Hilmar Hoffmann

Biography

Hilmar Hoffmann was born on August 25, 1925, in Bremen as the son of a merchant family. He completed his high school diploma during the war in 1943 at the Horst Wessel School in Oberhausen. The following year, he was taken prisoner by the Allies as a paratrooper. During his captivity, he obtained an English diploma in Glasgow, Scotland. This enabled him to work as an interpreter after his return to Oberhausen in 1947. In 1949, he was the founding director of the British Information Center "Die Brücke" (The Bridge) in Oberhausen.

In 1951, Hilmar Hoffmann began studying directing at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and took on assistant directing roles at the Städtische Bühnen theater. The following year, at the age of just 27, he became the founding director of the Oberhausen Adult Education Center. He also launched numerous initiatives in the cultural sector.

Under his aegis, the West German Short Film Festival was founded in 1954, which later became the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. Under the direction of Hoffmann and his program consultant Will Wehling, the event developed into an important forum for young filmmakers, especially for artists from Eastern European countries, who were often received in the West for the first time under the motto "Weg zum Nachbarn" (A Way to the Neighbors). Another historic turning point followed in 1962, when the Oberhausen Manifesto was presented at the festival, heralding the artistic dawn of the New German Cinema.

Hoffmann, who remained in charge of the festival until 1970, took over the post of Head of Culture and Social Affairs for the city of Oberhausen in 1965 and continued his efforts to promote progressive cultural work accessible to all social classes within a political framework.

In 1970, he was elected head of the Department of Culture and Leisure in the Frankfurt City Council, where he was able to realize several groundbreaking projects over the next two decades. Hoffmann succeeded in intertwining high and popular culture, and he was equally committed to popular neighborhood culture and to strengthening traditional cultural institutions.
During his term of office, the Communal Cinema was founded in 1972, which served as a model for numerous institutions throughout Germany, the Mouson Tower cultural center was established, and the museum landscape on both sides of the Main River was generously expanded. Last but not least, the German Film Museum Frankfurt settled on the Sachsenhausen "Museumsufer," where the German Film Institute (DIF) also found a home. Today, they together form the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum (German Film Institute & Film Museum).

Thanks to his pioneering initiatives, his enormous achievements, and his outstanding reputation, the Social Democrat Hoffmann remained in office even when the CDU took over the Frankfurt city government in 1986. In May 1990, Hoffmann resigned from his post as head of the cultural department due to a disagreement with Mayor Volker Hauff. However, his diverse commitment remained unbroken. Among other things, he founded the "Stiftung Lesen" (Reading Foundation), for which he initially served as managing director and later as chairman. From 1993 on, he was president of the Goethe Institute, which he left in 2002 in protest against severe cuts in funding.

In addition to his work in cultural policy, Hoffmann taught as a lecturer and honorary professor at numerous universities since the 1960s, including the Ruhr University Bochum, the Universities of Frankfurt and Marburg, and the Universities of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Among other things, he designed the cultural program for the World Expo in Hanover in 2000. He was also the editor and author of numerous books. In 1991, he published "Und die Fahne führt uns in die Ewigkeit: Propaganda im NS-Film" (And the Flag Leads Us into Eternity: Propaganda in Nazi Film), followed in 1996 by the book "100 Jahre Film" (100 Years of Film, co-authored with Wolfram Schütte) and in 1999 by the volume "Ihr naht euch wieder, schwankende Gestalten" (You Approach Again, Wavering Figures), in which Hoffmann recounted his memories of decisive encounters and phases of his long career.

Even beyond his role as head of the cultural department, Hoffmann was involved in cultural activities in Germany in many ways. He was chairman of the program advisory board of the television station RTL (1990-2012) and, from 1982, chairman of the board of directors of the German Film Institute (DIF). In this role, he promoted the integration of the former municipal film museum into the Film Institute in 2006. He remained chairman of the board of directors even after the merger of the two institutions. From 2001 to 2013, he was also patron of the "goEast" festival of Central and Eastern European film, which has been organized by the DIF/DFF in Wiesbaden since 2001. Hoffmann, who was well versed in film history, remained closely associated with the institute until the end. His programmatic approach of educating people about cinema through cinema has lost none of its relevance to this day.

Hoffmann, who always championed the democratization and expansion of the cultural landscape in Germany, received numerous awards over the years. Among the most important honors were the Honorary Award at the German Film Prize (1976), the French Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1985), the Goethe Plaque of the State of Hesse (1985), the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (1990), the Presidents Award from Tel Aviv University (1995), the Great Badge of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria (2002), and the Hessian Culture Prize (2013).

Hilmar Hoffmann remained active into his old age, whether as chairman of the Hessian Cultural Commission (2004-2005), as chairman of the board of directors of the merged German Film Institute/German Film Museum, or as an author. In January 2018, his last book was published: "Generation Hitler Youth: Reflection on a Seduction," in which he dealt with his own history in Nazi Germany.

On June 1, 2018, Hilmar Hoffmann died in Frankfurt am Main, where he had lived for almost 50 years.