Fred Allhoff
{{Short description|American magazine writer (1904–1988)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Fred Allhoff
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| birth_name = Christopher Frederick Allhoff
| birth_date = {{birth date|1904|06|11}}
| birth_place = Dayton, Ohio, United States
| death_date = {{death date and age|1988|11|11|1904|06|11}}
| death_place = Dade County, Florida, U.S.
| other_names =
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Fred Allhoff (June 11, 1904{{snd}}November 11, 1988) was an American magazine writer best known for his Liberty pieces in the 1930s and 1940s. The corruption exposé "The Lid Off Los Angeles" (1939) is considered influential in the history of that city, another crime series was adapted into an Edward G. Robinson film, and his speculative fiction serial Lightning in the Night (1940) is considered a significant and early example of the hypothetical Axis victory in World War II subgenre.
Biography
Allhoff was born Charles Frederick Allhoff in Dayton, Ohio in 1904.Ohio, County Births, 1841–2003 - FamilySearch - https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VN71-YL5 Entry for Charles Frederick Allhoff and Charles G. Allhoff, 1904. He was an only child, his father was a bookkeeper for a printing company,United States Census, 1910 - FamilySearch -https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MLF6-6BC - Entry for Charles G Allhoff and Sarah E Allhoff, 1910. and then an insurance agent."United States Census, 1920 - FamilySearch -https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDT2-967 Entry for Charls G Allhoff and C Frederick Allhoff, 1920. His mother died when he was young and his maternal aunt moved in to help raise him. In 1930, at age 25, Fred Allhoff was employed as a newspaper reporter in Dayton"United States Census, 1930" FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4H8-VYN Entry for Charles G Allhoff and Fred C Allhoff, 1930. and/or Cleveland, Ohio."United States Census, 1930 FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4QM-GTK - Entry for William H Byron and Elsie Byron, 1930. Allhoff got married in 1931 in New York City."New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938" FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24D4-PSD Entry for Charles F. Allhoff and Pauline Gertrude Engelhard, 1 Aug 1931. A 1936 article series for Liberty called "Tracking New York's Crime Barons" became the 1938 Edward G. Robinson picture I Am the Law.{{Cite book |last=Goble |first=Alan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yyqc0Qa6b60C&pg=PA806 |title=The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film |date=2011-09-08 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-095194-3 |pages=806 |language=en}} In 1939 he cowrote the six-part corruption exposé "The Lid Off Los Angeles"{{Cite book |last=Ewing |first=Russell H. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_0s_AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Lid+Off+Los+Angeles%22 |title=County Government and Administration: A Manual and Syllabus |date=1940 |publisher=School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance, University of Denver |pages=34 |language=en}}{{Cite thesis |title="Build a Fence Around Los Angeles": Labor, Unemployment, and Survival in the City of Angels, 1929-1941 |url=https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/7597?ln=en&v=pdf |publisher=The University of Chicago |language=en |first=Daina Kathleen |last=Coffey |page=229}} and in 1940 he wrote the 13-part "What if Hitler won?" series "Lightning in the Night", both for Liberty.{{Cite web |title=SFE: Allhoff, Fred |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/allhoff_fred |access-date=2024-07-03 |website=sf-encyclopedia.com}} "The Lid Off Los Angeles" triggered a libel lawsuit that was settled out of court in 1943.{{Cite news |date=1943-04-29 |title=Shaw and Clinton Litigation Ended |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-shaw-and-clinton-l/149541395/ |access-date=2024-07-03 |work=The Los Angeles Times |pages=32}}
Allhoff and his wife lived on Long Island in 1940; his work was "writer".United States Census, 1940, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K3BM-M6J , Entry for Frederick Allhoff and Pauline Allhoff, 1940. Allhoff's wife Pauline died of illness in New York in 1944."New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949", database, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2WTJ-NN1 Fred Allhoff in entry for Pauline A Engelhard Allhoff, 1944. Allhoff moved to Coral Gables, Florida in 1945, where he continued to work as a writer."Florida State Census, 1945", FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNNS-NF5, Entry for Fred Allhoff, 1945. Around 1948, Allhoff and his new wife bought 16 acres near the Caloosahatchee River.{{Cite news |date=1973-02-04 |title=25 Years Ago |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/news-press-25-years-ago/149940056/ |access-date=2024-06-24 |work=News-Press |pages=17}} In 1950, he was living in Lee, Florida, with his second wife, and working as a fiction writer."United States Census, 1950, FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6X24-S3Q1 Entry for Margaret Allhoff and Fred Allhoff, April 17, 1950. He may have gone into the real estate business in Miami in the 1960s.{{Cite news |date=1960-02-06 |title=Announcing Silver Palm Estates |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-herald-announcing-silver-palm/149938466/ |access-date=2024-06-24 |work=The Miami Herald |pages=9}} Lightning in the Night was republished in book form in 1979.{{Cite news |date=1979-03-25 |title=BOOKS: What if Adolf Hitler had defeated the British? |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-morning-news-books-what-if-adolf-hi/149813337/ |access-date=2024-06-22 |work=The Morning News |pages=102}} Allhoff died in Florida in 1988.Florida Death Index, 1877-1998 - FamilySearch - https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VVNW-C5S - Charles Frederick Allhoff, 11 Nov 1988; from "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," index, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : 2004); citing vol. , certificate number 112331, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.