In Memoriam
Charles W. Hoffmann (1929-2007)

We mourn the passing of Professor Emeritus of German Literature and Film Charles W. Hoffmann who died at the James Hematology Center of OSU Hospitals on October 29, 2007. He is remembered as an enthusiastic and devoted teacher, a respected colleague and friend, a dedicated member of the academic community who served his department, his university, and his profession with distinction over the years.

Professor Hoffmann held a Bachelor's degree (1951) from Oberlin College where he was a Phi Beta Kappa scholar, and M.A. (1952) and Ph.D. (1956) degrees in German Literature from the University of Illinois. As a two-year Fulbright fellow in 1953-55 he studied literature and political science at the University of Munich. In 1956 he joined the German faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles where in 1962 he received the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award. In 1964 he accepted a position as Associate Professor at The Ohio State University, was promoted to the rank of Professor in 1966, and taught at OSU for a total of 28 years until his retirement in 1992. He served as Chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures from 1969 to 1977 and again in 1986-87.

Under his leadership in the 1970s the Department instituted numerous administrative reforms, expanded its graduate and undergraduate programs in keeping with emerging interests in interdisciplinary and cultural studies, and developed one of the best TA-training and German language programs in the country. During this time German 299: Weimar and the Third Reich in German Literature and Film was instituted, a course that in Hoffmann's hands became the Department's most popular offering and one he taught with resounding success quarter after quarter until his retirement. Just as he knew how to reach out to others across the lecturn and the disciplines, Chuck Hoffmann stood steadfast at the helm of his ship. He was not only our Department's head, not only its center, but also its heart. His colleagues and students from those years will long remember the acts of personal kindness and generosity that were his trademark, acts for which he expected no return and of which he gave freely.

Chuck Hoffmann's personal values were reflected in his larger political commitment to civil rights and peace and justice issues. His scholarly and teaching interests addressed liberal humanistic principles in German literature before and after World War Two. His book Opposition Poetry in Nazi Germany (University of California Press, 1961) was the first in-depth treatment of this topic. His editions of works by Kafka, Brecht and Böll were published by New York: Norton in 1961 and 1970, his Survey of Research Tool Needs in German Language and Literature by the OSU Research Foundation in 1978. Over the decades he authored numerous papers and journal articles on contemporary German writers and trends. He was also a theater enthusiast versed in modern drama from Ibsen and Shaw to the Expressionists and Brecht to Arthur Miller and Tom Stoppard, and an active supporter of progressive local theater groups in Columbus, in Ohio, and in the greater Midwest.

Professor Hoffmann's contributions in service to The Ohio State University were legion. He was a member of and often chaired important College and University committees, including the Faculty Council, the Arts and Sciences Senate, several search committees for deans of the College of Humanities, Department and Program Review committees, the Film Studies Committee, Study Abroad Committee, Fulbright Fellowship Selection Committee, Library Council, and many others. He also chaired the National Honorary Member Committee of Phi Beta Kappa and served in various capacities for the American Association of Teachers of German, the Modern Language Association of America, as well as the American Association of University Professors in which he held executive positions, among them as chair of its OSU chapter from 1984 to 1986.

Throughout his career Professor Hoffmann was a staunch advocate of faculty governance and academic freedom. As early as in 1970-72 he chaired the OSU Committee to Establish a University Senate. Perhaps his greatest later achievement lay in his success in initiating and shepherding through faculty and administration channels a University Rule stating that tenure resides not in the tenure initiating unit but the university: in the event such a unit is dismantled its tenured members retain all the rights and responsibilities of tenured university faculty. In 1983 Hoffmann was honored as the recipient of the OSU/AAUP Louis Nemzer Award for defense of academic freedom and service to faculty governance.

We extend our condolences to Chuck Hoffmann's wife Barbara, his son Erik, and his daughter Karla. As we mourn his passing we also celebrate the life and contributions of this exemplary colleague, teacher, scholar, and friend.