Stefan von Hofen's Crisis Lessons: From Memoir to B2B Toolkit

Stefan Schenkelberg, the Bavarian entrepreneur and author who writes as Stefan von Hofen, is positioning his personal history as a crisis management toolkit. According to a new press release, he has disclosed formative experiences that have not previously appeared in his work, and he links them to a short guide, "Beat the System Without Losing Yourself." The release says these experiences underpin his memoir "The Infinite Story of Two Lovers" (German title "Die unendliche Geschichte zweier Liebender"), published June 29, 2026 by R.G. Fischer Verlag.

From the Earlier Story to New Detail

The release recaps the public outline of his story: a 1990s real estate career with commissions it puts at more than 400,000 DM, the collapse of his business network and a journey across three continents that ended in an emergency shelter in Costa Mesa, California. What it adds are earlier episodes. In 1988, in the middle of his business administration exams, his father suffered a fatal heart attack, and Schenkelberg took over the family's business affairs and accounting.

The release also describes a later case in England, where school authorities and child protection services questioned his family's circumstances. It says he responded by meeting his lawyer at his own agency office in Essex, engaging an outside psychology expert and attending school conferences with a journalist and a civil servant as witnesses. The release says the case was dropped after eighteen months. These accounts are the author's own and the release does not provide independent confirmation.

The Crisis Toolkit

The release draws a short set of lessons from these episodes, centred on emotional intelligence: slowing one's own pulse, using deliberate pauses in conversation and being transparent with the other side. It describes a further example from July, during his participation in the Hermann Scherer GOLD program, when a tax office seized his bank account over an unpaid parking fine from Austria. The release says he responded with AI-assisted correspondence and full transparency about his investments, including 5,000 euros for the GOLD training.

"Those who learn—even when pushed to the absolute limit—to physically slow their own pulse, harness the power of the pause, and wield radical transparency as a weapon, can transform institutional pressure into strategic room for maneuver."

— Stefan von Hofen

Two Brands, Two Audiences

The release says the author has split his public identity in two. Stefan von Hofen is the literary brand, focused on memoir and emotional reflection, at stefanvonhofen.com. Stefan Schenkelberg is the B2B brand, focused on crisis management, keynote speaking and mentoring, at stefanschenkelberg.de. His food brand, Rainers Bavarian Feinkost & Mehr in Waging am See, is named in tribute to his late brother Rainer, according to the release.

The release also says Hermann Scherer, the German-language author and keynote speaker, wrote the foreword to the book. It credits the GOLD program with helping Schenkelberg refine his positioning as an expert. It says he won the International Speaker Slam and received an Excellence Award. These claims are the author's own and are not independently verified.

Frankfurt Book Fair Appearance

The release says Schenkelberg was to appear at the GOLD Verlag booth at the 2026 Frankfurt Book Fair (October 7–11), which it describes as a stage, TV studio and VIP meeting point. It says a fully booked talk on Friday, October 9 would present "Beat the System Without Losing Yourself" and be broadcast nationwide on Experts TV. The release gives no publisher, price or ISBN for the guide.

Whether the two-brand approach reaches both readers and executives will depend on how the guide is received outside the author's existing network. For business readers, the release puts the main appeal on practical techniques for handling bureaucratic and financial pressure, though it offers no outcome data beyond the author's own account.