proved to be insufficient. Ultimately, Hofmann left the newspaper. He worked at short notice for the Müller-Singer artist lexicon and published some texts in several art and cultural history newspapers. At the end of 1903 Hofmann briefly tried to set up his own engraving workshop. He then got a well paid job in the Dresden Journal , which he gave up after a short time, because a criticism he wrote of the Saxon Art Association was not printed by the journal. He then published again for some time in the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung and in the Leipziger Volkszeitung .

At the end of 1902, in Engfeld's wine tavern in Laubegast, he met Hanna Engfeld , the host's daughter, with whom he lived for a long time.

In 1904 Peter Behrens offered him a job at the Düsseldorf School of Applied Arts . Despite his difficult economic situation, Hofmann turned it down, as he did not feel up to the requirement of having to give lectures in front of larger groups of people.

Change to the librarian

Through the Söhle couple, Hofmann got in touch with Ida Bienert , the wife of the owner of the court mill Erwin Bienert . She offered him to take over the management of the modern public library she planned. Hofmann accepted the offer. From 1904 to 1906 he built the Free Public Library Dresden-Plauen . He acquired the knowledge required for this self- taught, because he had not completed any library training. Hofmann ran this library until 1913 together with Elise Bosse (born March 25, 1880 in Leipzig; † December 12, 1954 in Leipzig), a trained kindergarten teacher whom he married in 1914. In his autobiography , published in 1951, he describes his wife as the “archetype of the German public librarian”. In 1913 he was appointed director of the Leipzig City Library and opened the first city library there. In the years that followed, up to 1929, the Hofmanns built three more libraries and a library research facility. During the First World War, Hofmann organized traveling war libraries from 1916 to 1918.

Direction dispute in the library system

In 1912 Paul Ladewig , the director of the Krupp bookhalls, published the book "Politics of the Library", in which he sees the role of public libraries in entertainment. He denies an educational task. In the ensuing dispute over the direction of the library, which was to last 20 years and split the German library system, Hofmann took the view that work in public libraries should be geared specifically to social aspects, that libraries have an educational role, serve to educate the people and should create one aesthetic awareness in the reader. That is why only the “finest and best products in literature” should be brought to the user's attention. The library is not a mere administrative or amusement business, he must make the books the “inner possession” of the reader. In contrast to Ladewig, Hofmann rejected a mass library business. Rather, he wanted to educate a small part of the population to become an educated elite, which should "work in the mass of the people on their environment". Public money should only be available for “intensive and creative” library work. The director of the reading hall in Bremen , Arthur Heidenhain , who stood between the fronts and was in constant professional exchange with Hofmann, acted as a mediator in this vehemently led dispute over the direction, but failed because of the irreconcilability of both sides. Hofmann developed a system of "dynamic popular education and a people's aristocratic library, which was generally recognized at the popular education conference in Rothenburg o. T. from September 27 to October 1, 1918, and which became part of the new direction in Weimar adult education.

After 1920

In 1922 Hofmann was involved with his wife in the creation of a “shopping center for public libraries”, a forerunner of today's ekz.bibliotheksservice GmbH . In 1927, scientific research was established with the “Institute for Reading and Literature”. The public library work in Leipzig became an example for public libraries all over the world. Walter Hofmann was elected President of the World Association for Adult Education (WAAE).

National Socialism

Hofmann initially placed great hopes in the 'seizure of power' by the National Socialists. Through the background of his own national-conservative positions, he saw the National Socialist mass movement as the way of the German people to themselves. Many of his considerations and approaches coincide with the goals of the National Socialists. In 1936 Hofmann still sees himself at one with Goebbels and writes "because we have tried for many years, on the basis of the Goebbels rally, to build up real public library book reviews." "The winding up of his institute for readers and literacy had not necessarily political reasons", but Hofmann was considered a difficult personality who tended to fanaticism in the matter and was thus exposed to just such opponents of the National Socialist cultural policy. In 1937 Hofmann was retired, but asked to continue his library studies.

After 1945

In 1946 he took on a teaching position at the University of Leipzig. In 1951 a collection of his most important writings appeared under the title Buch und Volk .

Honors

  • In 1931 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Leipzig .
  • The Leipzig City Libraries named the Südvorstadt branch after Hofmann. (This library was founded by Hofmann in 1915. In 1930, this second Leipzig Municipal Book Hall moved to Steinstrasse 42. The Bauhaus-style building was specially designed for the library. As one of the largest Leipzig district libraries, it is an important cultural meeting point.)

A selection of Walter Hofmann's writings

Essays
  • The conditional reading allowance . In: Leaves for public libraries and reading halls , vol. 10 (1910), pp. 169–172.
  • Limits of popular education work . In: Volksbildungsarchiv , Vol. 7 (1919), pp. 81–99.
  • Education of people, education of the people, education of workers in the popular library . In: Archive for Adult Education , Vol. 2 (1925), Issue 2, pp. 65–128.
  • Book and people. Collected essays and speeches on book politics and the popular library issue, Der Löwe Publishing House, Cologne 1951.
  • On the way to the worker. Memories of Wenzel Holek and Albert Goldammer . In: Bücherei und Bildung , Vol. 3 (1951/52), pp. 329-341, 675-685, ISSN  0007-3024
Books
  • Points to note about popular librarianship. Public libraries, books and Reading halls (pamphlet on culture of expression; vol. 96). Callwey, Munich 1912.
  • The war and the public libraries . Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1915.
  • Book and people and the popular library . Thomas Verlag, Leipzig 1916.
  • From old and new directions. A reply and an addition . ZVB publishing house, Leipzig 1917.
  • The practice of the public library. A guide to setting up and managing small popular libraries . Verlag Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1926 (EA Leipzig 1922)
  • The way to literature. Thought, shape, realization of the German popular library (people and spirit; vol. 2). Verlag der Arbeitsgemeinschaft, Berlin 1922.
  • Formative popular education . ZVB publishing house, Leipzig 1925.
  • The library room. Recordings and floor plans from the city library in Leipzig (Small writings on the library question; Vol. 2). Quelle & Meyer publishing house, Leipzig 1925.
  • Answer to the memorandum "The delivery of the popular library system in Saxony to the German Central Office in Leipzig" . ZVB publishing house, Leipzig 1926.
  • Past, present and future of the German popular library (writings on the library question; Vol. 4). Quelle & Meyer publishing house, Leipzig 1928.
  • On the book review of the public library . Institute for Literature and Literature, Leipzig 1930.
  • Reading the woman. A contribution to reader customer and reader guidance; with numerous graphical and tabular overviews (Leipzig contributions to the foundation of practical literature maintenance; Vol. 1). Quelle & Meyer publishing house, Leipzig 1931.
  • The nation's memory. A word about the maintenance of literature in Germany . Diederichs, Jena 1932.
  • Report on the business year 1932/33, Vol. 7: Facts and principles . Schmidt Verlag, Leipzig 1933 (with an addition “On the folk librarianship of books”).
  • German narrator. A contribution to the intellectual foundation and the methodology of the practical maintenance of literature . Institute for Reading and Literature Care, Leipzig 1933.
  • The German public library. The idea and the task; the work and the workmen . Gauverlag Bayerische Ostmark, Bayreuth 1934.
  • With graver and pen. Story of a youth . Wunderlich-Verlag, Stuttgart 1948 (EA Berlin 1947; on behalf of the Volksverband der Bücherfreunde )
  • Hans E. Hofmann (ed.): The will to work. Memories of a public librarian . Neckar-Verlag, Villingen 1967 (biography)

Literature about Hofmann

  • Hans E. Hofmann: Walter Hofmann. 1879-1952 . Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-87068-381-3 .
  • Johannes Langfeldt:  Hofmann, Walter. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 460 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Engelbrecht Boese: Walter Hofmanns "Institute for Reading and Literature" 1926–1937 , https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/bfup.1981.5.issue-1/bfup.1981.5.1.3/bfup.1981.5.1.3 .xml
  • Felicitas Marwinski: The Free Public Library Dresden-Plauen and Walter Hofmann. A contribution to the history of the public library system at the beginning of the 20th century. Leipzig . 1983.
  • Roman Rabe: The Controversial People's Library Model. Walter Hofmann and the Free Public Library Dresden-Plauen . In: BuB. Forum library and information . Volume 58, 2006, No. 5, pp. 394–400 ( PDF ).
  • Seitter, Wolfgang (eds.): Walter Hofmann and Robert von Erdberg. The New Direction as reflected in the autobiographical evidence of its two main representatives . Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 1996, ISBN 3-7815-1114-6 .

Remarks

  1. ^ Walter Hofmann: With grave stylus and pen , Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1948, page 47
  2. ↑ Walter Hofmann, With grave stylus and pen , Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1948, page 55 ff.
  3. ↑ Walter Hofmann, With grave stylus and pen , Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1948, page 66 ff.
  4. ^ Walter Hofmann, With grave stylus and pen , Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1948, page 236
  5. ^ Walter Hofmann, With grave stylus and pen , Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1948, page 265
  6. ^ Walter Fellmann, Sachsen-Lexikon , Koehler & Amelang Verlagsgesellschaft mbH Munich Berlin, 2000, ISBN 3-7338-0234-9
  7. ^ Otto-Rudolf Rothbart: Lektoratkooperation: Idea and Reality. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 1995, p. 3 ff.
  8. ↑ Hans Joachim Kuhlmann: Beginnings of the direction dispute: Arthur Heidenhain as mediator in the disputes from 1909 to 1914. In: Bücherei und Bildung, Beiheft, Reutlingen 1961.
  9. ↑ Miedtke, Erwin: Arthur Heidenhain, the first librarian in the "Reading Hall in Bremen" from 1901–1933. An appreciation, in: Bremisches Jahrbuch, Vol. 96, 2017, pp. 79–101
  10. ↑ http://saebi.isgv.de/biografie/Walter_Hofmann_(1879–1952) Saxon biography
  11. ↑ Adam, Christian: Reading under Hitler. Authors, bestsellers, readers in the Third Reich, Berlin, Verlag Galiani 2010, ISBN 978-3-86971-027-3 , p. 56
  12. ↑ quoted from Engelbert Boese: Walter Hofmanns 'Institute for Readers and Literature' 1926–1937, in: Bibliothek.Forschung und Praxis (1981), Issue 1, p. 21
  13. ↑ Adam, Christian: Reading under Hitler. Authors, bestsellers, readers in the Third Reich, Berlin, Verlag Galiani 2010, ISBN 978-3-86971-027-3 , p. 57

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German librarian
DATE OF BIRTH March 24, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH April 24, 1952
Place of death Leipzig