Der Führer und feine Heimat

Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957) was a German photographer and Nazi propagandist. The son and nephew of photographers, he worked in the Hoppé studio in London before setting up in Munich as a portraitist and photojournalist. His photograph of cheering crowds on 2 August 1914 unwittingly captured the young Adolf Hitler, an event which would later benefit Hoffmann's career. Drifting to the far right after the First World War and revolutionary events in Bavaria, he joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and convinced an initially camera-shy Hitler of photography's political value. Hoffman’s assistant, Eva Braun, became Hitler’s mistress in 1930. After 1933, his virtual monopoly of Hitler photographs, as ‘the man who sees the Führer for us’, made him one of the Third Reich's major profiteers. His scenes of carefully constructed intimacy, presenting his master, especially in the regime's early years, as a clean-living, nature-loving man of the people, were massively disseminated. After 1945, though claiming to have been a mere chronicler of events, he was fined and imprisoned. His extensive photo archive survives, including photographs of German political and religious figures, as well as actors, painters, and musicians.