Ottilie Hoffmann

Ottilie Franziska Hoffmann (14 July 183520 December 1925) was a German educationalist and social reformer who came to prominence as a pioneering temperance activist.

Early life and education Ottilie Hoffmann was born in the central quarter of Bremen. Ludwig Otto Hoffmann, her father, was a successful grain merchant. She received a "sound" schooling. From her childhood diary entries it is apparent that she was keen that her life should make a difference in society. She was never attracted by the idea of marriage and family life. She studied to become a teacher, embarking on her teaching career in 1851. Hoffmann taught at a private school between 1852 and 1857: there is mention of her having taught on a British or English island around this time. However, Hoffmann was obliged to pull back from this initiative in order to look after her parents. The girls' mother, Rosalind, Countess of Carlisle, was an energetic campaigner for women's rights, and even more passionate as an advocate of temperance (abstinence from alcohol). Through working for Rosalind Carlisle she was confronted with the results of alcohol abuse, notably among the working population. Alcohol abuse among the workers led to social misery and family violence against women and children. In England Ottilie Hoffmann was impressed by her aristocratic employers' social commitment against alcohol dependency: she experienced for herself how former hostelries might be transformed into reading rooms and tea shops.

During this time, a number of alcohol free restaurants and "milk bars" were set up around the city, mainly in working class districts. An outlet, the "Freeport coffee and breakfast canteen" ("Kaffee- und Frühstückshalle im Freibezirk") was set up in the "Europahafen" freeport as early as 1901. Coffee was available from five each morning, and service continued till eight at night "except when workers on nightshifts wish[ed] to eat even later". and elected a member of its executive board. She gave lectures and took part in international congresses.

Later life and death In 1921, the year of her eighty-sixth birthday, Ottilie Hoffmann identified her successor. Anna Klara Fischer and Ottilie Hoffmann had first got into conversation in an over-filled express train to Hanover in the early summer ("shortly before Whitsun") in 1913. In 1921 Fischer took charge of both Hoffmann's Christian Temperance organisations, the Temperance League and the Abstinent Women's League. During the next few difficult decades she would prove herself a worthy successor.

In the quarter of Bremen, Busestraße and Emmastraße are connected by Ottilie-Hoffmann-Straße ("Ottilie Hoffmann Street"). The street sign carries the additional inscription: "Ottilie Hoffmann (1835-1925) Founder of the 'German Women's League for an Alcohol-free Society' and of the Ottilie Hoffmann houses in Bremen" ("Ottilie Hoffmann (1835–1925) Gründerin des Deutschen Frauenbundes für alkoholfreie Kultur und der Ottilie-Hoffmann-Häuser in Bremen").

Since 1987, there has been a by the local sculptor in the Urich Place ("Ulrichsplatz") on the edge of the Ostertor quarter.