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 scholar of German literature. ^[1] He is primarily known for his studies on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and for his research on writers such as Goethe and Hölderlin.^[2] His academic career included teaching appointments in Germany and, during the Second World War, in occupied France. During the Nazi period, Hoffmeister was affiliated with several National Socialist organizations.

Early life and education

Hoffmeister was born in Heldrungen, in the German Empire, on 17 December 1907. In 1929, he earned his doctorate under Friedrich Gundolf at Heidelberg University.

Career

After completing his dissertation, Hoffmeister began editorial work on Hegel's writings. He was responsible for deciphering previously unpublished manuscripts on Jenaer Realphilosophie (Lectures 1803/04), held in the Berlin State Library. The project was financed by the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation at the suggestion of Richard Kroner, then president of the International Hegel Congress. Working with Hegel editor Georg Lasson, Hoffmeister published the manuscripts in 1931 and 1932 as part of Lasson's Sämtliche Werke (Complete Works) edition.

From 1932, Hoffmeister worked as a tutor and lecturer for the Felix Meiner publishing house in Leipzig. With funding from the German Association for the Preservation and Promotion of Research, the predecessor of the German Research Foundation (DFG), he published several Hegel editions from 1933 onward. In January 1936, he became an assistant lecturer at the University of Leipzig’s Institute of Philosophy but resigned in February 1938 following disagreements with Hermann Glockner. He subsequently took a position as a lexicon editor at the Brockhaus publishing house.

In 1936, Hoffmeister published Dokumente zu Hegels Entwicklung ("Documents on Hegel’s Development"), a compilation and analysis of Hegel’s early manuscripts and correspondence.

During the Nazi regime, Hoffmeister joined several National Socialist organizations, including the SA in 1936 and the Nazi Party in 1940. He also participated in academic activities organized by the regime, including a philosophical seminar directed by the Amt Rosenberg.

In the spring of 1941, he received his habilitation in Modern German Literature at the University of Bonn.^[1] From March to October 1941, he served as a soldier, and from 1942 to 1944, he taught German literature as a lecturer at the Sorbonne in occupied Paris. He was later interned in an American prisoner-of-war camp in northwestern France until the summer of 1945, when he was released due to illness.

After returning to Germany, Hoffmeister resumed teaching at the University of Bonn in 1946. He was appointed Associate Professor of Modern German Language and Literature in 1948 and lectured on Renaissance and Baroque literature, Romanticism, Hölderlin, and related topics. In 1953, he began a new critical edition of Hegel’s works, supported by the DFG. His students included the Hegel scholars Otto Pöggeler and Friedhelm Nicolin, as well as Richard Müller, Karl Otto Brogsitter, and Kurt Müller-Vollmer.

Death and legacy

Hoffmeister died on 19 October 1955 in Bonn at the age of 47.^[3]

His four-volume edition of Briefe von und an Hegel (1951–1954) and his compilation of contemporary testimonies on Hegel’s life and influence remain important reference works in Hegel scholarship. His editions of Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy^[4][5] (1940) and Berliner Schriften 1818–1831 (1956) contributed significantly to the development of modern Hegel philology. His editorial work laid the foundation for the Gesammelte Werke series, which has been published since 1968.

Hoffmeister’s revised edition of the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, based on Georg Lasson’s earlier work, served as the basis for H. B. Nisbet 1975 English translation.^[6]

In 1955, Hoffmeister published a second, extensively revised edition of the Philosophisches Wörterbuch (Dictionary of Philosophical Terms). The first edition, prepared with preliminary work by Hans Leisegang, had appeared in 1944 and was based on Friedrich Kirchner's Wörterbuch der Philosophischen Grundbegriffe. Hoffmeister had begun revisions in the 1930s.

He also published several studies on Goethe, including an interpretation of “Fairy Tale.” A work on Hölderlin and a biography of Hegel remained unfinished. A collection of lectures he gave while interned as a prisoner of war—on Meister Eckhart, Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel and Hölderlin—was later published as Heimkehr des Geistes (1946).

Works

Writings

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

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)

References

1. Regnier, Marcel (1970). "J. Hoffmeister Et L'edition F. Meiner De Hegel". Archives de Philosophie. 33 (4): 917–920. ISSN 0003-9632. JSTOR 43033227.
2. John Plamenatz (1952). "Hegel's Image and His Views On Social Authority". Man and Society. II (1/2). JSTOR: 139–151. JSTOR 43154835.
3. "Johannes Hoffmeister". meiner.de. Retrieved 2025-11-12.
4. Komasinski, Andrew James (2021). "Putting Ruist and Hegelian Social Thought in Dialogue". Philosophy East and West. 71 (3): 724–746. doi:10.1353/pew.2021.0049. ISSN 0031-8221. JSTOR 27050837.
5. Williams, Robert R. "Georg W.F. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1825-6: Volume I: Introduction and Oriental Philosophy, Robert F. Brown (ed., tr.), Oxford UP, 2009, 323 pp., $125.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780199568932". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
6. Walker, Nicholas. "Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Vol. I: Manuscripts of the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822-3". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Archived from the original on 2024-08-10. Retrieved 2025-05-19.