Adolf Johann Albert Hoffmann (24 October 1907 – 26 August 1972) was a German entrepreneur, who during the Third Reich served as the Nazi Gauleiter of Westphalia-South.

On 1 July 1933, he left his occupation as a raw tobacco merchant to become a full-time Party functionary, assuming the management of the organization, press and personnel offices in the Bremen Kreis.

From the outbreak of the Second World War on 1 September 1939 to 25 November, he took part in battles in the Lemberg (today, Lviv) area, during the Nazi invasion of Poland.

He served as an Unteroffizier in a Kradschützen (motorcycle) squadron of the 1st Mountain Division, was promoted to Wachtmeister and was awarded the Iron Cross, 2nd class.

[5] From 5 May to 20 September 1942 Hoffmann was detailed to serve as Reichsleiter Martin Bormann's representative on the commission headed by Generalleutnant Walter von Unruh, seeking to mobilize the population for total war and replenish losses of manpower.

On 17-18 July 1942, Hoffmann, accompanied by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and Gauleiter Fritz Bracht, attended a gassing operation of Jews in the Auschwitz concentration camp, which was located in his Gau.

He gained insights into the actions of the Einsatzgruppen murders, the death camps of Operation Reinhard, the Germanization process and the brutal measures used to recruit Ostarbeiter (Eastern workers), and he made suggestions for improvement (Verbesserungsvorschlägen) from the Party Chancellery as well as Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.

Shortly before the war ended, as Allied troops were invading his jurisdiction, he ordered the destruction of numerous bridges and other infrastructure in accordance with Hitler's Nero Decree.

Finally, on 13 April 1945, Hoffmann discussed setting up a Werwolf operation before dissolving his Gau staff and the Volkssturm organization in Westphalia-South.

[10] After fleeing and hiding out for several months, Hoffmann was finally discovered and arrested by British troops on 4 October 1945 in the village of Marienau, where he was posing as a farm worker.

He later was himself charged in two British military criminal cases in Recklinghausen (October 1946) and Hamburg (December 1948) in connection with the murders of Allied airmen and foreign forced laborers.

[5] After his release from prison at Esterwegen in April 1950, Hoffmann earned considerable assets as an entrepreneur in Bremen until his death in Heiligenrode on 26 August 1972.