Empire: World History - 316. Hitler's Photographer: Nazi Secrets, Eva Braun, & Escaping Justice

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Who was Heinrich Hoffman and how did he use his photography to promote Adolf Hitler and Nazism? When did Hoffman introduce Hitler to Eva Braun? What lies did he tell a Jewish journalist who interviewed him in 1950? Anita and William discuss the life of Hitler’s photographer as part of a series on Eyes on Empire - exploring the influential people behind the lens who captured those in power. Make someone an Empire Club Member this Christmas – unlock the full Empire experience with bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to miniseries and live show tickets, exclusive book discounts, a members-only newsletter, and access to our private Discord chatroom. Just go to https://empirepod.supportingcast.fm/gifts And of course, you can still join for yourself any time at empirepoduk.com or on apple podcasts. Email: [e-mail] Instagram: @empirepoduk Blue Sky: @empirepoduk X: @empirepoduk Producer: Anouska Lewis Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Executive Producer: Dom Johnson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mpower.com. Hello and welcome to Empire with me Anita Arnan. And me, William Durhampool. We often discuss on this podcast the rise and fall of empires through battles, invasions, powerful leaders. those lenses. But we thought today we look at the men and women who are actually behind the lenses themselves, the ones who are photographing these great epochs, because often what they're

photographing is fascinating, no doubt about it, changes history. But also their lives are really interesting. You may not have heard their names, but you will have seen their work. You will have seen these images. So three photographers we're going to be concentrating on in this little miniseries. One is the product of a dying Ottoman Empire. The other is the son of a rising third Reich, and the third is a mousy woman very easily dismissed who takes on a powerful king of Europe and wins. And their names, let me tell you right now, will probably be unfamiliar to you. But their images will not because you see them everywhere you go. You will have seen them on postage stamps. You will have seen them on big portraits, hanging in important houses. Bank notes. Bank notes.

Yep, absolutely. So, you know, that's why we want to do this. So now you'll know the story behind the famous picture. Shall we start with Hoffman, though? Let's start in this episode with The Monster, and then we'll move on to other people. And the thing about this monster, through his own mouth, you hear an awful lot of, and for want of a better word, bullshit about what he knew and what he thought the Fuhrer was thinking at the time. He's clearly not telling the truth a lot of the time. So Anita, so you, when you were telling me this story, opened the tale in 1950, in an internment camp in Munich, where Nazi prisoners are being kept in a camp. So it's slightly like one of those early 1950s movies, the spy who came in from the cold and Richard Burton and an overcoat in post-war Germany. But in this case, it's not a spy.

It is a journalist coming to see this photographer Heinrich Hoffman in his internment camp. Take the story on from there, Anita. So the journalist himself, and this is an article in The New Yorker, is very interesting and extensive. Bernard Tapper himself is interesting. He was born in England. He lived most of his life in the United States. He was the son of Jewish immigrants. And he was drafted to fight in World War II, but he hadn't seen any action.

But now that it was all over, Bernard Tapper wanted to understand what was. was going on in the mind of the Nazis. So, you know, I mean, the whole world did. The Nuremberg trials were, you know, when everybody was on the edge of their seats to hear from the mouths of the monsters why they did what they did. And he becomes Bernard Tapper completely obsessed with Heinrich Hoffman, who is known in those days as Hitler's photographer and is actually quite famous at the time in 1950. People know there are articles written about him. He is known as the man who introduced Hitler to Eva Braun, the Furious Future wife. Which is a story we're going to hear, which is an extraordinary story in itself.

So there are some completely extraordinary images by this guy Hoffman. Let me describe one of his most famous photographs. It's in a darkened room with one light source pointing from an angle so that you can't see Hitler's clothes other than the white of his collar and his face and his hair. and his hands are lit up in the darkness as he practices a speech against a mirror. And the full craziness of Hitler is brilliantly revealed by these photographs, which, interestingly, he liked very much. I mean, you would have thought this would be good evidence for the prosecution that Hitler

was a madman, because in these photographs, he is in one, his palms are raised to the ceiling, wide, splayed. In another, he's pointing as if singling out some person in the crowd for execution or for solitary confinement or to be sent off to a concentration camp. In a third, his fists are clenched up in a kind of mad sort of dictator paroxysm of fury. And yet, apparently, these were photographs that he completely loved. And they are brilliant as works of art. If you remove the subject, they are extraordinary shots. Hitler loved those photographs, and no photographs were released into the wild unless they were approved by Hitler. And the man who took the vast majority of those photographs was Henry Hoffman.

So that entire studio setup was all, you know, by design, none of it was like, oh, let me just take a rehearsal picture for you backstage. None of that. They knew what they were doing. They thought that this was a set of photographs that would project his strength and his virility and his leadership and all of that kind of. stuff. But the other thing was that the reason Hoffman was as rich as he was, is that he was very, very clever. And he knew that these photographs would be reproduced. They were made to be reproduced around the world to tell the world about Hitler. This is in 1925, mind you. So this is before this man has actually sort of seized control of the world. But he keeps the copyright on all

the photographs that he takes of Hitler. I'm just intrigued that such things existed in 1920s. You'd have thought this is something you associate with Annie Leibovic or Don McCullen or someone today. They get an amazing image and they can copyright it. But I'm amazed in the 1920s that propaganda photography was sufficiently advanced. They were. He did. And these photographs, even sort of in 25, if their circulation was going to be fairly limited, Hoffman had a belief in this man that he would one day rule the world. And so this would be his fortune and he wasn't wrong. Cut now forward to 1939, where these photographs are widely in circulation. And there are articles in Time magazine, sure, about Hitler, but there are

also articles about Hoffman in 1939. So they do this sort of forning profile in April of 1939. And they are talking in all about the business acumen of Herr Professor Hoffman. And I sent you a little extract of that article. Shall I read it? I'd love you to read it. Well, they're obsessed with. is how this man is making money off the back of Hitler's image, even then. So this is Time magazine. He needs an American accent, doesn't it? So Professor Hoffman's virtual monopoly of German news photography has made him one of his country's richest men.

He sells more than a million Hitler portraits a year. His Hitler pictures range from miniatures to eight by 12 foot posters, which sell for 1,050 marks. That's $420. For ordinary news pictures, his standard price. to German publications is 20 to 25 marks. But US rights to particularly fetching photograph of Dershner Adolf sometimes bring as much as $250.

Hoffman is not the only gainer by his deal with the great and good friend. Adolf Hitler knows well that the least flattering photographs of himself never leave the dark room. They dispatched a reporter to do that Time magazine article, who followed Hoffman around. And this is one of the things that they note about how the ubiquitous Hoffman is always just two steps behind Hitler. When Hitler enters a fallen province or a city or appears anywhere in public, photographic reporter, Hoffman rides in the car behind him, armed with a Leica camera. Hoffman darts back and forth in front of the Fuhrer unmolested while other photographers are kept at a

respectful distance. The world's news agencies clamour for Heinrich Hoffman's pictures, for he is the man who picks the photographers to cover everything the aggrandizer does. And for the best jobs, he only picks himself. He corners a market. He basically has a monopoly on Hitler's image. We should really do one of those origin stories. You like your Marvel origin stories? I do love a Marvel origin story. It is true because I think it's just so important to understand why people are the way they are. So why don't you sort of start us off with where he is born and what makes Hoffman who he is? Well, he's born in Bavaria in 1885, in a place called Furt. And that year, Germany is rapidly industrializing and increasingly powerful under the rule of Kaiser Wilhelm I and Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor.

And the country has only been unified 14 years earlier, 1871, the year of the Franco-Prussian War. And the unification transforms Germany from a collection of independent states into a cohesive empire, the German Empire. Kaiser Reich, with Berlin as its capital. And by the time that Hoffman was in his 30s, he's seen Germany rise to a great power, go to war, lose everything, become decimated by post-war reparations after Versailles. And he's part of that angry army of angry young men, whom Hitler's message of making Germany great again appeals. He is the target audience that Hitler is addressing. But what I'd love to know, Anita, is when does photography come into his life. He's kind of in his blood, William, because his father was a photographer. His father had this

sort of modest studio in Regensburg and then later in Munich. His brother is also somebody who works in the studio with his dad. So it's very much, you know, en family. He's a small town boy. Regensburg is this sort of, I've spent the time there. It feels rather like a sort of Yorkshire pub landscape and off to the Tunvon Taxes Palace. It reminded me very much of my school days in Yorkshire, I have to say. You're 100% right. So small town, boy in a small town business which largely made its money during this time, you know, taking portraits of people in love, sit together, very sedately sitting together or else, you know, people have come back from the First World War who are, you know, sort of in uniform,

we're going off to the war. It's that kind of, you know, studied studio portrait. And the money is not fabulous. So Hoffman decides that he's going to be something bigger than his dad and his brother. So he travels around Germany. He also travels to London to learn photography from some of the, better photographers of the time. And then he has, you know, enough self-belief. And there is something in this about, you know, the upper cadre of the Nazis. There is sort of self-belief, sometimes

bordering on delusion, that, you know, they are destined for very great things. He sets up his own photography studio in a much bigger city in Munich. And this obsession with Hitler starts, if you believe Hoffman in 1914. So the date is August 2nd, 1914. So the date is August 2nd, 1914. and Young Hoffman brings his camera to Munich's Audienceplatz and he photographs this crowd celebrating Germany's entry into World War I. Now, a few years later, Hitler says, you know, in conversation, because he will become a very close friend of Hitler's, you know, they'll eat dinner together. They'll know each other's families, for example.

But Hitler, in sort of the chit-chat that follows years later, says, so he was at, that rally. So Hoffman then goes through all of his boxes, rifling around, trying to find the copies that he took of, you know, sort of wide-angle views of the crowds at Odensplatz. And he discovers that he has captured, he says. He's captured a young and jubilant Hitler among this crowd of thousands of people. With a slightly broader mustache than the one we're used to. It's a more expansive mustache and the little kind of little stab that it is by the time that he comes to power. You've got sort of a little Hitler head in the crowd surrounded by people looking delighted,

a much younger version, but very much himself with the side sweep and the tash, as you say, a much fuller tash at the time. Yes, and an unusually smiley picture for Hitler. And he's thrilled because Germany has just entered the war. It's the reason he's looking so far. And there's lots of people who are in boaters looking as if they're going for a sort of punting trip or something, celebrating the outbreak of the First World War. And there he is in the middle of it, quite clearly him.

It's an important part of Hoffman's origin story, but it also becomes a really important part of Hitler's origin story, because he can then point back as he rises to power that I was there. I have always fought for the integrity, independence of Germany and the fact that we are fighting the humiliation that has been visited upon us. And that image actually, in retrospect, some people have called bullshit on it. Not that the image existed made. But the fact that it was perhaps, I mean, you didn't have Photoshop in those days, but the emergence of it suggests that actually it was a convenient time to release it into the wild. And I'm not sure exactly why they say it was a lie. But some people have questioned whether Hoffman told the truth about this photograph, about any of it. Well, they're suggesting it was a Photoshop that it inserted him into it. It's clearly his face. It is his face. But it comes out right at the time of the Reich presidential election campaign in 1932.

Some say actually, and I don't know, I don't know how photography works. Maybe somebody can tell me what was the equivalent of Photoshop back in the 1930s. But certainly some people have called bullshit and they question everything that Hoffman says. You can certainly manipulate pictures in 1930s. Let me just think of all those sort of Stalinist pictures of disappearing Trotsky and so on. There's no trouble manipulating images. Yes, of course you can manipulate photography. You know, the Conan Doyle fooling pictures of the fairies in the garden.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, look them up. It's quite interesting. Hoffman, though, then, sort of become slightly attached to Hitler. He says, he says, you know, I saw him really early on. And he goes to the Western Front to take photograph for the press. And he was one of only seven people serving as war photographers in Germany in 1914. And he was the only one from Bavaria. People teased him for being a yokel.

You know, sort of the Bavarian accent is slightly different. to the Hochdeuts, it's Irish-Deuts, but he sort of keeps on moving up and up and he's conscripted into the German armed forces. And it is in Munich in 1918 that something happens to Hoffman that makes him actually really very ripe to become an acolyte of Hitler. Hoffman witnesses the so-called German Revolution when the Bavarian monarchy is toppled by a socialist republic. Hoffman's there and seizes the opportunity to photograph the event. This is his his big moment capturing this historic putch. That German revolution is also known as the November revolution, and it's an uprising,

started by workers and soldiers in the final days of World War I. And it spreads very quickly. There are two stages. The first is pretty peaceful. The second one is much more violent. And the defeat of the forces of the far left clear the way for the establishment of the Weimar Republic. So it's a really important epoch marking moment.

And by the autumn of 1919, what he's seen in the difference between the spirits of people in 1914 and 1918, and by 191919 in the autumn, his position just lurches right. Along with quite a lot of the rest of Germany. Absolutely true. And he does talk about, you know, his motivations. He says, you know, I was for any movement that might save Germany from catastrophe, he says later. After all, that was where the real money was to be made. I like that link between the two. Yeah, exactly.

the man is a complete capitalist and self-serving by heart. By the time Hitler came to power, says Hoffman, he'd become the best advertised product in the world. I would have been a fool not to take advantage of it. Indeed, I often think of myself as basically an American type, enterprising, full of ideas for making money, always on the spot where the big news is happening, not satisfied with anything but the best. He's not wrong, is he? He's not wrong. He's absolutely got that spirit. He's not wrong, but this is an interview that he is giving. Years later.

To an American paper. To an American, you know, trying to curry favor with like, yeah, what I do? What I do? I was just, you know, taking photographs of soap powder. All of that is bullshit as well, because Hoffman is one of the earliest Nazis, one of the earliest people to join the Nazi party. And he joins in April 1920. Now, at this time, you've got to imagine the Nazi party was pretty small.

He's given a membership card, isn't he? And he has the number 427 at a time where the Nazi party has only. 675 members. I've read that in cuttings a couple of times and you know the thing that self-perpetuates in cuttings once it's in print. It goes on and on. He, however, in an interview, has said his membership card number was 47, which just shows you what an early adopter he was. Okay, so you might ask yourself, if you thought of this man as just soap powder, if Hoffman, you really weren't sort of Nazi-esque in your beliefs. Why did you join up? And he says, oh, look, no, no, no. I'm not a Nazi. I saw that the party was going to make history, he said. And as a journalist,

it was my duty to be on the stance. So I joined the party. When you go to a funeral, said Hoffman, you don't wear a white suit. You dress like a mourner. And I had to act like a Nazi to photograph the Nazis. But does he actually deny being a Nazi? Because he's there from the very beginning. He's a close friend of Hitler. He can't actually pretend that he's actually a kind of radical socialist or a Vimar Democrat. He utterly denies there was any political motivation and anything that he did. He said, I was in it for the money. This was a story.

I was a journalist. I was clever. I was canny. I wanted to make money. And that is why I yoked myself to this man who I knew was going places. However, and we'll come to this, he also launches the most ludicrous defense of his friend, Hitler, the soap powder. and he does that as well. So everything he says is a complete mess.

And honestly, he's lying. He's just lying. Of course, he believed in what the Nazis were saying. He was right at the heart of it. You don't slap on a swastika and go marching around with somebody if you are just covering them. It is just not what happens, but he does. And Hitler famously only kept, as he's in the circle, people who thought exactly the same as him. Yeah, I thought he was wonderful.

And there was also no doubt that, you know, during the 20s, Willie, there is a friendship that develops between these two men. So, you know, don't tell me you're just sort of taking photographs of an interesting man. They like each other. He's one of the very closest friends. Up until the 1920s, the mid-1920s, he'd just been on the periphery. You know, he'd sort of been taking pictures, but, you know, one of the people taking pictures. But very quickly, he sort of invagals his way closer and closer, close enough to photograph Hitler,

but not speak to the man himself. In fact, this is the moment that changes everything that sort of makes him break through. One time he is taking photographs of Hitler and he finds himself thrown against a wall and pinned by Hitler's thugs because he's getting a bit too close. And after the event, both Hitler and Hoffman happened to be at a social wedding at the time, where according to, again, and this is Hoffman's own word, so take them as you wish, Hitler approaches Hoffman and says, you know, haven't I seen you somewhere before? and Hoffman says, I told him sadly he had and that I was the cameraman that his strong-armed boys had grabbed hold of at the doorway and Hitler apologized and asked if he could do anything to square things. And Hoffman says, just stand there and pose for your portrait. And Hitler said, nope, no, I'm not going to do that because, according to Hoffman, Hitler's manner throughout the conversation was pleasant. But he said, there's a reason why I can't allow my picture to be taken at present. But if the time ever comes when I can, you will be the photographer. Now, this was a bit of the story I didn't understand. To explain this to me, Hitler in his youth, was photograph averse? Was that it?

He wasn't in control of his image and he had other things to do and other interests. This wasn't important for him. Well, maybe he was trying to fop off this man, you know, I don't know. But I've read he had a camera phobia in his early days and that he didn't like being photographed. One of the reasons I think Hoffman was so successful was that there were so few photographs of Hitler available because he wasn't photographed. And so when Hoffman invagled himself into the inner circle and got this monopoly, there were no other photographs for newspapers to use. This was the source of his fortunes, I understand it.

He does make this promise, though, you know, this this, this, this Feshbach, the vow, if you like, that, you know, if ever I do decide that I'm going to be photographing, you will be my man. And two years later, he comes into Hoffman's studio for his first portrait study. And biographers has said that this is the moment where he starts to understand that American new syndication is really important. because if you have photographs that the West will run, then somehow you have a legitimacy back at home that you can't buy for money on the streets in Germany. And he said to, you know, some cheap photographer managed to snap a picture of him on the street and sold it abroad. And that is where Hitler decides, you know what, whether I like being photographed or not,

people are now going to photograph me because I'm on the up. And so I might as well take control. So it is these two people together trying to control the image. that the world will see. But there is also the important factor of his wife's pasta making skills, which is the important part of the story, luring Hitler in by giving him a particular spaghetti with tomato sauce that the Fuhrer found irresistible. Is this true? This is what Hoffman says, you know, that their friendship is built on pasta and fascism. And a cat, a cat called Nazi, in adjectively. Yes, a cat called Nazi. So, yes, I mean, for Hoffman to say, look, not political,

just, you know, trying to make my way in the world. His cat, was called freaking Nazi. The cat's full name, that was its nickname. The full name of the cats was Ignaz von Borgenhausen, which was naturally reduced from Ignaz to Nazi. I mean, not naturally at all. It isn't at all natural. But Ignatz von Borgenhausen, who is, you know, it's very sort of stuck up blue-blooded cat, apparently, from his name. So he talks about these spaghetti dinners. This is the story that Hoffman likes to tell that these over these spaghetti dinners that his wife would cook. These two men became very, very close. For a long time, he says our place was about the only private house in which Hitler was a regular guest.

The atmosphere was lively. It was bohemian, all sorts of people, artists, musicians, doctors, actors, they all dropped in and there were always arguments going on. These are all the people, presumably, which Hitler will very shortly be putting into concentration camps or having disappeared. But at this moment, he comes to this gathering, according to Hoffman, because he enjoys the lively bohemian atmosphere. But Hoffman does also say something very interesting. He does also say that at this point in his life, it was possible to disagree with Hitler about politics. And he said, you know, and again, take this as you will, my wife and I frequently disagree to them. You couldn't change his mind, but at least you could argue with him. Later on, of course, it was almost impossible to mention a subject that was disagreeable to him. But then he was a wonderful conversationalist. He never

read a novel that I know of, but he used to plow through history and technical books. Yes, you can't imagine Hitler sitting down with the Jane Austen, can you? It's thought his natural thing. But apparently he loved technical. books. So if you wanted to chat to Hitler about marine technology or the society of bees and a beehive, Hitler would be full of specialist information about these matters or the Ice Age. This was Hitler sort of chit-chat. Also, just a hilarious observation that he loved to pontificate about the best way to look after an automobile. Never drove, never served his vehicle in his life, Hitler. But, you know, we'd just hold forth at the table saying, oh, you know, I know everything about cars. He has a bet with the director of the Mercedes factory about the RPM of one of his motor cars. So even then, you've got this man who just thinks he knows everything about everything. And I can imagine, I mean, reading between the lines, he's an absolute bore at the table. But Hoffman carries on introducing them. But there is another part of the Hoffman establishment that Hitler is becoming increasingly

interested. It's not just the Nazi cat or the tomato sauce cooked by Mrs. Hoffman. It is Hoffman's assistant who is one blonde girl called Eva Braun. More after the break. Hello there. Well, with Christmas bearing down upon us, we've got some really exciting episodes planned for you about St. Nicholas, aka the Clause himself. I am greatly looking forward to those episodes. But if you want to be your very own version of St. Nicholas this year, you can gift the history lover in your life membership of the Embership of the Embers. Empire Club and drop some strong hints and ask for it yourself in addition. I mean, I think it is the perfect gift for a history fan, for an Empire fan. And let me tell you what you get. You get so much.

You get ad-free listening, weekly bonus episodes. You get early access to live show tickets. Members also get a weekly newsletter with extra information on the stories covered in the show and exclusive discounts on books we recommend. Yeah, and if you are anything like Willie, come on, own up. You've left your shopping till the last nanosecond, haven't you? tell you that, but it's true. We've known each other a long

time, Willie. This is the perfect gift. If you want to give someone membership online today, it will land in their inbox on Christmas Day. It's much easier than resurrecting three pickled and murdered youths, which is exactly of course what St Nicholas did as you will

discover in our exciting Christmas episode. Can I just say it's lovely that you say, of course, that's what he did. Anyway, just head off to Empirepodukuk.com, that's Empirepodukukuk.com and click on gifts. Welcome back. So we have just discovered that as well as a Nazi cat, an excellent pastor, the Hoffman household has a young assistant who is interested in photography and is in fact a budding photographer herself. And this is none other than the notorious Eva Braun. She's by 18 at the time

and has been handling this massive traffic of photographs produced in the Hoffman studio. And she completely worships Hitler. She is the young woman that thinks Hitler. She is the young woman that thinks Hitler is the rock star pin-up, and she's completely breathless at the thought of meeting Hitler himself. So when he comes to the studio for some portraits, a set-up of natural photographs of him giving a firebrand speech, she is the giggling fan girl in the corner, and Hitler notices her. He notices it, and he loves it. And can I also just say, this is not unusual. I grew up with posters of actually Richard Burton, who we've mentioned before, and Morton Harkett on my war. Very confused child. You had very good taste.

I did have very good taste. Thank you. But, you know, young girls would have posters of Hitler on their walls. So Eva Braun is one of many who's becoming obsessed with this man who's always in the newspapers and always in magazines. And he notices and he loves it because he loves being adored. And he says to Hoffman one day, this little girl is in love with me, Hoffman. What can I do? And once he said, Hoffman, Hoffman, she threatens to kill herself for love. I must take care of her. He starts inviting Eva Braun. and her sister, to Bertesgarten and giving her presence. And gradually, he becomes attached to her and she becomes inseparable, inseparable from him. And this idea of, you know, Hoffman being the lynchpin will come up at his trial later post-war, where he was accused of having influence on Hitler through his connection of Eva Braun, as somehow, you know, Heinrich Hoffman, not just a photographer, but also something of a string-puller when it comes to the Nazi hierarchy. And he says, my God, that girl, that poor girl, she never had any influence on him herself. What am I supposed to be doing? But, uh, Frau Hoffman, she's encouraging

Hitler to get married. And Hitler shows no sign of, of interest in this prospect, although he's quite interested in the European. And Frau Hoffman allegedly says that Hitler replied that he knew he would make a woman unhappy. He knew he had no time. He doesn't want a pompadour, he says. And I don't want a political blue stocking. Instead, he's very happy with Eva Braun, who's this very ordinary, enthusiastic, Hitler-worshiping assistant of Hoffman. Not the prettiest, not the most striking. Very sort of blonde in a sort of Nazi way. She does look like central casting kind of Nazi youth from a movie. She does fit the bill. Yeah, but I mean, there's work that's gone into that at that point. But, you know, just as a young girl, she's fairly mousy, if anything. So, you know, eventually this relationship with

Hitler is the biggest thing in her life. She is in the bunker at the end with Hitler, and as this Hitler worshipping obsessive, will not leave his side. And in the final days, hold up in the Fuhrer bunker as the Soviets head closer to finishing off the war and finishing off Hitler. Eva Braun is in there with him and has Hitler's going madder and madder and, it's going madder and madder and issuing orders to Nazi battalions that no longer exist and armies that have been decimated, ordering them to do things that are less and less plausible as the whole

German war effort collapses. Eva Braun actually maintains what observers call a quiet dignity. She socializes with secretaries, reminisces about happier times in the Berghoff retreat, and is oddly calm in the face of what is clearly this sort of coming showdown. with the end. And just after midnight on April the 29th, 1945, Hitler proposes marriage, just as the whole thing is about to go down. And there's a brief civil ceremony in the bunker's map room, not the most romantic place you'd have thought, for a wedding reception. And Hitler dictates his last will and testament that same day, once again, of course, blaming what he calls international jury for the war and for Germany's ills. And then the following day on the afternoon

of April the 30th, after testing the effectiveness of a Sinai capsule on his dog, who was called Blondie. Hitler and his new wife of one day previously married, they say their goodbyes to the remaining bunker staff, and then they retire to their private study. It's Eva Braun that uses the Sinai capsule, while Hitler simultaneously shoots himself in the right temple. and their bodies are carried out to the Chancery Garden by the staff, doused in gasoline, set ablaze to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Of course, the next person into the bunker is none other than Lee Miller, another blonde woman photographer who famously photographs herself in Hitler's bathtub a day later.

Anyway, back to Hoffman. What's happened to him while all this is going down? It's just one of those things that you said that Hitler, even at the end, even sort of during his wedding ceremony, even right, you know, sort of the moments before he's about to kill himself, is blaming. international jury and then will become clear afterwards just how far his hatred of the Jews has gone with his final solution. Hoffman will get asked about this. So let's go back in time. So I talked about Bernard Tapper, the British Jewish journalist who's now working for an American

publication for the New Yorker and who goes to see him in 1950. And Tapper is desperate. Like so many were at the time, Gita Sereni being one that really sticks in my mind about how much people knew and how they are squaring the reality of those horrors. Gita, we both knew, didn't we? Her obsession was Albert Speer, the architect, and she carried on, wrote this extraordinary book on Speer and drilled away at him over many years trying to find the truth. But Tapper, anyway, is a briefer visit, but he goes to see, not Speer, but Hoffman. What he wants, what he really wants, is regret.

He wants some explanation from a man who clearly adored Hitler, who knew him intimately. about his knowledge also of the extermination camps and what he gets is something really different from Hoffman. So cut back to that landscape of being in a prison camp and the towers and everything else. And Tapper is looking to Hoffman, who by this time is a grey-haired, slightly diminished man. And he says, look, just tell me what you knew.

Just tell me what you knew. And Hoffman says, no, no, no, no, no. Look, it didn't really know any of that. and also diminishes what the that was. And also completely paraglides over the fact that he was somebody who was absolutely in the Nazi machine. So at one point, Hitler appoints him as an official in his government, if you like. And he has to be the man who looks at works of art and decides whether they are pornographic, whether they are threats to the Nazi ideal and lots of paintings at this time. are confiscated. Also, some paintings, as we all now know, went missing from very wealthy Jewish

households. A lot of them end up in Hoffman's house. He is post-war deemed to be by the Allies Art Looting Investigations Act. He's a Nazi looter of Jewish art? A major offender, a major offender in Nazi art plundering from the Jews. And he is an art dealer during the war. He is a collector. he has an astonishing array. In fact, Deschbeagle, as recently as 2016, did a survey of Nazi looted art. And it has said that Hoffman was one of the greediest parasites of the Hitler plague. He was the main profiteers of the Nazi state. He was in charge of that department that I was telling you, the commission for the exploitation of confiscated works of degenerate art. That was it. There's anything that was degenerate, it would be taken. And the fact that it ended up in his bloody house or in his vaults, tells you a lot. In 1943, William, his personal fortune was valued at almost 6 million rice marks. And four years later, the Americans listed 278 works of art that Hoffman claimed untruthfully to have acquired legally. So, you know, there is an entire mountain of evidence that not just knowledgeable about the anti-Semitism, the plundering, the sending off to death camps,

the confiscation of property, but also directly profiteering from it. You mentioned this committee he's on, which is judging art. This was a big deal. This was not a small thing. And we often forget, I think, how obsessed the Nazis were with art. And I went to an exhibition this spring in Dallas, which put together many of the pictures which the Nazis, Nazis put on exhibitions of art they disproved of, to shame. the artists that were producing what they regarded as degenerate art. And there's this extraordinary

exhibition on this year in Dallas of Weimar Republic Art, which was put on, and I think something like two million people went to see this show of degenerate art. And it's very, very good. And we forget, of course, that the Weimar Republic was this extraordinary artistic haven, with extraordinary artistic life, much of which was conducted by Jewish artists. And at this moment in Dallas, you could actually go and see a reconstruction of one of these shows that the Nazis put on to blacklist the artists involved and to shame them. Hoffman was head of that department. Hoffman was in charge of that department.

Hoffman was the one who had the final say on whether something was degenerate or not, and it just so happened to be some of the most expensive works of art, because it weren't just by Jewish painters, but things owned by Jewish owners were taken and confiscated by some of the greatest names in the art world and they ended up with him. He does get sentenced post-war for this looting and this amassing of stolen goods, 10-year sentence. Is that what they get him on? That's the charge against him. It's not that he's part of the inner circle. It's not that he's the photographer. It's that he's taken looted works of Jewish art. He's taken looted works of arts and his capacity as a member of the Nazi machine. He gets 10 years, but weirdly,

he only serves four of those years. Even more weirdly, and I cannot understand somebody please, listening to this explain to me, the thinking of the Bavarian State, but in 1956, the Bavarian State's orders all art that it has confiscated from Hoffman to be returned to him, which is so mental, I don't understand it at all. What was his defence? He said this was his art. It wasn't looted? He said, I got it legally. There's plenty of evidence that he did not. The Schiegel article of 2016 goes into this. And in fact, if you're interested in these articles, the other article that we are going to be putting on, if you are a member of our club, we'll put a link to

it, that Tapper interview, which I think is such a good interview. Just join Empire Club. It's EmpirePodUK.com, EmpirePodukuk.com. We'll stick a link on that. So Hoffman, you know, says, what did you know of the anti-Semitism? And this is what Hoffman says. He says, Hitler was no anti-Semite. Nonsense. Seriously? What? And he says, no, no, he was no anti-Semite. He was not a Jew-hater. Not like people like Streiker or Dinta. And Stryker and Dinta, by the way, I mean, again, we might put some links to these absolutely appalling creatures, but they are horrible Nazi fascist ideologues.

I mean, Dinter in particular wrote anti-Semitic novels. With titles like Sin Against the Blood or... Having any relations with a Jew would pollute the blood, that kind of thing. They are awful people. He says, well, they're not like him. I need to explain to me, I don't get this. Two things. How can he possibly push this out?

outrageous line that Hitler is not obsessively anti-Jewish. And how did the Bavarian government give him his pictures back? I cannot answer for the Bavarian government to this day. I don't understand. Neither does Germany. It was a mad, mad decision in the 1950s and no one can explain it, least of all the present-day Germans who think about it and talk about it. Why did he say, because he's a liar. He's just a liar. Hoffman, by diminishing his knowledge of or his association with, He's doing this really weird act of, you know, yeah, we were friends. He wants to impress Happer. We were really, really good friends.

We were like this. We were so tight. But also, yeah, but he never said anything that anti-Semitic in front of me. Then he says, no, no, he did, but he was doing it for the greater good of Germany because he does also say in this interview, you know, hit this anti-Semitism was a matter of principle. He wanted to solve the Jewish problem by law, not force. I mean, just absolute, offensive, really offensive nonsense coming out of Hoffman. And now this is in contrast to Albert Speer, wasn't it?

Because Albert Speer very much did repent. Yes, but also, can we heavily caveat about that? So the story of Speer, Albert Speer, I have talked about it on this podcast before. If you remember at the club, I've described Geese-Sorone's book as one of my favorite books of all time. Absolute hero of mine. So what she does with Albert Speer, who is the architect for Hitler, he's the one who designs all those monstrously large buildings. He then also takes over some of the work camps where, you know, materials are cut and huge. and the rivets are made for his visions of architecture.

And Gita keeps saying, but Albert, you must have known. You must have known that they were Jewish slaves who were doing this work for you. You must have known that when contingents of men disappeared from your workforce, where they were going, they were being sent to Ashwitz and Trublinka, you must have known. And she'd be it all the way through. It says, I did not know, I did not know. At Nuremberg, his life is spared where others of his calibre in the Nazi machine are hanged. It's because he's the only one who says, I take responsibility.

I didn't know, but all of these evil things that have happened, I take responsibility. And so Spir is spared. But Geith is not happy with that. She keeps going after him. But how could you not have known? And she produces work order after work order, showing his signature, saying that he knew that men were disappearing on his watch. And it's chipping away at a man's self-delusion, perhaps, that, you know, she finally gets to the truth of what he knew. and it is a truth that will ultimately break him completely.

But Hoffman, you know, not so much. I mean, you know, this man is such a shameless tart of a man. So let's talk about his end. This is not the ending we want to this story, because he basically gets off, doesn't he? He's released and he gets his pictures back. And he gets his money. I mean, he makes money off this. So he's released in 1950.

He is, though, determined to capitalize on his links and his intimate knowledge of Hitler. So he brings out this 10-part autobiographical series called Hoffman's Tales in 1950. It's published in Munich Illustratiat magazine and its interviews that take place in some of his pictures. And then he comes out with this book, this book of memoirs in 1955. Under the title Hitler was my friend. I mean, just absolutely bonkers. He doesn't though. I mean, you might be happy to hear it get much time to enjoy this sort of second lease of life because he dies in 1957.

So, you know, a year after all this stuff is returned him by the Bavarian government in 1950. He dies in 1957, he's 72 years of age. He lies in a family grave near Munich. And if you were to visit that graveyard, you would miss the gravestone. It's sort of largely been reclaimed by nature. Covered in ivy, yeah. When we hear stories of the Nazis and of Hitler and the bunker and everything, we're used to hearing a terrible end for those involved with the crimes of the Nazis.

were used to them dying in prison or being hung after the Nureberg trials or moments of catharsis as they admit their guilt and see the error of their ways. What's so troubling about this story and why this is an important story, I think, is that Hoffman doesn't apologise for what he's done. He publishes his memoir, Hitler was my friend. He dies with his art collection intact, and he dies without having admitted his guilt in any of this. So I think it's a salutary lesson that in the sense justice is not always done, that there are horrific, unredeemed stories from these horrors. And that Hoffman, who has made so much

money from the Nazis, dies in his bed surrounded by his family. It's not the ending we want, but that is the ending that history gives us. Never promised you a rose garden, just interesting stories. And we've got another very interesting story in the next episode for you. We're going to discussing the man behind the most iconic photo of Winston Churchill. It's the face on the five-pound note. The photographer's story though, oh my God, it is so fascinating, a refugee who flees the horrors of the Armenian genocide to become one of the richest photographers in the world, where you've got, you know, sort of A-listers absolutely banging down his door to be photographed by him. His name is Karsh. You'll hear all about him in the next episode. But till the next time we

meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand. And goodbye from me, William Thurimpool.