us-005578-irn524317
type: RecordSet
archival history: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
biographical history: 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.
date: circa 1920-1929
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had subject: 000185
has or had subject: 701
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn524317
record resource extent: folder 1
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: Seven staged images of Adolf Hitler speaking, taken by Heinrich Hoffmann in the 1920's. The photographs were entrusted to Fran Prager by an employee who worked as a secretary to Ms. Prager.
title: Fran Prager photograph collection