Memorial Temple of a Forgotten Colonialist. The Mausoleum of Kurt Hoffmann at the Wilmersdorf Forest Cemetery Güterfelde

Until now, the Kurt Hoffmann mausoleum, built in 1916 at the Wilmersdorf Forest Cemetery in Güterfelde (municipality of Stahnsdorf, Potsdam-Mittelmark district), has been largely hidden. Located directly behind the famous southwest cemetery of Stahnsdorf, it is one of the largest grave monuments of three neighboring Berlin cemeteries on Brandenburg soil (Fig. 1). Since the need for inner-city burial areas could no longer be met around 1900, they were built at the gates of Berlin and connected to Berlin's city transport in 1913 with their own S-Bahn connection from Wannsee station. ^[1] The second cemetery opened there in 1914 was the "Whale Cemetery of the Municipality of Berlin-Friedenau in Gütergotz" – the name of today's burial site at the time. ^[2]

In the Berlin-Brandenburg monument landscape, the Hoffmann Mausoleum, which was placed under protection in 2005, is one of the most peculiar tomb buildings; due to its interior furnishings and the accumulation of numerous memorabilia, it is probably unique. In particular, numerous inscriptions and a large mural are testimonies to a bygone era. They tell of Kurt Hoffmann's life and work, but also of patriotism, colonialism and the living environment of an upper-middle-class-conservative class at the time of Wilhelminism. The self-confident appearance of the entire building, its monumentality and defensiveness embody the splendor and pathos of this time, express the creative will of its builder and reflect the character of Kurt Hoffmann, who was buried there.

The mausoleum was created under the strong influence of his widow Frieda Hoffmann as a temple of remembrance, in which the couple's closed worldview is also expressed. Thus, beyond its biographical reference, the tomb is a cast of stone of an attitude that dreams of the "old greatness" of the Empire. With its unadulterated originality, the Hoffmann Mausoleum today forms a unique window into the Wilhelmine world.

In the Wilmersdorf forest cemetery in Güterfelde, the representatively placed mausoleum of Hoffmann remained the only one of its kind, in contrast to several graves in the neighboring southwest churchyard.

About the Hoffmann family

Kurt Hoffmann was born on 2 January 1853 in Berlin as the son of Friedrich Hoffmann, who was known as the inventor of the ring kiln, and his wife Bertha née Flügel (Fig. 2). Of a total of seven siblings, only Kurt and his younger sister Bertha survived a scarlet fever outbreak in 1855. ^[3] The family achieved great prosperity through the successful entrepreneurship of his father Friedrich Hoffmann. He initially worked in railway construction, then devoted himself to the brick industry and later acquired numerous companies. This enabled the Hoffmann family to gain access to the upper-middle-class circles of Prussia. ^[4]

Kurt Hoffmann studied architecture in Berlin and Hanover and later completed military training with the railway brigade in Berlin. He was also interested in the colonial political aspirations of the Reich. ^[5] As early as 1886, he acquired the right to occupy some areas south of the Pangani River in the newly formed German East Africa (today Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi). ^[6] Its founder Carl Peters, who was dishonorably dismissed from the service of the Reich in 1897 because of his racist excesses of violence, was a close friend of Kurt Hoffmann throughout his life. ^[7] In 1889, Hoffmann, who was well connected in the German colonial society as well as politically well-connected, wrote a memorandum entitled "The importance of Somaliland and what must happen to preserve the same for Germany". Coupled with an exuberance of patriotic motivation, he put the demands described above into practice and put together a self-financed expedition to conquer "German" territories in Somalia in October 1889. Often these kinds of expeditions were accompanied by violence against the native population, based on the racist superiority thinking of many Europeans. Hoffmann's venture finally failed, whereupon he directed the expedition to Tanga in German East Africa to found a trading and plantation company there. ^[8]

After marrying Frieda Paukztat in 1890, Kurt Hoffmann headed his father's businesses, such as the Siegersdorfer Werke in Silesia, which mainly produced building ceramics (Fig. 3). In 1895, he returned to Tanga in German East Africa to hold the office of railway construction director during the construction of the first railway line in this colony. ^[9] A year later, he founded a plantation company, which he expanded in the following years into a large-scale plantation economy, for example for sisal agaves, Mauritian hemp and coffee. ^[10] The so-called Friedrich Hoffmann plantation extended over several square kilometres in the Useguha region in present-day Tanzania. The seizure of land there on the basis of dubious contracts and the underpayment of the plantation workers repeatedly led to conflicts between the "authorities" and "subordinates". An alliance of different population groups formed against the levying of a poll tax and forced labour, starting from the south of the colony. Their violent resistance was directed against all representatives of colonial rule. The conflicts culminated in the so-called Maji-Maji War between 1905 and 1907. ^[11] Kurt Hoffmann also feared for his land holdings on the Pangani. He feared that the locals would take revenge on him by setting fires. ^[12] The German side crushed the movement militarily, destroying villages and burning fields. In total, up to 300,000 people died from the war and its consequences. ^[13]

Until its sale in 1914, the headquarters of the plantation company remained at Kurfürstendamm 26a in Berlin-Charlottenburg. ^[14] After the sale, the couple returned to Germany before the outbreak of the First World War. Kurt Hoffmann processed the experiences and impressions of these years in numerous poems, most of which are colored by colonial political propaganda and Germanic nationalism.

In the self-image of patriotic virtue, Kurt Hoffmann volunteered for military service, where the captain was appointed chief of the Military Road Construction Inspection II and as a battalion leader. ^[15] Not directly involved in hostilities, he died of heart paralysis on March 2, 1915 in St. Quentin in northern France. ^[16] The marriage to his wife had remained childless.

After Hoffmann's death, his widow fell into a veritable cult of the dead (Fig. 4). With the construction of a mausoleum, she fulfilled his last wish. ^[17] In addition, she maintained close ties to völkisch-nationalist circles such as the All-German Association. ^[18] Since its founding in 1894, the latter agitated for an aggressive expansionist policy and, after the collapse of the German Empire, campaigned for the recovery of the former German colonies.

In order to be closer to the mausoleum for daily devotion, Frieda Hoffmann purchased a house in Stahnsdorf's Fasanenstraße around 1931 and left her stately apartment at Hohenzollerndamm 28 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. ^[19]

On September 2, 1940, she died in her house in Stahnsdorf of pneumonia and general deterioration of strength. ^[20] No close relatives appeared at the funeral in the mausoleum. ^[21] Her entire fortune was to be used to preserve the tomb. ^[22]

The Mausoleum – A Short Construction Description

The monumental Hoffmann mausoleum is located in an exposed location on the main path of the forest cemetery in the immediate vicinity of the chapel. As a central building with a rectangular floor plan (6 x 8 metres), it was designed as a so-called one-room mausoleum. Stylistically, the completely stone-faced building made of Silesian granite mainly quotes Baroque forms with the inclusion of classicist elements. The upper end of the building at around nine metres is formed by a high bell roof with a copper roof.

The interior is vaulted by a hanging dome with mosaic decoration, and two stained glass windows in the side walls bathe it in a diffuse light. Wall panels made of granite and gold inscriptions quote from Hoffmann's poems. In the middle of the room is the crypt of Kurt and Frieda Hoffmann, half sunk into the ground, over which a blessing Christ spreads his arms. Above it, an almost ten-square-metre mural spans the entire shield surface of the back wall – it shows scenes from Kurt Hoffmann's life. The mausoleum also contains an extensive collection of memorabilia from Frieda Hoffmann's dissolved household.

History of construction and background

Over a period of six years from 1915 onwards, the planning, construction and subsequent perfection of the tomb construction took place. ^[23] Frieda Hoffmann's highest concern was the glorification of her deceased husband, for which she was prepared to invest large sums of money.

With Kurt Hoffmann's death, planning for the construction of a mausoleum began. In order to carry out the construction and draw up a design, Frieda Hoffmann entered into negotiations with the company G. Schleicher & Co., a larger stonemasonry company for monuments and hereditary burials with headquarters at Lützowstraße 82.

By concluding a contract with the municipality of Friedenau on 1 September 1915, it was clear that the Hoffmann mausoleum was to be built on what is now the Wilmersdorf forest cemetery in Güterfelde. Negotiations between the builder and the southwest cemetery had previously failed. ^[24] In addition to the acquisition of the gravesite and the payment of an annual maintenance lump sum, it was contractually stipulated that Frieda Hoffmann would bequeath a sum of 40,000 marks to the municipality of Friedenau or its legal successor after her death for the establishment of a so-called Kurt Hoffmann Foundation. The interest on this capital was to be used for the permanent maintenance of the mausoleum. In addition, it was planned to reacquire the gravesite after the expiry of the 150-year period on 1 September 2065 in order to preserve it continuously. ^[25]

The actual start of construction of the mausoleum by Schleicher was probably in the spring of 1916. By the end of August, the work had progressed so far that a magnificent gold mosaic and two leaded glass windows could be installed by the company Puhl & Wagner. For the two windows alone, the company produced over ten different designs. After a tough struggle with the client, a palm tree motif that can be found today was finally implemented – a reminiscence of Hoffmann's work in German East Africa (Fig. 5). The war situation also had an impact on the construction, for example, only iron instead of brass frames for the windows were available. By the end of September 1916, the mausoleum was almost completed. Its construction adapted worthily to the buildings in the forest cemetery, according to the Friedenauer Lokal-Anzeiger. ^[26]

In order to express Hoffmann's convictions inside the building, Frieda Hoffmann curated mainly patriotic poems by her husband, which can be found in the wall panels. In 1905, his "Deutsche Lieder und Gesänge" (German Songs and Songs) was published, and his second work "Die letzte Lieder" (The Last Songs) was published posthumously. The municipality of Neuhaus (Amt Neuhaus) commissioned Hoffmann to write a "Carl Peters Song". For the German Colonial Society, he wrote a festive song for the Africa explorer, officer and colonial official Hermann von Wissmann, who was responsible as commander for the violent suppression of the resistance of the East African coastal population by German troops in 1889/1890.

After about six months of construction of the mausoleum, Kurt Hoffmann was finally buried in a stone sarcophagus in the crypt on October 25, 1916. ^[27] The building acceptance followed at the beginning of November 1916; however, the client was quite dissatisfied with the result – the entire interior effect seemed too sober to her. So she decided to expand the mosaic decoration from June 1917, for which parts of the mosaic, which had just been completed, had to be chiseled off again.

In 1921, the large mural above the statue of Christ was added as an outstanding element, which was intended to impressively increase the effect of the interior (Fig. 6). Frieda Hoffmann commissioned the Berlin-based painter Christoph Kleinsang, whose second wife Auguste was Frieda Hoffmann's society lady, to realize the work. ^[28] In order to realize her precise ideas, she provided the artist with photographs as a guide, from which Kleinsang composed nine individual pictorial scenes, most of which show Hoffmann in a colonial context. (Fig. 7)

As an example of the colonial appearance of the time, there is a scene on the upper right edge of the picture, which in turn had been collaged from various photographs for the painting. The raging rivers of the Pangani can be seen, above the large waterfalls of the same name. Kurt Hoffmann acquired the land around the course of the river "... legally binding from the then Jumben of Makiniumbi named Mataika...", as he himself stated. ^[29] Around 1905, Hoffmann's land ownership on the Pangani River led to a dispute with the Imperial Governorate in Dar es Salaam. He felt persecuted by the governorate and felt that his efforts – which in his view ultimately served the glory of the empire – had not been adequately appreciated. Hoffmann writes: "I discovered the small Pangani Falls and the highly interesting rapids north of them myself. Instead of leaving the name to the discoverer, as was obvious, they were named 'Hale', using an inappropriate decree in this case, after the insignificant native village. "^[30] At least for the subsequent depiction in the painting, Frieda Hoffmann was able to assert herself, the scene is signed Kurt Hoffmann Falls.

The creation of the mural was the widow's last measure to perfect the building into a memorial temple of Kurt Hoffmann. For the time after her death, she wanted to see what she had created preserved at all costs. Therefore, she amended her original contract of 1915 and made an immediate payment to the now responsible district of Schöneberg in the hyperinflationary year of 1923. ^[31] Her increase of 4 million marks was probably completely nullified by the end of the year in the course of the devaluation of the currency. In order to raise the necessary capital after all, she determined shortly before her death in 1939 that her entire estate, especially the Stahnsdorf property, should flow into the foundation's assets – for the eternal preservation of the mausoleum. ^[32] In her will, she also gave the guardian of the property an annual bonus. 150 Reichsmarks were to be paid to the then cemetery keeper Gustav Henning on Kurt Hoffmann's birthday.

Frieda Hoffmann herself was finally buried in the mausoleum on September 6, 1940, at the side of her beloved husband. Whether and for how long her will was complied with has not yet been fully clarified.

With the advance of the Red Army in 1945, there was some mechanical damage and robbery of the interior. ^[33] Further impairments of this impressive structure were mainly due to a lack of maintenance and a responsibility that remains unclear to this day.

Outlook

For Frieda Hoffmann, the construction of the mausoleum was a monument to a great love. At the same time, the personal design of the grave expresses the couple's attitude of mind – especially transported by the mural. This not only depicts the lament for the loss of a person, but also subliminally the grief over the downfall of an entire era. The painting conveys the reflection of this glorious time for the Hoffmanns and records their high-handed appearance as actors in German colonialism. The building with its furnishings forms a psychogram of Wilhelmine thought in all its facets and, due to its unrestricted original condition, is an extraordinary testimony to patriotism, nationalism and colonialism with high monument value.

The preservation of the Hoffmann Mausoleum depends largely on the social status accorded to colonial monuments such as this one. Preserving it for posterity could also be of great value in the sense of a critical politics of remembrance.