 After finishing the eighth year of school, Hoffmann was apprenticed as a carpenter.In 1917, he joined the "Deutscher Holzarbeiterverband" ("German Woodworkers' Union").In February 1917, during World War I, Hoffmann was called into the "29er Pionieren" in Posen (now Poznań, Poland), where his comrades in arms saw fit to elect him to the Soldiers' Council.