Biography
Joseph Hofer was one of four Hutterite absolutists from the Rockport Colony in South Dakota who, drafted in 1918, refused as a matter of faith to wear the uniform or perform any military service. Court-martialed and sentenced to twenty years hard labor, he was held at Alcatraz — where the men were tortured in "the hole" and hung by their wrists ("high-cuffing") — and transferred to the Fort Leavenworth Disciplinary Barracks on November 19, 1918. He died there on November 29, 1918 after brutal treatment (the Army recorded pneumonia); the Hutterites buried him as a martyr, and his death, with his brother Michael's, became the National Civil Liberties Bureau's "Exhibit A" of the mistreatment of objectors.
Joseph J. Hofer Hutterite communal farmer from the Rockport Colony in South Dakota, drafted in May 1918 along with his brothers Michael and David and his brother-in-law Jacob Wipf. Refusing on Anabaptist grounds to don the military uniform, court-martialed and sentenced to 20 years hard labor at Alcatraz. After four months of solitary confinement on bread and water and "high cuffing" chains, transferred to Fort Leavenworth on Nov 19, 1918, and died ten days later. The Hutterite Church regards him as a martyr.