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.

Biography 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. 1988 – Helmut-Käutner-Preis 1988 – Friedrich-Stoltze-Preis 2003 – Waldemar von Knöringen Prize of the Georg-von-Vollmar-Akademie