Hoffmann, Johannes

(1867-1930)

   politician; Bavarian Prime Min-ister during 1919-1920. Born in the Palatinate village of Ilbesheim bei Landau, he studied pedagogy and taught during 1887-1908 in Kaiserslautern. A member of the SPD, his election to the Landtag in 1908 forced him to resign his teaching post. During 1910-1919 he was Kaiserslautern's deputy Burgermeister. A cham-pion of educational reform, he was elected to the Reichstag* in 1912 and dealt mainly with nutritional issues once the Allied blockade* began restricting food availability. Just before the November Revolution* he was engaged in consti-tutional reform as a Bavarian Minister without Portfolio.

   Hoffmann became Education Minister in Kurt Eisner s* new Bavarian Re-public. He enacted key reforms, including amelioration of the social and eco-nomic situation of the teaching profession, long deemed crucial by Progressive and SPD politicians. In Eisner s fractious cabinet he took a compromise position between the Prime Minister and his USPD supporters on the one hand and the SPD on the other. Eisner s assassination* on 21 February 1919 prompted a period of tough negotiations between the Bavarian Workers and Soldiers Councils* and the Landtag; Hoffmann finally emerged on 17 March as a com-promise Prime Minister. His call for the creation of a Volkswehr (People s De-fense Force) to secure the government against the KPD and his tendency to incline to the radical wing of the SPD—based largely on efforts to curtail ec-clesiastical schools—were crucial to his selection. Although he aimed to give no advantage to Bavaria s* hostile factions, his effort to establish stable gov-ernment was nullified by external events. When on 22 March news arrived from Budapest that Bela Kun had forced the abdication of Count Michael Karolyi, Hoffmann was no longer able to placate the radicals within the councils. Forced by a standoff to remove his cabinet from Munich on 7 April, he governed from Bamberg during the weeks of Munich's Raterepublik. His plea to Berlin* for assistance against the usurpers was testimony to many Bavarians of his impo-tence. In May, after suppression of the Raterepublik, he reformed a coalition cabinet of the SPD, DDP, and BVP. He also established the Bavarian Einwoh-nerwehr.

   Under pressure related to Berlin s Kapp* Putsch and spearheaded by the very Einwohnerwehr he had created, Hoffmann was forced from office on 14 March 1920, thereby ending SPD participation in Bavaria s governments for the du-ration of the Republic. He soon removed himself completely from Bavarian politics, resigning his Landtag mandate on 24 August 1920. He taught in a Kaiserslautern Volksschule until 1923 and retained his Reichstag seat until his death.

   REFERENCES:Mitchell, Revolution in Bavaria; NDB, vol. 9.