Co-sponsored by East Village Community Coalition, Lower East Side Preservation Initiative , and the Bowery Alliance of Neighbors, Goethe Institut New York, Ottendorfer Library NYPL, and the City Museum of Svitavy

This program is part of Village Preservation’s Semiquincentennial series of programs celebrating our Revolutionary Village. Revolutionary Village not only celebrates the founding of our country, but the exceptional role our neighborhoods played in its development and the realization of its ideals over the last 250 years and beyond.

Join us for a special event marking the bicentennial of the birth of Oswald Ottendorfer(1826-1900), the visionary publisher and philanthropist who raised the profile of New York City’s Little Germany and advocated for reforms in the treatment of its German immigrants. 

As a young man born in Moravia (then in the Austrian Empire), Oswald Ottendorfer joined various student rebellions demanding democratic reforms in Europe. Most notably, he fought on the barricades in the October Uprising of 1848 in Vienna. After it was brutally crushed, he fled to the United States as a political refugee. Though educated in law and a linguist, he did not speak any English; but as it turned out, New York City’s Little Germany, or Kleindeutschland, would act as the perfect crucible for his talents. Gifted with a sharp intellect, and commanding a special status as a “48er,” Ottendorfer was uniquely suited to step in and play a leadership role in the city’s burgeoning German immigrant community. Starting out in a lowly job in the counting room of the German-language newspaper the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, he worked his way up to become its editor and publisher. Under his leadership, and that of his wife Anna, who served as the paper’s business manager, TheStaats became a newspaper to rival the city’s largest English dailies, lending a powerful voice to German immigrants all over America. 

As arguably the most prominent and influential individual in Kleindeutschland – and certainly one of the wealthiest due to the massive success of The Staats – Ottendorfer became the city’s leading advocate for the legal and political rights of its German-speaking residents. He opposed the ways the city government would attempt to buy immigrant votes, even running for mayor on an anti-corruption platform. Along with his wife, he donated money for establishing a free library and other social services to assist German (and other) immigrants with their assimilation. To this day the Ottendorfer Library, a landmark building at 135 Second Avenue, stands as the city’s oldest free public library building. 

Ottendorfer also gave generously to improve the social conditions of his hometown of Zwittau (now Zvitavy, in Czechia), which at that time was facing severe economic crises. He built a library on the site of his childhood home that housed 23,000 volumes, as well as a hospital and an orphanage.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Oswald Ottendorfer, this presentation and discussion traces in two parts his extraordinary journey from European revolutionary to pillar of Little Germany to transatlantic philanthropist:

1. REBEL WITH A CAUSE: Filmmakers Mary-Lea and Thomas Enderle pay tribute to the young Oswald Ottendorfer as they recount their travels through cities in Germany, Czechia and Austria on his trail, delving into his participation in the revolutions of 1848, the failure of which led him (and other 48ers) to flee to America. They will screen the trailer from their film, In Search of Oswald Ottendorfer: A Travelogue, which also features footage of the Ottendorfer Library in his hometown of Zwittau (now Svitavy, in Czechia).
2. NEW YORK CITY ICON: Christian Much pays tribute to Ottendorfer’s fight for immigrant rights as the head of the powerful Staats-Zeitung, as well as his gift to the city of the Ottendorfer Library. Notably, Ambassador Much features the Ottendorfer Library as the central setting of his latest novel, Goin’ Home and Far Away, which concerns the period when Czech composer Antonín Dvořák lived in New York City. 

Dr. Mary-Lea Enderle  holds a Ph.D. in politics and literature from Essex University in the UK and a filmmaking certificate from the New York Film Academy. She has worked for many years as a communications specialist in higher education, most recently at Columbia University. She considers herself a cultural explorer having lived for many years in England and Japan. She is now enjoying getting to know Germany and the center of Europe.

Thomas Enderle was born in Japan to German parents, trained as a lawyer, and worked for three decades in Hamburg, Germany, as a director and board member of an international company. Now an East Village resident, he often gives walking tours from the Ottendorfer Library on “Little Germany and the 48ers.” Follow him on Instagram: @GermanyinNewYork

Christian Much is a retired German ambassador who spent part of his career at the United Nations in New York, including as Legal Advisor to the German Permanent Mission during the establishment of the International Criminal Court. A lawyer by training, he has written numerous essays on international law, human rights, and the United Nations. Since retiring, he has been writing novels on topics close to his heart: history, politics, and music. Goin’ Home and Far Way is his third novel.