Hogeback, the son of a tax inspector, was born on 25 August 1914 in Idar-Oberstein at the time in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, a state of the German Empire.

[2] Hogeback then joined the military service as an officer cadet in the 9th Company of Infantry Regiment 15, 5th Division of the Reichswehr in Kassel.

[3] The Condor Legion was a unit composed of volunteers from the Luftwaffe and from the German Army (Heer) which served in the Spanish Civil War in support of the Nationalists.

The combat observer, Poppenhagen, and the flight engineer, Hermann, managed to bail out but the radio operator Unteroffizier Gerhard Pacht, was wounded and failed to escape.

Hogeback bailed out as well but sustained skull and lung injuries when he struck the antenna and vertical stabilizer and came down in no man's land where he was recovered the following night.

[3] At the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, Hogeback was back with III./LG 1 where he flew the He 111 in combat missions in the Invasion of Poland.

[3] Hogeback and III./LG 1 was relocated to Sicily for operations in the siege of Malta and on 20 January 1941 he was appointed Staffelkapitän (squadron leader) of the 8./LG 1.

[6] On 8 September 1941, after 163 combat missions, Oberleutnant Hogeback received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) from the hands of Fliegerführer Afrika Generalmajor (Lieutenant General) Stefan Fröhlich at Derna in North Africa.

The award was presented at the Wolf's Lair, or Wolfsschanze (Führer Headquarters, at Rastenburg, East Prussia) in early March 1943.

Hitler then said that this procedure would be changed before inviting them to tea along with Luftwaffe adjutant Oberst Nicolaus von Below.