#26 Henriette Hoffmann – She Confronted Hitler with the Holocaust

Henriette Hoffmann was born on February 2, 1913, in Munich. Her father, Heinrich Hoffmann, was the official photographer of the Nazi Party; her mother, Therese “Nelly” Baumann, was a singer and actress. Her childhood unfolded in Schwabing, an artistic district that during the Weimar years was one of the centers of avant-garde life and political radicalism. The family soon became part of Hitler’s immediate circle: already in the early 1920s, the party’s first meetings were held in Heinrich Hoffmann’s home.

Little Henny thus grew up quite literally in the cradle of the Nazi movement. Hitler was a frequent guest in the Hoffmann household; he treated the photographer’s family almost as his own. Henny was only nine years old when she first met him, and this early acquaintance would shape her life for decades.