[1] Renate Eva Olga Aleith was born in Bergfeld, a small town in the Bromberg district of what was at that time the Prussian Province of Posen.
[3] It might have been assumed that she would now progress her career as an academic, but in the event she completed a practical term as a trainee pastor even though, in the context of the time and place, there was no prospect of a woman being appointed by the church to take charge of a parish.
Kurt Scharf, a youthful but already prominent churchman (who later became the evangelical Bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg), reacted by ordaining Ilse Härter and Hannelotte Reiffen, two female theologians serving in community-based jobs.
"I'm representing my husband" ("Ich vertrete meinen Mann") was her statement, quoted in 1942 in the journal "Die Theologin" ("The female Theologian").
[1] The war ended in May 1945, leaving the entire central portion of Germany - including the Hoffmanns' home region of Brandenburg - administered as the Soviet occupation zone.
Little by little church regulations in East Germany caught up with reality, progressively bringing the formal roles of male and female pastors closer together.
In 1952 the church "general superintendent"Walter Braun (1892–1973), a long time proponent of "women in the pulpits", formally ordained her in the newly redefined post of "woman pastor", and her role was accordingly "reconsecrated".
Persistent resistance from within the church hierarchy to female theologians entering the ministry came not from the bible, and the key to addressing it was to build up male self-knowledge.
Initially he was a regular visitor to the rectory, but the couple never lived together on a long-term basis, and fairly soon the visits stopped.
[1] The gaunt "Frau Doktor" was respected in her parish, for her scholarship, for her austere domestic arrangements and for her notably assertive approach.
"But later I found her a very warm woman, especially in her own house ... when you rang the doorbell the first thing you heard was the dog snuffling, followed by gentle humming or singing as she came to the door".
[1] A directory of her publications, which also include numerous articles and other contributions to church publications, from the period 1936 - 1995, has been compiled by Uwe Czubatynski and can be found in Archivbericht Nummer 6 / November 1996 (Archive report Number 6 / November 1996), published by the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg ("Evangelische Kirche in Berlin-Brandenburg") (ed.