Johannes Hoffmeister (philosopher)

Johannes Hoffmeister
Born	(1907-12-17)17 December 1907 Heldrungen, German Empire
Died	19 October 1955(1955-10-19) (aged 47) Bonn, West Germany
Education
Alma mater	Heidelberg University
Doctoral advisor	Friedrich Gundolf
Philosophical work
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	German idealism
Institutions	University of Bonn, Sorbonne University, University of Leipzig
Main interests	Hegel, German literature, Philosophy of history
Notable ideas	Critical editions of Hegel’s works

Johannes Hoffmeister (17 December 1907 – 19 October 1955) was a German philosopher and Germanist.

Early life and education

Hoffmeister was born on 17 December 1907 in Heldrungen. He completed his doctorate in 1929 under Friedrich Gundolf in Heidelberg University on Caspar von Barth and soon after began his editorial work on Hegel. He was entrusted by the publisher Felix Meiner with the task of deciphering the previously unpublished manuscripts on “Jenenser Realphilosophie” (Lectures 1803/04) stored in the Berlin State Library. The Moses Mendelssohn Foundation (Berlin) financed this work for two years, following a suggestion by Richard Kroner, the president of the International Hegel Congress. In competition with the then leading Hegel editor Georg Lasson and in constant collaboration with him, “it was finally possible to decipher the barely legible drafts and transcripts, which seemed to lack any coherence of meaning due to Hegel's continuous corrections and additions.” The edition was published in 1931 and 1932 as part of Lasson's “Sämtliche Werke” (Complete Works) edition.

Career

From 1932, Hoffmeister was a tutor and lecturer at Felix Meiner in Leipzig. Funded by the “German Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Research”, the predecessor of the German Research Foundation (DFG), he published various Hegel editions from 1933 onwards. In January 1936, he became an assistant lecturer at the University of Leipzig's Institute of Philosophy. After he had to give up this position in February 1938 due to personal differences with Hermann Glockner, he took up a position as lexicon editor at the Brockhaus publishing house.

In 1936, Johannes Hoffmeister published Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung ("Documents on Hegel’s Development"), a seminal work that compiled and analyzed early manuscripts and correspondence of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

During the Nazi regime, Hoffmeister belonged to several National Socialist associations. He joined the SA in Leipzig on 1 November 1936. From 1 January 1939 to 31 March 1941, he was supported by the NSDDB's promotion of young talent. In March 1939, he took part in a “philosophical workshop” organized by the Amt Rosenberg at Buderose Castle. On November 23, 1939, he applied for membership of the NSDAP and was accepted on January 1, 1940 (with membership number 7.939.387).

He was able to pursue his academic career goals in February 1939 when he became a “trainee assistant” at the Institute of Philosophy in Leipzig. In the spring of 1941, he habilitated in Modern German Literature at the University of Bonn.

Hoffmeister was a soldier from March to October 1941. From 1942 to 1944, he taught German literature as a lecturer at the Sorbonne University in occupied Paris. He was subject of internment in an American prisoner of war camp in northwest France until the summer of 1945. Released from captivity due to illness, he returned to teaching at Bonn University in 1946, where he was appointed Associate Professor of Modern German Language and Literature in 1948. In addition to his lectures on Renaissance and Baroque literature, Romanticism, Hölderlin and other topics, from 1953 he was in charge of a “New Critical Hegel Edition”, which he founded and was in turn supported by the DFG. His students included the two Hegel scholars Otto Pöggeler and Friedhelm Nicolin, Richard Müller, Karl Otto Brogsitter and Kurt Müller-Vollmer.

Hoffmeister died on 19 October 1955 in Bonn.

Impacts and legacy

Hoffmeister has provided his Hegel editions (writings, lectures) with a high critical standard. In many cases, they make the texts accessible for the first time. Thus, even if they no longer meet all the requirements of a critical presentation, they still form the basis of Hegel studies in many cases. His editions of Hegel's correspondence (Briefe von und an Hegel, 1951–1954) and of testimonies to Hegel's life and influence are still unmatched. The editions of the Lectures on the History of Philosophy (the volume with Hegel's “Introduction” was published in 1940, including “Zur Methode der Edition Hegelscher Vorlesungen”) and the Berliner Schriften 1818-1831 (1956) are also of great importance for the history of Hegel philology. Although the “Neue Kritische Gesamtausgabe” initiated by Hoffmeister was not continued after his death, it represents an important step on the way to the “Gesammelte Werke”, which have been published since 1968.

Hoffmeister edition of the Hegel Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, (which was in turn a re-edition of Georg Lasson's edition), that was a major reference for many subsequent studies of Hegel, such as the 1975 translation of the work into English by H. B. Nisbet.

In 1955, Johannes Hoffmeister published a second edition of the comprehensively revised dictionary of philosophical terms. The first edition, for which Hans Leisegang had done the preparatory work, was published in 1944. This edition was based on the Wörterbuch der philosophischen Grundbegriffe (Dictionary of Basic Philosophical Terms) by Friedrich Kirchner. Hoffmeister had already begun a revision in the 1930s - however, it contains a large number of problematic political and ideological judgments, as it “had to take into account the rule of National Socialism in parts in order to be published at all.” A volume published anonymously in 1934, Hegel heute. Eine Auswahl aus Hegels politischer Gedankenwelt (Hegel today. A selection from Hegel's world of political thought).

Although he was only 47 years old when he died and had mainly devoted his energies to Hegel research, Hoffmeister also made significant contributions in other areas of Goethe research. These include an interpretation of Goethe's “Fairy Tale”. A long-drawn-out book on Hölderlin remained unfinished, as did the plan for a biography of Hegel. A collection of lectures (held in a prisoner-of-war camp) on Meister Eckhart, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel and Hölderlin is contained in the book “Heimkehr des Geistes” (1946).

Works

Writings

• Goethe und der deutsche Idealismus. Leipzig 1932.
• Hölderlin und die Philosophie. Habilitation. Leipzig 1932.
• Friedrich Hölderlin, 1770–1843. Institut Allemand, Paris 1943.
• Goethes „Urworte-Orphisch“. Eine Interpretation. Tübingen 1930.
• Die Problematik des Völkerbundes bei Kant und Hegel. Tübingen 1934.

Hegel editions

• Hegels sämtliche Werke. 18 Bände. 1905- (Herausgeber als Nachfolger von Georg Lasson);
  • darin: Jenenser Realphilosophie. Aus dem Manuskript hrsg. von Johannes Hoffmeister. Meiner, Leipzig 1931–1932 (Hegel: Sämtliche Werke ; 19. 20 / Philosophische Bibliothek ; [Neue Ausg.] 66 a. b. 67: [vielm. c!]).
• Hegel. Neue Kritische Ausgabe im Rahmen der Philosophischen Bibliothek bei Felix Meiner, Hamburg, ab 1953.
• Briefe von und an Hegel. Band 1–3, 1951–1954.
• Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung. Stuttgart 1936.

Further editions

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Die Wahlverwandtschaften. Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten. Das Märchen. Die guten Weiber. Novelle. Reise der Söhne Megaprazons. Bruchstück eines Romans in Briefen. Hrsg. von Joh. Hoffmeister. Mainzer Presse, Mainz/Weimar 1932 / Insel, Leipzig 1939 (Welt-Goethe-Ausgabe).
• Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Das Märchen. Mit Einführung und Anhang. Iserlohn 1948.
• Heinrich von Kleist: Der zerbrochene Krug. Schulausgabe. Köln 1950.

Dictionary

• als Hrsg.: Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe. (= Philosophische Bibliothek. Band 225). Begründet von Friedrich Kirchner. Vollständig neu bearbeitet. Meiner, Hamburg 1944, DNB-IDN 580216144.
• als Hrsg.: Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe. (= Philosophische Bibliothek. Band 225). 2. Auflage. Verlag von Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1955, DNB-IDN 452069270.

Literature

• Friedhelm Nicolin, Otto Pöggeler (Hrsg.): Johannes Hoffmeister zum Gedächtnis. Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1956, DNB-IDN 452230233. (mit Bibliographie)

External links

• Literature by and about Johannes Hoffmeister (philosopher) in the German National Library catalogue
• Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe (Jürgen Weber)