Hilmar Hoffmann

Hilmar Hoffmann (25 August 1925 – 1 June 2018) was a German stage and film director, cultural politician and academic lecturer. He founded the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen. He was for decades an influential city councillor in Frankfurt, where he initiated the Museumsufer of 15 museums, including the Jewish Museum Frankfurt. He was the president of the Goethe-Institut and taught at universities such as Bochum and Tel Aviv. He wrote the book Kultur für alle (Culture for All), which was a motto of his life and work. Hoffmann was born in Bremen on 25 August 1925, the son of an export merchant. He attended the gymnasium in Lünen and then in Oberhausen. He was a Fallschirmjäger in World War II and a prisoner of war in the US. When he returned in 1947, he studied directing at the Folkwang Hochschule for Music and Theater in Essen, graduating with a diploma.He began work as assistant stage director at the Theater Essen. In 1951, he became director of the Volkshochschule (adult education), then the youngest in the Federal Republic, and held the post until 1965. In 1954, he founded the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen (Internationale Westdeutsche Kurzfilmtage) in Oberhausen, which he directed until 1970. From 1965 to 1970, he served as Kultur- und Sozialdezernent of Oberhausen, responsible for culture and social politics. During this time, he was lecturer at the Ruhr University in Bochum from 1967 to 1970. From 1970 to 1990, he was a city councillor (Stadtrat) in the government of Frankfurt, as Dezernent für Kultur und Freizeit, responsible for culture and leisure. He initiated the promotion of free groups in urban culture, street theatre and 30 libraries in suburbs. He founded the Museumsufer, a series of 15 new museums along the Main River, with the traditional Städel Museum as the centre. He is credited with making Frankfurt a city of culture, not only commerce, initiating the Jewish Museum Frankfurt as the first independent Jewish museum in postwar Germany, the German Architecture Museum, and its first municipal cinema (Kommunales Kino). The Museum Angewandte Kunst (applied art) was designed by Richard Meier, including the Villa Metzler from 1803 and its park. The Washington Post quoted Hoffmann in 1985: "We are not just building museums, but a whole program." Hoffmann supported the Mousonturm as a venue for alternative culture, and the restoration of the ruined opera house as the concert hall and congress centre Alte Oper. During his tenure, the opera house became in the "Gielen era" one of the leading houses in Germany, focused on Regietheater.From 1993 to 2001, he was also president of the Goethe-Institut, in a period of needed expansion in Eastern Europe and reduced funding. He taught film theory and cultural politics at the universities of Bochum, Marburg and Frankfurt, and as a visiting professor in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.He died in Frankfurt on 1 June 2018.