Heinrich Hoffmann (12 September 1885 – 16 December 1957) was a German Nazi politician and publisher who was Adolf Hitler's official photographer and a member of his inner circle. Hoffmann's photographs were a significant part of Hitler's propaganda campaign to present himself and the Nazi Party as a significant mass phenomenon. He received royalties from all uses of Hitler's image, which made him a millionaire over the course of Hitler's rule. After the Second World War he was tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison for war profiteering. He was classified by the Allies' Art Looting Investigators to be a "major offender" in Nazi art plundering of Jews, as both art dealer and collector. His art collection, which contained many artworks looted from Jews, was subsequently confiscated by the Allies.
Hoffmann's sentence was reduced to four years on appeal, and he was released from prison in 1950. In 1956, the Bavarian State ordered all art under its control and formerly possessed by Hoffmann to be returned to him.
Early life Hoffmann was born in Fürth and grew up in Regensburg. He trained as a photographer from 1901 to 1903, in the studio of his father Robert (born 1860) and his uncle Heinrich (1862–1928).
Until 1909, he found employment in Heidelberg, Frankfurt am Main, Bad Homburg, Switzerland, France and England. In 1909 he founded a photographic studio on Schellingstraße in Munich and started to work as a press photographer. In 1913, he founded the image agency Photobericht Hoffmann. In 1917, Hoffmann was conscripted into the German Army and served in France as a photo correspondent with the Bavarian Fliegerersatz-Abteilung I. In 1919, he joined the Bavarian Einwohnerwehren, a right-wing citizens' militia. That year he witnessed the short-lived post-war Bavarian Soviet Republic in Munich, and published a collection of photographs he had taken as Ein Jahr Bayrische Revolution im Bilde ("One Year of Bavarian Revolution in Pictures"). The accompanying text, by Emil Herold, suggested a connection between the "Jewish features" shown in the photographs and the subjects' left-wing policies.
Odeonsplatz picture
A noted photograph, taken by Hoffmann in Munich's Odeonsplatz on 2 August 1914, apparently shows a young Hitler among the crowd cheering the outbreak of World War I. Historians believe that Hoffmann most likely edited Hitler into the image, which was later used in Nazi propaganda.
Hoffmann claimed that he only discovered Hitler in the photograph in 1929, after the Nazi leader had visited the photographer's studio. Learning that Hoffmann had photographed the crowd in the Odeonsplatz, Hitler told Hoffmann that he had been there, and Hoffmann then reputedly searched the glass negative of the image until he found Hitler. The photograph was published in the 12 March 1932 issue of the Illustrierter Beobachter ("Illustrated Observer"), a Nazi newspaper. After the war, the glass negative could not be found."Famous Hitler rally picture probably faked" The Local (14 October 2010) Footage of the event from a similar angle has also been claimed to show Hitler, but there is no evidence he adopted a toothbrush moustache before the war.
In 2010, historian , a German expert on World War I, concluded that Hoffmann doctored the image. Krumeich found other versions of Hoffmann's image in the Bavarian State Archive in which Hitler's hair looks different. Additionally, Krumeich found other photographs of the rally from various other angles and could not find Hitler where Hoffmann's picture places him. As a result, the curators of a 2010 Berlin exhibition about Hitler's influence inserted a notice saying that the image's authenticity could not be verified."Famous Hitler photograph declared a fake" Sydney Morning Herald (20 October 2010). Accessed 22 March 2022.
Serving Hitler's regime Hoffmann met Hitler in 1919 and joined the Nazi Party on 6 April 1920. He participated in the Beer Hall Putsch as a photographic correspondent. While the Nazi Party was banned in 1923, Hoffmann joined the ephemeral Großdeutsche Volksgemeinschaft (Greater German People's Community) then 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 district assembly of Upper Bavaria and, from December 1929 to December 1933, he served as a city councillor of Munich.
After Hitler had taken control of the party in 1921, he named Hoffmann his official photographer, a post he held for nearly a quarter-century. No other photographer but Hoffmann was allowed to take pictures of Hitler. Hoffmann himself was forbidden to take candid shots. Once, at the Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat, Hoffmann took a picture of Hitler playing with his mistress Eva Braun's terrier. Hitler told Hoffmann that he could not publish the picture, because "a statesman does not permit himself to be photographed with a little dog. A German sheepdog is the only dog worthy of a real man". Hitler strictly controlled his public image in all respects, having himself photographed in any new suit before he would wear it in public, according to Hoffmann, and ordering in 1933 that all images of himself wearing lederhosen be withdrawn from circulation. He also expressed his disapproval of Benito Mussolini allowing himself to be photographed in his bathing suit.
The attempt by Hoffmann to portray Hitler as the epitome of the German people was difficult because Hitler lacked the 'racial profile' of the supposed Nordic race (i.e. tall with blonde hair), which the Nazi New Order sought to impose. Hoffmann tried to portray Hitler in the best light by focusing more on his eyes, which many found dreamy and hypnotic.
Hoffmann's photographs were a significant part of Hitler's propaganda campaign to present himself and the Nazi Party as a significant mass phenomenon. In 1926, Hoffmann's images of the Party's rally in Weimar in Thuringia – one of the few German states in which Hitler was not banned from speaking at the time – showed the impressive march-past of 5,000 stormtroopers, saluted by Hitler for the first time with the straight-armed "Roman" or Fascist salute. Those pictures were printed in the main Nazi newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, and distributed by the thousands throughout Germany. That rally was the progenitor of the Party's annual mass rallies, which were staged quasi-annually in Nuremberg. Later, Hoffmann's book, The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933) was an important part of Hitler's strenuous effort to manipulate and control his public image.
Hitler and Hoffmann became close friends, cemented by his absolute loyalty and lack of political ambition. Historian Alan Bullock succinctly described Hoffmann as an "earthy Bavarian with a weakness for drinking parties and hearty jokes", who "enjoyed the licence of a court jester" with Hitler. Hoffmann later recalled that his lack of rank preserved his access to Hitler. Hoffmann was part of the small party which drove to Landsberg Prison to meet Hitler when he was released from prison on parole on 20 December 1924, and he took Hitler's picture. Later, Hoffmann often dined with Hitler at the Berghof or at the Führer's favorite restaurant in Munich, the Osteria Bavaria, gossiping with him and sharing stories about the painters from Schwabing that Hoffmann knew. He accompanied Hitler on his unprecedented election campaign by air during the presidential election against Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg in 1932.
In the autumn of 1929, Hoffmann and his second wife Erna introduced his Munich studio assistant, Eva Braun, to Hitler. According to Hoffmann, Hitler thought she was "an attractive little thing" – Hitler preferred women to be seen and not heard – but Braun actively pursued him, telling her friends that Hitler was in love with her and claiming she would get him to marry her. Hoffmann reported, however, that even though Braun eventually became a resident of the Berghof – after the death of Geli Raubal (see below) – and was then constantly at Hitler's side during the times he was with his private entourage, she was not immediately his mistress. He believed that did happen at some point, even though Hitler's outward attitude to her never changed. Ultimately, to the surprise of his intimate circle,, citing Hitler married Braun in the Führerbunker in Berlin on 29 April 1945, and the couple committed suicide together the following day.
On 17 September 1931, Hitler was with Hoffmann on a trip from Munich to Hamburg when the Führer got word that his niece, Geli Raubal – whom he adored and who accompanied him to almost all social events – had committed suicide by shooting herself. In his post-war memoir, Hitler Was My Friend, Hoffmann expressed the opinion that Raubal killed herself because she was in love with someone other than Hitler, and could not take Hitler's rabidly jealous control of her life, especially after he found out that she had had an affair with Emil Maurice, Hitler's old comrade and chauffeur., citing
When Hitler became the dictator of Germany, Hoffmann was the only person authorized to take official photographs of him. He adopted the title Reichsbildberichterstatter (Reich Picture Reporter) and his company "Heinrich Hoffmann, Verlag Nationalsozialischer Bilder" (Publisher of National Socialist Pictures) became the largest private company of its kind, after the existing press agencies were nationalized. The company had two divisions, one which supplied editorial photographs, and the other which published photo-propaganda books. The manager of the company was Michael Bauer (born 1883) of Munich, but Hoffmann was the sole shareholder. The company steadily expanded, opening multiple branches. Hoffmann's photographs were published as postage stamps, postcards, posters and picture books, making him a millionaire. Hoffmann's companies, which employed 300 employees at their peak, had a turnover of 1 million Reichsmark in 1935, and 15 million or 58 million Reichsmark in 1943 ().Oliver Rathkolb and John Heath (trans.) "Baldur von Schirach: Nazi Leader and Head of the Hitler Youth", 2022. Hitler received a royalty on all postage stamps featuring his image, which went to his Cultural Fund, instituted in 1937. This amounted to at least 75 million marks over the course of Hitler's reign.
When photographing other subjects, Hoffmann was represented by Schostal Photo Agency (Agentur Schostal).Rebecca Madamba (2008) The Schostal Agency: A Finding Aid for the Schostal Agency Collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Thesis of the Honours Bachelors of Arts, Studies in Arts and Culture, Concentration in Curatorial Studies, Brock University.
During the Third Reich Hoffmann assembled many photo-books on Hitler, such as The Hitler Nobody Knows (1933) – a book that Ron Rosenbaum calls "central to Hitler's extremely shrewd, extremely well-controlled effort to manipulate his image ... to turn his notoriously non-Nordic-looking foreignness, his much-remarked-upon strangeness, into assets to his charisma" – and Jugend um Hitler ("Youth Around Hitler") in 1934. In 1938 Hoffmann wrote three books, Hitler in Italy, Hitler befreit Sudetenland ("Hitler Liberates Sudetenland") and Hitler in seiner Heimat ("Hitler in his Homeland"). His Mit Hitler im Westen ("With Hitler in the West") was published in 1940. His final book of this period, Das Antlitz des Führers ("The Face of the Führer"), was written shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1936 he had effectively seized control of stereographer Otto Schönstein's publishing house, Raumbild-Verlag, which effectively put him in charge of all mass-market stereoscopic (3D) photography in Germany until the end of the Second World War.