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Heinrich Hoffmann (author)
Encyclopedia
Struwwelpeter
Der Struwwelpeter is a popular German children's book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story provides the...
, an illustrated book portraying children misbehaving.
Early life and education
Hoffmann was born in Frankfurt on Main to an architect father, Philipp Hoffmann, who was responsible for the city's streets and waterways. Hoffmann's mother died when he was a baby. His father later married his mother's sister, Antoinette Lausberg, who was a loving and more than adequate mother to him. Lazy and easily distracted, Hoffmann at first struggled at school, but became a successful student after conforming to the strict discipline imposed by his demanding father. At university in HeidelbergHeidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, he immersed himself into the corps student culture. His zest for dueling was small, but owing to his sociability, good humour and wit, Hoffmann soon became the center of many social circles, a pattern that would later repeat itself in his hometown. His progress in his medical studies was slow because of the many distractions. To flee these he left Heidelberg for Halle, where he concentrated on his studies under Professor Peter Krukenberg
Peter Krukenberg
Peter Krukenberg was a German pathologist who was a native of Königslutter. He was son-in-law to anatomist Johann Christian Reil , and grandfather to pathologist Friedrich Ernst Krukenberg and surgeon Hermann Krukenberg .He studied at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig and at the...
, the founder of a charity clinic. His first brush with medical practice coincided with a cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreak in Halle. After getting his medical degree, he intended to spend a year in Paris (funded by the Frankfurt Bethmann bank
Bethmann bank
Delbrück Bethmann Maffei AG is a private bank headquartered in Frankfurt am Main. It's a subsidiary of the Dutch bank ABN AMRO and was created in 2004 from a merger of the banks Bankhaus Delbrück & Co and Bethmann-Maffei...
) to improve his knowledge of surgery. But due to the deteriorating health of his father, he had to return home early.
Family life
Hoffmann married Therese Donner and had three children by her, two of whom survived him, as did his wife. He was known to draw comic sketches for his children as well as for his wife.Professional life as a physician and psychiatrist
Hoffmann worked for a pauper's clinic and had a private practice. He also taught anatomy at the Senckenberg Foundation. None of this paid very well, and when the Frankfurt lunatic asylum's previous doctor (who was a friend of his) retired in 1851, he was eager to take the post even though he had no expertise in psychiatryPsychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
. This changed quickly, as his later competent publications in the field show. Hoffmann portrays himself as a caring, humane psychiatrist, who strove to be the sunshine in the life of his miserable patients. His gregarious personality may well have been popular with many of them. His statistical compilations show that up to 40% of the people with acute cases of what would today be called schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
were discharged after a few weeks or months and stayed in remission for years and perhaps permanently. Always a skeptic, Hoffmann voices doubts whether this was due to any therapy he may have given them. Much of his energy from 1851 onwards went into campaigning for a new, modern asylum building with gardens in the city's green belt. He was successful and the new clinic was built at the site of today's Frankfurt University's Humanities campus. (The original building was demolished in the 1920s.)
Professional life as a writer
Struwwelpeter
Der Struwwelpeter is a popular German children's book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story provides the...
after one of its anti-heroes, became popular with the public and had to be reprinted regularly; many foreign translations followed. "Struwwelpeter" was not perceived as cruel or overly moral by Hoffmann's contemporaries. The original title, "Funny stories and droll pictures", indicates that entertainment was at least partly the author's intention.
After the book's success, Hoffmann felt persuaded to write other children's books, of which only the first, König Nussknacker oder der arme Reinhold, became popular.
He also kept on writing satires and (often comic) poems for adults. His satires show his strong skepticism towards all kinds of ideology and his distaste for religious, philosophical or political bigotry. Even in Germany, he is today largely remembered for his Struwwelpeter.
Politics
Hoffmann from early on had liberal leanings, meaning he supported German unity under a constitutional monarchy, democratic elections, freedom of the press, and equal rights for all male citizens including Jews (whose emancipation had suffered setbacks in many German states after "liberation" from Napoleonic rule). As a member of the city's legislative assembly he was (according to his own testimony) instrumental in opening the sessions to the public. His sense of equality was such that he founded a club ("Bürgerverein") which expressly inivited (male) members of all walks of life, including the uneducated and Jewish citizens. Also, he left his freemason's lodge after antisemitic tendencies took hold there. Seized with patriotic-democratic sentiment during the early days of the German 1848 revolution, he became a member of the Frankfurt preliminary national assembly that prepared the elections, but was soon disillusioned by the divisive and dogmatic, unproductive discussions that followed.Pro-bono public activities
Hoffmann, a popular and well-connected figure in his hometown, became an active member of several non-political public bodies during his lifetime. Among them were the administration of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut (Städel Institute of Art) and the Mozart Foundation (who funded Max BruchMax Bruch
Max Christian Friedrich Bruch , also known as Max Karl August Bruch, was a German Romantic composer and conductor who wrote over 200 works, including three violin concertos, the first of which has become a staple of the violin repertoire.-Life:Bruch was born in Cologne, Rhine Province, where he...
, among others).
Trivia
- PolykarpusPolycarpSaint Polycarp was a 2nd century Christian bishop of Smyrna. According to the Martyrdom of Polycarp, he died a martyr, bound and burned at the stake, then stabbed when the fire failed to touch him...
Gastfenger (The given name is the German version of that of a Christian martyr; the surname sounds like "Gastfänger", which could be translated as "guest-catcher".) - Heulalius von Heulenburg
- Heinrich Hoffmann
- Heinrich Hoffmann-DonnerDonnerDonner is a variation of Donar, the German name of the god Thor – particularly as a character in the first opera, Das Rheingold of Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen...
(The second half of the compound surname is the maiden name of his wife Therese. It would mean "thunder" as a common noun, or a name for the Germanic thunder-god ThorThorIn Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...
.) - Heinrich Kinderlieb (The surname means roughly "child-friendly"/"nice to children")
- Reimerich Kinderlieb
- Peter Struwwel (This name reverses the order of the components of "Struwwelpeter".)
- Zwiebel (As a common noun, this would mean "onion")
In Frankfurt there is a Heinrich-Hoffmann-Museum.
He is the subject of the historical novel
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...
, 98 Reasons for Being.
He and his book Der Struwwelpeter is mentioned in The Office
The Office (US TV series)
The Office is an American comedy television series broadcast by NBC. An adaptation of the original BBC series of the same name, it depicts the everyday lives of office employees in the Scranton, Pennsylvania, branch of the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company...
episode "Take Your Daughter to Work Day".
One of the short stories contained within Der Struwwelpeter, "Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher" or "The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb" is the loose basis for the song "Scissor Man" by the British band XTC. The story involves a little boy whose punishment for sucking his thumbs is getting them cut off by the tailor. The song was more popularly covered by Primus.
Struwwelpeter's statue stands in the center of Frankfurt am Main, in Hoffman's honour.
External links
- Works by Heinrich Hoffman in the University of Florida Digital CollectionsUniversity of Florida Digital CollectionsThe University of Florida Digital Collections are supported by the University of Florida Digital Library Center in the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida. The University of Florida Digital Collections comprise a constantly growing collection of digital resources from the...