Albert Hoffmann

Adolf Johann Albert Hoffmann (24 October 1907 – 26 August 1972) was a German entrepreneur, who during the Third Reich served as the Nazi Gauleiter of Westphalia-South. He was also an SS-Gruppenführer. Tried for war crimes, he was acquitted for lack of evidence, but was sentenced to prison as a result of denazification proceedings. Early life Hoffmann was born in Bremen, the son of an innkeeper. After attending Volksschule, Realschule and a trade school, Hoffmann was apprenticed and took up a job as a raw tobacco salesman. In 1925 Hoffmann joined the National Socialist Worker Youth (Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterjugend), the forerunner of the Hitler Youth. He was among the founding members of both the SA and the local Nazi Party organization in Bremen, becoming the Ortsgruppenleiter (Local Group Leader), a position he would hold until 1933. He officially joined the Nazi Party on 27 July 1926 (membership number 41,165) with membership backdated to February 1925. As an early Party member, he would later be awarded the Golden Party Badge. He also served as the propaganda leader in the Oldenburg area between 1927 and 1928, at the same time working as a commercial tobacco trader in Amsterdam. For the next several years, he traveled throughout Germany as the representative of various tobacco houses. Pre-war career in Nazi Germany Following the Nazi seizure of power in January 1933, Hoffmann's career began a rapid rise. He became the propaganda leader in the Bremen Kreis (county) on 1 April 1933. On 1 July 1933, he left his occupation as a raw tobacco merchant to become a full-time Party functionary, assuming the management of the organization, press and personnel offices in the Bremen Kreis. On 20 August 1934, he moved into the Party's Reichsleitung (national leadership) as the leader of the department for organizational issues. This was on the staff of Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess at the Brown House in Munich. From 5 September 1935 until January 1941, Hoffmann held the position of Amtsleiter (Office Leader) for Office IIA (General Organizational Matters). Here he was involved with social, economic, transport and agricultural policy, as well as ethnic policy.