Biography
Otto Richter was a coppersmith from Bremen, Germany, and a member of the German Young Communist League. Nazi supporters beat him on the night of the Reichstag fire in 1933, and he fled Germany aboard a ship bound for Seattle. In San Francisco he worked at the Workers’ School restaurant, assisted the International Labor Defense and helped organize soup kitchens for striking workers. Police and vigilantes arrested him during the July 1934 general strike and sent him to Angel Island for deportation. He spent ten days out on bail in December before being returned to custody. He was later transferred to Ellis Island, where the Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born and International Labor Defense challenged his deportation to Germany. He surrendered for deportation on June 12, 1936, and was again confined at Ellis Island. He went on hunger strike after authorities refused to set bail. A protest campaign secured his release on $1,000 bail in July, along with permission to seek refuge outside Germany. Belgium subsequently refused him entry.
The Daily Worker of March 27, 1935, page 4, reports that churches were sending their own attorneys to support Richter's asylum challenge at a United States District Court hearing planned for Friday, March 29. It names Joseph R. Brodsky, Osmond K. Fraenkel and Alexander E. Racolin as his defense attorneys and describes proposed affidavits about Nazi persecution. It identifies him as nineteen and then held at Ellis Island without bail. The article's discussion of the Palmisano Act is a proposed legal argument, not an established ruling or a grant of asylum.
Daily Worker, May 12, 1936, page 2: The article describes a Germany deportation scheduled for May 15 and protests by Henry Marz and Joseph P. Lash seeking a stay and asylum. It says Richter had an American-born wife. The threatened May 15 removal is not treated as an executed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n114-NY-May-12-1936-DW-Q.pdf
Daily Worker, August 26, 1936, page 4: The paper reports a second deportation stay until September 1 after Belgium refused admission to Richter and his American-born wife. It describes an eighteen-day hunger strike at Ellis Island in June and continuing liberty on $1,000 bail. The stay and search for another country are not an executed removal or a final grant of asylum. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n205-NY-aug-26-1936-DW-Q.pdf
In an Ellis Island interview, Richter recalled fleeing Nazi Germany, work in the San Francisco Workers School restaurant, strike relief and his seizure during a raid on the International Labor Defense office, followed by Angel Island detention. He described ten days out on bail during December and remand after acknowledging Young Communist League membership. The article described an ILD and Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born thirty-day deportation stay. That legal stay is not thirty completed days of imprisonment, and the bail interruption prevents an assumption of continuous detention. The reported age of twenty is a contemporary source statement, not a reconstructed birth date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n046-Nat-feb-22-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
An anti-deportation appeal connected Richter’s United States arrest to the San Francisco strike and recalled his arrival as a seaman in 1933 after hiding from the Nazis in Germany. The reported four and a half months in hiding refer to Germany, not American imprisonment. The threatened return to Germany remained prospective. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n071-NAT-mar-23-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=5
Page 2 individually names him among those still held for deportation whose freedom the American Committee for Protection of Foreign-born Workers urged after the Kettunen appellate victory. This is continued immigration-defense context for the existing case, not a separately documented intake, discharge or completed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n190-NAT-aug-09-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 4 identifies him as twenty-one, an anti-Nazi refugee facing June 13 departure on the Westenland; the YCL announced a June 10 protest. This is an anticipated removal and asylum-defense appeal, not proof of sailing or intake. It does not replace the separately established June 12 surrender and later hunger strike with an unconfirmed departure. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n138-NY-jun-09-1936-DW-Q.pdf
Frances Rich’s biographical feature describes Richter’s German Young Communist League activity, beating and release on the night of the Reichstag fire, seaman’s escape, Vancouver anti-Nazi leafleting, Seattle landing and San Francisco restaurant work before the 1934 raid. The feature mistakenly places the Reichstag fire in January 1933; that internal error is not used as an exact date. His American wife Bertha and marriage about four months earlier are reported without an invented wedding day. The June 12 surrender and June 13 sailing were still prospective in this issue, and do not override later verified bail release. Daily Worker, June 12, 1936, original PDF page 7. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n141-NY-jun-12-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=7
The July 14 report says the Labor Department had permitted Richter to seek Belgium as a refuge and reports a job offer. Departure within three weeks was still a plan, not an accomplished sailing or Belgian admission. Its June 13 confinement wording differs by one day from the separately established June 12 surrender, and is retained as a source discrepancy without replacing the exact date or later refusal of entry. Daily Worker, July 14, 1936, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n168-NY-jul-14-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
The June 24, 1936 report prints Richter’s hunger-strike letter to Ellis Island immigration commissioner Rudolph Reimer, identifying his room as 211 and demanding reasonable bail after his wife’s request was refused. It confirms confinement since his June 12 surrender and says protest had postponed the planned June 13 deportation. The paper does not date the start of the hunger strike beyond the letter’s relative wording, and the threatened removal is not an executed deportation. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n151-NY-jun-24-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
Abner Green’s retrospective dates Richter’s San Francisco soup-kitchen raid and arrest to September 1934 while calling it the general strike. This conflicts with the established July 1934 general-strike arrest. The distinctive soup-kitchen raid links the account to the existing episode; the month discrepancy is preserved without creating an additional arrest or overwriting the better-established July chronology. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn10-oct-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=17
Daily Worker, March 27, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The article identifies Richter as a nineteen-year-old German anti-fascist arrested in the general-strike roundup and actually held for deportation to Nazi Germany. The September 28 asylum-defense conference is prospective; no completed deportation, physical discharge or complete duration is inferred.
Page 6 reports Richter actually released from Ellis Island on $1,000 bail after a hunger strike. It identifies his renewed confinement as beginning June 12, 1936, and says he was given thirty days to arrange admission somewhere other than Nazi Germany, while political asylum remained refused. The thirty days concern a departure deadline, not time served; no exact July release day or completed removal is supplied. The article recalls his 1934 strike-relief arrest and Nazi assault in 1933, without creating duplicate cases.
The page 8 labor note reports New Republic praise for Richter and his damages action against Hearst’s American, recalling that he had recently been saved from deportation to Germany. This is an account of a civil suit and contemporary press support, not proof of a damages judgment or permanent asylum.
Daily Worker, August 9, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, June 9, 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The November 18 San Francisco account names Richter among those held in the deportation campaign affecting Branch and Diaz. This is detention evidence, not a completed deportation, release or new 1936 arrest.
Labor and fraternal organizations in the United States and Canada protested Richter’s continued Ellis Island imprisonment and threatened removal to Germany. The Nature Friends telegram explicitly says he was held without bail and requests reasonable bail and asylum. The demand is not proof that bail was granted or removal occurred.
The front-page report states that the Labor Department released Richter from Ellis Island on a $1,000 bail bond after his hunger strike and public protests. It dates this renewed imprisonment from June 12 and says he was given thirty days to arrange admission to a country other than Germany, while United States political asylum remained refused. No exact release day is printed. The departure deadline is not imprisonment served, and permission to seek refuge is not completed emigration or permanent asylum. His identified portrait is already represented by an existing profile photograph.
The report announces a June 23 surrender notice and proposed June 24 President Harding deportation, and asks supporters to intervene. It identifies the 1934 San Francisco strike arrest, denial of asylum and his American-born wife. Both the surrender and sailing are future events as of publication and are not entered as actual custody or removal endpoints.
The anti-Nazi refugee defense call names this worker among people threatened with deportation to Germany. It specifically describes Alfred Miller as a Montana farm-paper editor and Becker’s two brothers as concentration-camp prisoners; Richter was ordered to surrender May 15 and leave his American-born wife. Inclusion in the appeal alone is not proof that every listed person was then jailed or deported; independently recorded bail and later outcomes are retained.
The review of Charles Recht’s The Right of Asylum names Sallitto and Ferrero as California residents held for deportation to Italy over renting restaurant office space to anarchists. It separately lists Eric Becker, Carl Ohm, Otto Richter, Stella Petrosky and Walter Baer among radical or labor activists held for deportation. These are current detention and threatened removal references, not proof of actual deportation, a new admission or individually measured custody.
