Arne Hoff, Dr.phil.

Arne Hoff was born on 1 October 1907 in Copenhagen, and went to school there. He began to study law at university in 1925 but soon switched to history and, while still a student, worked as an assistant in the Nationalmuseet and participated in the excavation of the Wisby battlefield in Gotland, Sweden, where the Danes fought the Swedes in 1361. In 1934 Hoff joined the staff of the Tøjhusmusset, the Royal Danish Arsenal Museum, which specializes in the history of the Danish defence forces and European arms and armour. When he was elected to Honorary Fellowship of the Antiquaries in 1972 he had been the museum's Director for six years and was internationally recognized as probably the foremost authority on early firearms. But Hoff's interest in guns was not only academic. He was gazetted a reserve lieutenant in the Danish Artillery in 1934; held the rank of major in the Home Guard reserves from 1955-70 and was president of the International Reserve Officers' Association. He also taught history at the Danish Army Officers' Training School. The scholarly study of firearms has been greatly advanced by Hoff's numerous published papers and his monographs: Feuerwaffen I and II, (1969); Airguns and Other Pneumatic Arms (1972), published in this country at the invitation of his friend and colleague, Claude Blair, FSA, in Barrie and Jenkins' Arms and Armour series; and Dutch Firearms, (1978). Hoff was, in fact, the first serious researcher of Dutch firearms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1960 he founded the International Conference of Museums of Arms and Military History and acted as its first Secretary General, organizing triennial meetings which still provide a forum for all those interested in weapons from blowpipes to Colt revolvers. Successful conferences have been held in Copenhagen, London, Vienna, Moscow, Turin and Rome and, even after his retirement from the Tojhusmuseum in 1977, Hoff welcomed like-minded visitors to his home in Copenhagen. The discipline of the soldier kept him physically fit throughout his long life and it was while getting his things together for his daily swim on 16 December 1997 that he suffered his fatal heart attack.