Otto Mächtlinger(1921-1985)

He was born in Reichenberg, today Liberec, at that time german Sudetenland, that is the northern part of former Chekoslovakia. He and his little sister Susanne lost their mother when he was 4 and his sister 2. In world war II he served as a marine where he lived 3 attacks by planes which he survived only by wonder. After the war he and a group of friends founded the Franconian Theatre near Coburg, Northbavaria, in an old cold castle. They were paid with wood and coal and things to eat. There he met his first wife Edith, a violinist. His daughter Nora was born in 1951 and his son Uwe in 1954. For 10 years he was member of the Schauspielhaus in Zurich which he left with Peter Stein and a group of colleagues 1964. They founded the revolutionary Schaubühne in West-Berlin. 1974 he went to Switzerland with his swiss wife "Toni" and worked as a freelancer for the rest of his life. He died at the early age of 64 from cancer. Still on the day of his death he was on stage in a main part, seated, because he was not able to stand. He was a friendly, tolerant, caring and courageous person. He could have been a famous star if he had wished so.