With my Catholic faith, I handled both armies
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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.
