[1] Born to a Bad Hofgastein hotelkeeper, Hofer went to the Volksschule-Realschule in Innsbruck and in 1922 began a career as a freelance salesman.

He very quickly rose in the Party, becoming Kreisleiter (County Leader) in Innsbruck on April 1, 1932, and on July 1, Deputy Gauleiter of the Tyrol.

[2] For his activities in the Nazi Party, which was banned in Austria, Hofer was arrested in June 1933 and sentenced for treason by a Tyrolean court to 30 months in prison.

In November 1944, Hofer suggested in a memorandum to Adolf Hitler that an "Alpenfestung" ("Alpine Fortress") ought to be built up in the heart of the Alps as Nazi Germany's last bastion.

Apparently Hitler's secretary Martin Bormann only brought this document to the Führer's attention early the next year.

Hitler – 18 days before his own suicide and still convinced that his Endsieg was possible – again approved Hofer's ongoing plan and appointed him Reich Defence Commissioner of the Alpenfestung.

In June 1949, Hofer was tried in absentia and convicted of high treason by the People's Court in Innsbruck and was sentenced to death.

Meanwhile in Germany, he was classified as a "major offender", tried by the High Court of Justice in Munich and sentenced to ten years in a labor camp in June 1949.

[7] In 1964, a lawsuit brought by Hofer's children for the return of ownership of the Lachhof bei Hall where their father had lived while he was the Gauleiter, was dismissed by an Austrian court.

Hofer spent his later years in Mülheim an der Ruhr with his wife and seven children, continued his former trade as a salesman and died a natural death on February 18, 1975, under his real name.