Private (ret.) Josef Hofmann

* 1926  †︎ 2011

  • "I was still meeting the standard, so I was good. But there were those who didn't meet it. Even if it wasn't true. Such a parish priest also wanted to meet, but he didn't have the strength with the pickaxe, so he couldn't. It wasn't his job, was it? There were also some remarks on them."

  • "The training was very short. Sometimes they shot, and whoever hit, was good, whoever missed, was worse. The officers watched this. Those who were in the barracks didn't like it either. They'd rather have a room too. But our officer was simply mean and strict. Because the one who trained us also had to run with us and listen to us."

  • "I must have been injured by a metal shard. It was only as big as a needle, as needles are tiny round. It cut me like that, it was left hanging, then they took it out and I stopped bleeding too. The doctor says, 'It's nothing.' But first they didn't take me to the hospital with them. Then I took advantage of it and got in. The doctor also wondered why they brought me. So I told him I was unconscious."

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    Dolejší Těšov, 17.07.2009

    (audio)
    duration: 01:35:22
    media recorded in project Stories of 20th Century
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With my Catholic faith, I handled both armies

Josef Hofmann in the Wehrmacht, 1944
Josef Hofmann in the Wehrmacht, 1944
photo: Archive of the witness

Josef Hofmann was born on April 8, 1926 in Cheb, in the then Czechoslovakia, but grew up in the village of Zhůří in Šumava. His father was of German nationality, while his mother was Czech, but German was spoken at home and Josef Hofmann attended only German schools. During the war years he became a member of the Hitler Youth and in April 1944 he enlisted in the Wehrmacht. He received training in Schwandorf, Bavaria, and underwent combat deployment, which lasted approximately two weeks, according to the witness, in France and Holland. He was also slightly wounded by shrapnel on the front line. He was subsequently taken prisoner by the Americans and walked across Germany to Zhůří. After the Second World War he worked in a mill in Velhartice, but then he was drafted into the Czechoslovak People’s Army. Because of his German nationality, he served in the auxiliary technical battalions. After returning from military service, he graduated from the Secondary Agricultural Technical School in Sušice and worked for the State Farm as a technician and supply driver. After 1989 he worked in Hartmanice as an interpreter for the German company Klieber. At the time of the filming (2009) he lived with his wife in Dolejší Těšov in Šumava. He died there in 2011.