Heinrich Hoffmann (12 September 1885 - 15 December 1957) was an official photographer of Adolf Hitler, and a Nazi politician and publisher, who was a member of Hitler's familiar circle. Hoffman's photos are an important part of Hitler's propaganda campaign to present himself and the Nazi Party as a significant mass phenomenon. He received royalties from all the use of Hitler's images, even on stamps, which made him a millionaire during Hitler's reign. After the Second World War he was tried and sentenced to four years in prison for seeking the benefits of war. He was classified by the Allied Looter's Inaugurator of the Art of the Allied Forces to become the "principal actor" in the Nazi art raids against the Jews, as both art dealers and collectors and his art collection, which contained numerous works looted from Jews, were ordered seized by the Allies. He restored art in 1956 on the orders of the Bavarian State.
Video Heinrich Hoffmann (photographer)
Life and career
After graduating from elementary school, Hoffmann was trained as a photographer from 1901 to 1903. He got a job in Heidelberg, Frankfurt in Main, Bad Homburg, Switzerland, France, and England until 1909. In 1909 he owned a photography shop in Munich and started to work as a press photographer. In 1913 he founded the image agency Photobericht Hoffmann . In 1917 Hoffmann was obliged to the German Army and served as a photo correspondent with the Bavarian Fliegerersatz-Abteilung I in France. In 1919 Hoffmann joined the Bavarian Einwohnerwehren , the right wing militia. That year he witnessed the brief post-war Bavarian Republic of Bavaria in Munich and published a collection of photos taken as Ein Jahr bayerische Revolution im Bilde ("One Year of the Bavarian Revolution in Pictures"). The accompanying text by Emil Herold suggests a link between the "Jewish features" shown in the photographs and the left wing policy of the subject.
Picture Odeonsplatz
The photograph taken by Hoffmann at the Odeonsplatz Munich on August 2, 1914 turned out to show a young Hitler amongst the cheering crowds of World War I. It was later used in Nazi propaganda, despite its originality being questioned.
Hoffmann claims that he only found Hitler in the photo in 1929, after the Nazi leader visited the photographer's studio. Learning that Hoffmann had photographed a crowd at Odeonsplatz, Hitler told Hoffmann that he was there, and Hoffmann said he then searched the negative glass of the picture until he found Hitler. The photo was later published in the March 12, 1932 edition of Illustrierter Beobachter ("Illustrated Observer"), a Nazi newspaper. After the war, negative glass was not found.
After years of considering the photograph, in 2010 the historian Gerd Krumeich, a famous German expert on the First World War, came to the conclusion that Hoffmann had polished the image. Krumeich examined the pictures of other rallies and could not find Hitler in the place where Hoffmann's photo put him. Also, in a different version of Hoffman's photo in the Bavarian State Archives, Hitler looks different from the published picture. Other analysts have pointed out that Hitler's mustache in the picture is not the same style that can be seen in Hitler's photographs when he served in the German Army. They also pointed out that Hitler did not mention in Mein Kampf because he had been in the Odeonsplatz crowd. As a result of the doubts arising from these considerations, the curators of a 2010 Berlin exhibition about Hitler's cult include a notice saying that they can not guarantee the authenticity of the image.
Nazi Party
Hoffmann met Hitler in 1919 and joined the Nazi Party on April 6, 1920. He participated in Beer Hall Putsch as a photography correspondent. While the Nazi Party was banned Hoffmann joined the mortal Grounding of the Volksgemeinschaft and rejoined the Nazi Party in 1925. The following year he co-founded the Illustrierter Beobachter . In November 1929 he represented the Nazi Party in the Upper Bavaria assembly district and from December 1929 to December 1933 he served as the city council of Munich. In 1940 Hofmann became a member of the German Reichstag Nazi.
After Hitler took over the party in 1921, he named Hoffmann as his official photographer, a post he held for more than a quarter of a century. There were no other photographers but Hoffmann was allowed to take Hitler's photos, and Hoffmann himself was forbidden to take photos directly. Once, at Berghof , Hitler's mountain retreat, Hoffmann took a picture of Hitler playing with Eva Braun's terrier dog. Hitler told Hoffmann that he could not publish the picture, because "A statesman does not allow himself to be photographed with a small dog.The German shepherd dog is the only dog ​​worthy of a real man." Hitler tightly controlled his public image in every way, after himself photographing in any new outfit before he would wear it in public, according to Hoffmann, and ordered in 1933 that all of his self-portraits using lederhosen were withdrawn from circulation. He also expressed his disagreement with Benito Mussolini who allowed himself to be photographed in his bathing suit.
The attempt by Hoffmann to portray Hitler as a symbol of the Germans is difficult because he lacks the racial profile of the Nordic race (ie, tall and blond hair), which the New Order of the Nazis wanted to defend. Hoffmann tries to portray Hitler in the best light by focusing more on his eyes, which are found in dreams and hypnosis.
Hoffman's photos are an important part of Hitler's propaganda campaign to present himself and the Nazi Party as a significant mass phenomenon. In 1926, Hoffman's image of a Party demonstration in Weimar in Thuringia - one of several German states where Hitler was not barred from speaking at the time - showed an impressive parade of 5,000 stormtroopers, saluted Hitler for the first time with the "Roman "or the Fascists are armed with a straight line. These photos were printed in the main Nazi newspaper, VÃÆ'¶lkischer Beobachter , and distributed by thousands of people all over Germany. The protests are the ancestors of the annual Party mass meeting held annually at Nuremberg. Later, Hoffmann's book, Hitler Nobody Knows (1933) was an important part of Hitler's heavy efforts to manipulate and control his public image.
Hitler and Hoffmann became close friends. Historian Alan Bullock vividly portrays Hoffmann as "a modest German with weakness for binge drinking and hot jokes" who "enjoy a court clerk's license" with Hitler. Hoffman was part of a small party that went to Landsberg Prison to get Hitler when he was released from the conditional prison on December 20, 1924, and took his picture. Later, Hoffmann often dined with Hitler at Berghof or at FÃÆ'¼rer's favorite restaurant in Munich, Bavarian Osteria, gossiped with him and shared stories about the painter from Schwabing known to Hoffmann. He accompanied Hitler in his unprecedented election campaign during the presidential election against Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg in 1932.
In the fall of 1929, Hoffmann and his second wife, Erna, introduced his Munich studio assistant, Eva Braun, to Hitler. According to Hoffmann, Hitler thinks he's an "interesting little thing" - Hitler prefers women to be seen and not heard - but Braun actively chases after him, tells his friends that Hitler loves him and claims he will make him marry him. Hoffmann reports, however, that although Braun eventually became a resident of Berghof - after the death of Geli Raubal (see below) - and then continuously on Hitler's side as long as he was with his private entourage, he did not immediately belong to him. madam; he believes it happens at some point, though Hitler's outward attitude toward him never changes. In the end, to surprise his intimate circle, Hitler married Braun at the Berlin FÃÆ'¼hrerbunker on April 29, 1945, and the couple committed suicide together, the next day.
On September 17, 1931, Hitler with Hoffmann on the way from Munich to Hamburg when Fierer got word that his nephew, Geli Raubal - whom he admired and who accompanied him to almost all social events - had committed suicide by shooting himself. In his postwar memoir, Hitler Was My Friend, Hoffmann expressed the opinion that Raubal committed suicide because he fell in love with someone other than Hitler, and could not control Hitler's cruel control of his life, especially after he learned that he having an affair with Emil Maurice, Hitler's old friend and chaffeur.
Serving Hitler's regime
When Hitler became ruler of Germany, Hoffmann was the only person authorized to take official photographs of him. Hoffmann's photographs were published as postage stamps, postcards, posters and picture books. Following Hoffmann's advice, both he and Hitler received royalties from all the uses of Hitler's image, even on stamps, which made the millionaires Hitler and Hoffmann: royalty stamps reached at least $ 75 million during Hitler's reign.
In 1933 Hoffman was elected to the Reichstag, which after the passage of the 1933 Enabling Act has become a powerless entity with little function except to serve as a stage setting for some of Hitler's policy speeches. As a one-party state, the "election" in Nazi Germany meant marking a ballot that approved the list of Farner candidates; no alternative options are presented or allowed.
The personal reward Hitler holds for Hoffmann is demonstrated by the fact that in 1935 he allowed photographers to publish a limited edition of seven paintings that Hitler had made during World War I, though since becoming Chancellor he had underestimated his desire to become a painter in his youth. In the following years, Hitler prohibited publication or commentary on his work as a painter. Also in 1935, for Hoffmann's 50th anniversary, Hitler gave the photographer one of his own paintings in the courtyard of Alte Residenz ("Old Imperial Palace") in Munich, Hitler's favorite subject, and which he has painted many times when he is a struggling artist. Hoffmann had at least four watercolors Hitler - one bought in 1944, which sparked a statement from Hitler that "crazy" had paid more than 150 or 200 marks for it, at most - seized by the US Army at the end of the war, and never back to Germany.
In 1937, when the selection of Hitler's jury had chosen to unite the first Great German Art Exhibition to inaugurate the opening of the House of German Art in Munich that angered and angered the FÃÆ'¼hrer with their choice, he fired the panel and placed Hoffmann in charge. This made the artistic community disappointed, who felt that Hoffmann was not qualified for the role. Frederic Spotts, in Hitler and Aesthetics of Power, reported that Hoffmann was "an alcoholic and a cretin who knows little about painting than the average plumber". Hoffmann's answer to his critics is that he knows what Hitler wants and what will interest him. Nevertheless, even some of Hoffmann's options were expelled from the exhibition by Hitler; a room filled with rather more modern paintings that Hoffmann selected as possibly angrily rejected by Hitler with movement. Hoffmann remains responsible for the next annual Great German Art Exhibition, making an early selection which was later hung on for Hitler to approve or veto. Hoffmann prefers the works of conventional painters from southern Germany, the so-called Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in his diary "kitsch Munich-school", more of a more experimental painter from the north.
In May 1938, when Hitler stipulated "The Law of Confiscation of Slumped Art Products" - which retroactively justified Nazi seizures without the payment of modern art from museums and galleries for the "Slump Art" exhibition which was installed in Munich in July 1937, and was allowed to taking further of the unpaid art of institutions and individuals - Hoffmann is one of the named commissioners to focus the process of denunciation and foreclosure, along with the chairman of Adolf Ziegler, President of the Reich Chamber for Visual Arts, the art deal of Karl Haberstock, and others. A year later, Josef Goebbels, Reich Propaganda Minister, took the commission into his Ministry and repeated it to include more art dealers, as the sale of internationally seized works was a source of hard currency for the Nazi regime - though not as much as expected , because of the knowledge that the Nazis placed a large number of these artworks for sale suppressed their market value. When the auction was halted as the war drew near, there were still more than 12,000 works by Hoffman's commission have been condemned as unworthy artistically stored in a warehouse. Hitler personally examined this, and refused to allow them to be returned to the collection confiscated from them. The result was burning in Berlin's central fire brigade courtyard of 1,004 oil paintings and 3,825 others working on March 20, 1939.
Together with sculptor Arno Breker, stage designer Benno von Arent, architect Gerdy Troost, and director of the Hans Posse museum, Hoffmann is one of the few people whose artistic judgment Hitler believes. He awarded Hoffmann's "Professor" honors in 1938, something he did for his many favorite artists, such as Leni Riefenstahl, actress and film director; architects Albert Speer and Hermann Giesler; Bracker and Josef Thorak; Wilhelm Furtwöngler, conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic; and actor Emil Jannings; among others.
Hoffman accompanied Hitler on his state visit to Italy in 1938, where the FÃÆ'¼hrer was much taken by the beauty of the Italian cities of Rome, Naples and Florence as well as the artwork and architecture they possessed. Hoffmann was also one of the parties who went to the Soviet Union when Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop secretly negotiated the Non-Aggression Treaty with Vyacheslav Molotov in 1939, allowing Hitler to invade Poland. Hitler specifically asked Hoffmann to take a close-up of Stalin's ears, which he thought he could determine if the Soviet leader was a Jew or not. The "growing in" ears will show Jewish blood, while the "apart" is Aryan; Hoffmann took the necessary shots, and Hitler was determined to his own satisfaction that Stalin was not a Jew. Hitler would not allow Hoffman to publish Stalin's photographs if he smoked, deeming it inappropriate for a Stalin status leader to be shown that way.
In addition to introducing himself to Eva Braun, Hoffmann also introduced Hitler to art dealer Maria Almas Dietrich, who used this connection to sell hundreds of paintings to Hitler himself - for Hitler's planned collection of FÃÆ'¼hrermuseum in his hometown of Linz, Austria - to other high-ranking Nazis, and to various German museums. In 1941, Hoffmann was the chief among many Nazi chiefs who used Dutch occupation to buy paintings and other artwork from Dutch merchants, sometimes at inflated prices. This pushed the upward art market, much to the confusing Hans Posse, which Hitler had commissioned to collect collections for the planned museum. Posse appealed to Hitler to stop him, but Hitler refused the request.
Hoffmann is also the person who recommends Dr. Theodor Morell to Hitler to treat his eczema. Morell, who is a member of the Nazi Party, became Hitler's personal physician and treated him with many complaints with the full armament of drugs, including amphetamines, cocaine, oxycodone, barbiturates, morphine, strychnine and testosterone, which may have contributed to Hitler's decline. physical condition at the end of the war.
After about 1941, Hoffman began to lose support with Hitler, mainly because Martin Bormann - Hitler's personal secretary after Rudolf Hess flew to Scotland in a quixotic attempt to broker a peace deal - disliked him, and controlled most access to Hitler. Bormann also feeds Hitler's misinformation and satire about his rivals for Hitler's attention, such as Hoffman.
Maps Heinrich Hoffmann (photographer)
Family
Hoffmann married Therese "Lelly" Baumann, who loved Hitler, in 1911. Their daughter Henriette ("Henny") was born on February 3, 1913 and was followed by a son, Heinrich ("Heini") on October 24, 1916. Henriette Married the Leader Hitler's National Youth Baldur von Schirach, who gave introductions to many of Hoffmann's books, in 1932. Therese Hoffmann died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1928.
Hoffmann remarried not long afterwards in 1929; his second wife is Erna GrÃÆ'¶bke.
Publications
During the Third Reich Hoffmann collected many photographs of Hitler, such as The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933) - a book that Ron Rosenbaum calls "the center of Hitler's astonishingly well-controlled effort to manipulate his image... to alter his seemingly non-Nordic peculiarities, his strange peculiarities, to be an asset to his charisma "- and Jugend um Hitler (" Youth around Hitler ") in 1934. In 1938 Hoffmann wrote three books, Hitler in Italy
After the war, Hoffmann published his memoirs in London in 1955 under the title Hitler Was My Friend .
Next life
Hoffmann prominently in the Investigative Report of the OSS Art Investigation Unit 1945-46, Detailed Intelligence Report DIR N Â ° 1 carries his name. He was arrested by the United States Army on May 10, 1945, and he was then tried and sentenced to four years to gain war. The army regards it as the "main actor" and Werner Friedman calls it one of "the most greedy parasites of Hitler's plague." After his release from prison on 31 May 1950, he settled in the small village of Epfach in the Munich area, where he died seven years later at the age of 72 years. His widow, Erna, continues to live there with a former secret person. movie star Wera Engels.
Archive of photography
A large archive of Hoffman photographs was confiscated by the United States Army during the Allied occupation of Germany. It is now held by the National Archives and Archives Administration and is an important source of images for German Nazi scholars. These photos are in the public domain in the US because of their status as a confiscated Nazi property, otherwise their copyright will not be expired.
There is also an archive called 'Bildarchiv Hoffmann', at the Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staatsbibliothek ) in Munich, Germany.
Hitler's secret photo
Nine photos taken by Hoffmann reveal how Adolf Hitler trained poses and hand movements for his public speech. He asks Hoffmann to take these photos so he can see what he looks like to his listeners, then use them to help shape his performance, which he keeps improving. Hitler asked for the photos to be destroyed, a request that Hoffmann did not honor.
See also
- German Nazi portal
- Photography portal
References
Information notes
Quotes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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