Adolf Otto (1872–1943 · merchant / tenant)

Otto was born in Berlin in 1872. Besides his professional activities as a businessman in printing and publishing houses, he became interested in emerging ideas of the life reform movement. Otto was a staunch supporter of the social-ethical and economic reforms of the garden city movement and maintained close ties to the Friedrichshagen circle of poets. Together with like-minded spirits such as Bernhard Kampffmeyer and Robert Tautz, in 1902 Otto founded the German Garden City Society DGG in Berlin, where he held the position of general secretary and administrator for many years. As a founding member, he paved the way for the DGG's only Berlin project, Falkenberg Garden City, and supported the estate as a long-standing representative on the Alt-Glienicke municipal council. The Otto family’s residence at Am Falkenberg 119 was designed by Heinrich Tessenow and served as DGG's office. After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the estates expert was stripped of all his offices and forced to emigrate. His travels took him via England to France, where he continued to work on housing projects. In 1942, Otto was forced to return to Berlin, where he died in 1943.