HORMAYR, JOSEPH, BARON VON (1782-1848), German statesman and historian, was born at Innsbruck on Jan. 20, 1782. He entered the foreign office at Vienna (18o i) , rose in 1803 to be court secretary and, being a near friend of the Archduke John, director of the secret archives of the state and court. During the Tirolese insurrection of 1809 against Bavarian supremacy, Hor mayr was the mainstay of the Austrian party, and assumed the administration; but, returning home without the prestige of suc cess, he fell into disfavour both with the emperor Francis I. and with Prince Metternich, and when, in 1813, he tried to stir up a new insurrection in Tirol, he was arrested and imprisoned at Mun katt. In 1816 some amends were made to him by his appointment as imperial historiographer; but in 1828 he accepted an invitation of King Louis I. to Munich, where he became ministerial coun cillor in the department of foreign affairs. He was Bavarian minister-resident at Hanover (1832-37), and at Bremen (1837– ; superintendent of the national archives at Munich (1846 48) . He died on Oct. 5, 1848.
Hormayr's history of the Tirolese rebellion (1817) is far from impartial; for he always liked to put himself into the first place, and the merits of Andreas Hofer and of other leaders are not sufficiently acknowledged. In his later writings he appears as a keen opponent of the policy of the court of Vienna.
See F. v. Krones, Aus Osterreichs stillen and bewegten Jahren 1810-1815; Biographie and Briefe an Erzhz. Johann (Innsbruck, 1892) ; Hirn, Tiroler Aufstand (19o9).