Hubertus Hoffmann
Hubertus Hoffmann is a German entrepreneur, geostrategist and philanthropist as Founder and President of the World Security Network Foundation and The Human Codes of Tolerance and Respect Project.
Activities as University Student and Young Scientist
Hoffmann was born in Göttingen. He studied Law, History and Political Science at the University of Bonn and worked as an advisor in the European Parliament (Office of Prof. Hans-Gert Poettering, later President of the European Parliament), the German Bundestag (State Secretary of Defense Peter Kurt Würzbach, MP) and the U.S. Senate (Sam Nunn, Gary Hart) in defense and foreign affairs.
Hoffmann was Research Fellow at the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), Georgetown University. Dr Hoffmann holds a Ph.D. in Political Science with summa cum laude (Prof. Karl Dietrich Bracher, University of Bonn, Germany) and is a lawyer as well. He is a reserve officer in the German Army (Bundeswehr).
Journalist, Manager and Investor
For 13 years (1993/94-2007) he has worked as entrepreneur and investor in different funds. His entrepreneurial track record includes New Media Digital GmbH (1996), MBI/MBO, Loewe Opta GmbH (1996) and Internet Media House AG (1998-2001). From 1996-2000 he was founder and CEO of InternetMediaHouse AG and a large investor and member of the Executive Board at Loewe TV company. Before that he had worked as a journalist in the White House Press Corps, as an editor for ZDF (1988-1990), the largest TV station in Europe. He then became CEO of the radio business of the Georg von Holtzbrink Publishing Group, and later Managing Director for New Media in the Burda Publishing Group in Munich, building up 15 companies for new media in Europe from 1993 to 1995. In 2005 he became co-founder of German Capital Group (GCG) which invested from 2005-2007 Euro 3.3 bn in companies like Volkswagen, BASF, ThyssenKrupp, Lanxess and Siemens. He is now shareholder of ExportNow! in Shanghai and other internet start-ups and investor.
Political Activities
Aged 25, Hubertus Hoffmann in 1980 initiated a CDU/CSU resolution and Federal Law of the Bundestag for an Annual Report on Arms Control and Disarmament, which since then has been published by the German Government.
For ten years Hoffmann was Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Committee for Foreign, Defense, European and Inner-German Affairs in his home state of Lower Saxony in Germany. In 1984, he initiated the exchange program for young reserve officers from the U.S.A. and Germany. He was a German member of the Executive Committee of the NATO Reserve Officers Association CIOR. In 1986 Hoffmann was elected member of the City Council in his home town Goslar (Harz).
He supported the Mujaheddin from 1985-1990 against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, visiting them in the mountains in 1985 and writing the Afghanistan Report for the European Parliament.
In 1989 he initiated and helped to finance the first Farmers Association of Silesia which now has more than 3,000 Polish and German members and runs its own dairy. In 1992 he was Chairman of the Eesti Committee Report (requested by Estonian President Tunne Kelam) about the Future of the "Baltic Hanseatic Region" (including Oblast Kaliningrad, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), which helped to stabilize democracy in the Baltic after decades of Soviet occupation.
In 2002 Hoffmann became founder and president of the World Security Network Foundation, New York-based until 2012. In 2010 he initiated the first official "Progress Report on Afghanistan" of the German Government supported by the SPD opposition and the CDU/CSU and FDP groups in the Bundestag.
Today, one of his main activities is The Human Codes of Tolerance and Respect Project, promoting universal rules for parents, educators, journalists, religious leaders and politicians on how to promote respect for other religions, races and ethnic minorities, as important soft factors of peacemaking including best practices from all over the world.
Awards
In 1981 his home town of Goslar awarded him its "Förderpreis" for journalistic merits (Laudatio: General (ret.) Johannes Steinhoff, former Chairman of NATO's Military Committee). In 1998 Schitag Ernst & Young, SAP and Manager Magazine honored Hoffmann as Finalist German Entrepreneur of the Year 1998 for growth and innovation as member of the Board and co-owner of Loewe Opta Holding TV company.
In October 2000 he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for "innovative business ideas" by German President Johannes Rau in Schloss Bellevue (Berlin). In 2002 at Friedrichsruh Palace near Hamburg, Prince Ferdinand von Bismarck bestowed upon Hubertus Hoffmann the Bismarck Medal in Silver with Golden Oak Leaves for his "patriotic faithfulness and proven Prussian national consciousness".
Book Author
Hubertus Hoffmann is the author of two standard books on nuclear strategy (both in German). In 2004 he published a book about his mentor for 25 years, Fritz G. A. Kraemer: "Fritz Kraemer On Excellence". In 2012 a new, extended edition of this book followed.
- Codes der Toleranz. Eine Anleitung für Weltverbesserer und Pessimisten, streng Gläubige und freie Geister. Herder, Freiburg / Breisgau 2014, 464 S., ISBN 978-3-451-33373-6
- True Keeper of the Holy Flame - The Legacy of Pentagon Strategist and Mentor Dr Fritz Kraemer, with contributions from Alexander M. Haig Jr., Henry A. Kissinger, Madeleine Kraemer Bryant, Wilhelm-Karl von Preussen, Edward L. Rowny, Donald Rumsfeld and others), 384 pages, Verlag Inspiration Un Limited, London/Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-9812110-5-4.
- Fritz Kraemer on Excellence. Missionary, Mentor and Pentagon Strategist, New York 2004.
- Die Atompartner Washington-Bonn und die Modernisierung der taktischen Kernwaffen (Washington and Bonn as Nuclear Partners and the Issue of Modernization of Tactitcal Nuclear Weapons), Koblenz 1986, ISBN 3-7637-5477-6
- Atomkrieg - Atomfrieden. Technik, Strategie, Abrüstung (Nuclear War - Nuclear Peace. Technology, Strategy, Disarmament), Bernard und Graefe, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7637-5190-4
External links
- "True Keeper of the Holy Flame" - Hoffmann's 2012 book about Fritz Kraemer
- World Security Network Foundation
- The Human Codes of Tolerance and Respect Project