 After the Nazis seized power in 1933 and his flat was stormed by police and SA troops meaning to arrest him – he managed to get away – Hoffmann was sent by the KPD as an organizer of antifascist resistance into the underground in Chemnitz, but was nevertheless arrested in November.In 1934, he was sentenced to three years in Waldheim Labour Prison ("Zuchthaus") for "spreading a high-treasonous undertaking".In 1937, his time over, he was then taken into "protective custody", but released on 20 December for good behaviour after having spent a few months in Sachsenburg, and later Buchenwald concentration camp, after the former was shut down.