Wilhelm Hoff

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Wilhelm Hoff

Wilhelm Hoff (born August 21, 1851 in Hirschberg in Westphalia , † August 8, 1940 in Osnabrück ) was an organizer of the Prussian railways and briefly Prussian Minister of Public Works towards the end of the First World War .

Life

Hoff was the son of a wealthy farmer, but had to leave the grammar school in Paderborn without a degree after his mother's death . After training, probably in an office job, in 1871 he entered the middle service of the (still private) " Bergisch-Märkische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft " in Elberfeld . Because of his outstanding achievements and his organizational talent, Hoff was appointed to the Ministry of Public Works in 1882. There he worked closely with Albert von Maybach on the nationalization of the railways in Prussia, and later with Karl von Thielen on the administrative reform of 1895 and the formation of the Prussian-Hessian Railway Community (1897).

In 1892 Hoff founded a successful, illustrated weekly newspaper Die Eisenbahn for employees of the Prussian-Hessian railway. The administrative regulations developed by him were essentially also adopted by the other German state railway administrations. Hoff also suggested the establishment of a "Transport and Construction Museum" (1896) in Berlin.

After study trips to the USA and several countries in Europe, he became President of the new Central Railway Office (created at his suggestion) in 1907 . In 1912 he headed the administration department of the Ministry of Railways as a ministerial director. In this capacity, he also took care of the service and income of railway workers. During the First World War he played a key role in founding the interstate "General Traffic Office" and became its director. He successfully standardized the management of the regional railways.

From 1918 Hoff was head of the Reich Railway Authority . During the war, the railroad was the central means of transport for troop movements, supplies and supplies to the war economy. In these years the locomotives and the rolling stock were extremely heavily used; in the second half of the war there were considerable supply problems. During the first two post-war years in particular, Hoff made a significant contribution to ensuring that the railroad, in addition to repatriating the army, was able to maintain the supply of food to the population and the industry with fuel.

As the successor to the resigned Paul von Breitenbach , Hoff became Minister of Public Works on November 14, 1918 and thus also "Minister of Railways". Hoff resigned on March 25, 1919, apparently unwilling to support the transition from the Prussian State Railways to the Reichseisenbahn. "While Wilhelm Hoff's attitude had proven to be an obstacle, when he took office, Rudolf Oeser's successor made a binding commitment to the Reich government not to oppose the implementation of the Prussian railway."

Hoff retired in the early 1920s, but helped create a unified German State Railroad . In addition, he was the editor of the work The German Railway System of the Present and remained an employee of the Handbuch der Staatswissenschaften until his death .

Fonts

As editor:

  • The German railway system of the present. As of 1926 . Berlin 1927 (note: numerous updated editions of this work were published in several volumes, the first version appeared around 1911: digitized volume 1 , volume 2 ).

As an author:

  • Twenty-five years of railway administrative regulations: railway policy reviews and prospects . Berlin 1920.
  • North American Railways: Their Management and Economic Conduct . Berlin 1906 (together with Felix Schwabach).
  • Memories from life and work . Berlin 1931.
  • The German, especially the Prussian, railways in an unconstitutional period. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations . Vol. 65/1925, p. 299 ff.

literature

  • Minister of State Hoff / On his 80th birthday. In: Newspaper of the Association of German Railway Administrations, Volume 71, No. 34 (August 20, 1931), pp. 931–932.
  • Wilhelm Schulte: Westphalian heads . Münster 1977, ISBN 3-402-05700-X , p. 120 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quotation from the minutes of the Prussian State Ministry's meeting, Volume 11-1 (PDF; 2.6 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Hoff, Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German organizer of the Prussian railway system and Minister for Public Works
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Hirschberg (Warstein)
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1940
Place of death Berlin