Towards the end of 1933 he was killed - most surviving sources use the verb "murdered" - by "Nazi paramilitaries", becoming one of the Hitler government's first victims from the world of the arts.
[5] At one of the schools he attended a fellow pupil was Erich Kästner, who later achieved literary eminence, principally as an author of books for children.
[6][9] During 1919 Hans Otto took lessons in stage acting - including voice projection and singing - with Eduard Plate in Dresden and with Robert George.
[10] Otto made his 1920 debut at the Frankfurt Künstlertheater in a production by Adam Kuckhoff of Schiller's "Kabale und Liebe" (loosely, "Intrigue and Love").
[11] A theatre critic at the time commended his "cuttingly sharp artistic personality ... a perfect specimen of a thoroughly modern approach to [stage] art".
There are indications that through her new young husband Marie Otto-Paulun became increasingly politicised, and that through the two of them the former dramaturge and successful theatre director Adam Kuckhoff also came to a heightened level of political awareness which in 1943 would lead to his execution under then Hitler government.
The northern port cities had a long tradition of left-wing political militancy, and Otto came into contact with the labour movement at this time, which left him with a deep commitment to many of the ideals of the Communist Party which had been founded in Berlin during 1918/19.
[16] An example in 1929 was his appearance at Berlin's "Theater in der Königgrätzer Straße" in the title role of "Winnetou, the Red [Indian] Gentleman", with Ludwig Körner, in a stage drama based on "wild-west fiction" by Karl May.
[4] One of the few movies in which he did agree to appear was, the UFA production, "Das gestohlene Gesicht" (1930, loosely, "The Stolen Face") a Crime film directed by Erich Schmidt in which Otto took the lead role of "Bill Breithen".
As a high-profile and popular stage actor who was also a known Communist Party member, he found that his home was subject to regular visits and house searches by the police.
He also embarked on a sideline as a left-wing political journalist, working on the stage and screen trade journal "Arbeiterbühne und Film" under a pseudonym that incorporated the maiden name of his late mother, "Hans Bellmann".
Meanwhile, it was also at the start of 1933, on 21 January 1933, that Otto Hans starred as "Kaiser" (the emperor) in the stage premier of Faust, Part Two, at the Prussian State Theatre, alongside Gustaf Gründgens and Werner Krauss.
He was taken, in the first instance, to the Café Komet in Berlin-Stralau a few kilometers to the east, where he found he was one of a number of detainees rounded up and gathered together in this improvised collection point and, as he now discovered, torture location.
Despite his own injuries, comrades would later recall that Otto was unceasing in his own efforts to encourage fellow detainees, suffering similar treatment, with words of consolation and courage.
In order to avoid being thought to have killed him, the security services officer now carried him upstairs to the third floor, from where they threw him out of a window, intending to explain that he had "committed suicide", should they find themselves called upon to account for his condition.
[7][27] The killing of Hans Otto was one of the first atrocities performed on behalf of the Hitler government to gain widespread media coverage outside Germany.
[29] Much of what is known of Hans Otto's final days came to public notice only twelve years later, after 1945, when Hinze felt at liberty to share his information.