The first biography of Heinrich Hoffmann –
important photographer, propagandist and close confidant of Adolf Hitler
To this day, our image of Adolf Hitler is decisively shaped by the photographs of one man: Heinrich Hoffmann. The Munich-based photographer was a National Socialist from the very beginning and quickly used his professional skills for the service of the party. From the early 1920s on, his photographs shaped the visual image of the NSDAP and its leader, whom Hoffmann staged in line with Nazi propaganda. The personal photographer became a close confidant of Hitler and therefore soon an integral part of the inner circle of the NSDAP. And he knew how to profit from this unique position: since 1933, Hoffmann rose to become the publisher of a large company that expanded into a veritable picture factory for the Third Reich. With hundreds of thousands of propaganda photos, Hoffmann created a striking visual representation that was intended not least to cover up the brutal violence of the regime. The photographer became an influential propagandist – and a multimillionaire.
It was only due to the German defeat that the empire of the self-proclaimed ›Reichsbildberichterstatters‹ came to an end. But even if Hoffmann’s person gradually sank into insignificance after 1945, his photographies have an afterlife to this day.
Sebastian Peters, born in 1991, is a historian and curator for the Obersalzberg Documentation Center at the Institute for Contemporary History Munich–Berlin.
