In the latter stages of World War II Hoffmann's family fled to western Germany to avoid the advancing Red Army.
Most of his works were based on little-known topics like Deutsche und Kalmyken 1942 bis 1945 (Germans and the Kalmyk people) (1977), Die Ostlegionen 1941 bis 1943 (1981) and Kaukasien 1942/43: Das deutsche Heer und die Orientvölker der Sowjetunion (Caucasus 1942/43: The German army and the eastern peoples of the Soviet Union) (1991).
In particular, his skepticism over the use of gas chambers to execute concentration camp inmates, as well as his claim that the death toll of six million Jews was a product of Soviet propaganda are both criticized.
[6][7] In 1996, the German Bundestag stated that scholars unanimously rejected claims in the book including Hoffmann's preventative war thesis, and his skepticism over of the death toll of roughly 1 million Jews at Auschwitz.
Wigbert Grabert published the anthology Grundlagen der Zeitgeschichte by Germar Rudolf, a Holocaust denier convicted of Volksverhetzung (incitement of the people), under his pseudonym "Ernst Gauss".