Heinrich Hoffmann (1885 – 1957) served as Adolf Hitler’s official photographer from when Hitler took control of the Nazi party in 1921 until his death in 1945. Hoffmann estimates he took over half a million photographs of Hitler over the course of his career. His portraits were the most significant source of Nazi propaganda materials published over the course of close to 25 years, everything from postcards, posters, magazines, postage stamps and picture books. Click on eachtheme below to see a complete photo albumdevoted to that particular event or topic.
Index of Photo Albums
There are currently 63 unique photo albums devoted to Adolf Hitler related propaganda materials, categorized under the four main themes of “Books & Publications”, “Portraits & Fashion”, “Transportation”, and “People, Places & Events”. Each album contains 15-30 individual photographs along with the exact place and date that each picture was taken.
Books & Publications 📚
Heinrich Hoffmann designed and published close to fifty individual soft-cover photo compilation books strictly devoted to the subject of Adolf Hitler, beginning with the best selling “The Hitler Nobody Knows” in 1932, swiftly followed up by the popular “Jugend um Hitler” and dozens more throughout the course of Hitler’s career. Many of these books had multiple editions and continued to be published well into the 1940’s.
Heinrich Hoffmann shot close to 500,000 photographs of Adolf Hitler over the course of his career, which honed and shaped the entire Führer mythos that completely enraptured and seduced the German public. Although Joseph Goebbels receives all of the credit for the campaigns that branded the Nazi state, Hoffmann was by far Hitler’s most prodigious propagandist.
Wherever Adolf Hitler went his official photographer was always in tow. Hitler obviously travelled extensively during the course of his career, from his early political campaign days traversing Germany by plane and car, to his diplomatic meetings in Italy, Austria and Poland later held on his Special Train – some of the most historically significant events of the 1930’s and 1940’s were thoroughly documented by Heinrich Hoffmann.
Heinrich Hoffmann’s first windfall as Adolf Hitler’s personal photographer occurred when Hitler was released from Landsberg prison on 20 December 1924. Because Hoffmann was the only person allowed to take photographs of Hitler, his portrait of him getting into his car was the only picture taken to document this event, and therefore was the most published news photo that day. Hoffmann began to earn substantial fees from selling his highly in demand photos to German as well as international newspapers. His photos were also widely disseminated as postcards, cigarette cards and even postage stamps, which made him a millionaire many times over.
The following posts contain tons of off topic bonus material that I’ve recently been accumulating, and admittedly these have morphed into outlets for my own selfish pleasure (the *NSFW* “Fabulous Führer Fotos” page has definitely exceeded my expectations for bringing some much needed joy and levity into my life 😋) and quite surprisingly these are the pages that have actually received some views! So I’ve been keeping these albums updated much more frequently, especially the “Handsome Adolf” album, since I often come across more high-res versions of these phenomenal portraits!
Heinrich Hoffmann Photo Gallery 