These photographs span almost the entire decade of the 1920’s, approximately 1923-1929. Adolf Hitler strictly controlled his public image and would have Hoffmann photograph him in any new suit before he would ever wear it out in public. These must have been very much to his liking as these portraits were reproduced quite frequently on postcards and other propaganda materials well into the late 1930’s. And let’s face it, Hitler looks breathtakingly bewitching in black.

So I just came across this Adolf Hitler portrait just released to the public (in March 2023) while doing a reverse image search on the photograph above. It’s dated on the Deutsches Historisches Museum website as being taken at Hoffmann’s studio in August 1927. What a find!!

This is the 5th photograph that I have tracked down from the August 1927 portrait series. Hopefully I will come across a much higher resolution version in due time – but luckily it can still be thoroughly enjoyed as is until then!!

The photo above was used in this striking poster from the 1932 presidential election. The usual approach to poster design is to use color to make them stand out. This one stood out because of Hitler’s disembodied face floating on a solid black background.

In all likelihood this next set of 5 photographs were taken on 3 September 1923 in Heinrich Hoffmann’s studio in Munich.  In his memoirs, Hoffmann recounted that Hitler had dreamed of receiving $30,000 for his first photographic portrait sitting.  But at the “Deutscher Tag” held in Nuremburg on 2 September 1923, Hoffmann was foiled by an Associated Press journalist named Georg Pahl who photographed Hitler standing among the officers of parading units, and then disappeared into the crowd before Hitlerʼs bodyguards could catch him. Hitler thus had to abandon his dream.  “Immediately after the success of [that] ʻphoto by assault,’” Hoffmann wrote, “Hitler beckoned me to come over to him.  ʻHoffmann,’ he said, ʻtomorrow I’ll come to your studio in Munich. The time has now come, and at last you shall take your photograph.ʼ” Quote from Heinrich Hoffmann’s book, ‘Hitler Was My Friend: The Memoirs of Hitlerʼs Photographer’.

This portrait of Adolf Hitler also goes with the 4 taken above in September of 1923. He’s wearing the same tie, and put on the same trench coat that he wore at the Nuremberg rally the day before.

I’m still trying to track down a specific date for the portrait session below, either 1927 or no later than 1928, most likely the latter. Note that all of these feature a very unusual square swastika pin on Hitler’s lapel. I’ve never seen this particular lapel pin outside of this portrait session.

These last 2 portraits are from 1923, but also appear to have Hitler wearing a small square swastika lapel pin versus the common larger circular pin. Unfortunately it’s really too hard to tell with the low resolution of these early photographs.