A committed adherent to the country's political path during the 1950s and 1960s, he enjoyed the confidence of Walter Ulbricht, at times employed as an official spokesman for the leader.

After Ulbricht lost power in 1971, the public profile of Otto Gotsche quickly faded, and he found himself retiring, one by one, from the various party offices he had acquired.

[3] Otto Gotsche was born in Wolferode, a quarter on the western side of Eisleben, a small town to the west of Leipzig which then, as now, was chiefly venerated as the birthplace of Martin Luther.

By this time he had already co-founded, in 1918, the Mansfeld regional Free Socialist Youth movement and joined in the revolutionary turmoil that broke out across Germany in the aftermath of national military defeat.

He received another jail term in 1923 when his functions as a Communist party official - which according to one source involved participation in an armed uprising in the Autumn of that year - landed him with a conviction for high treason.

[1] Moving to the Hamburg area, in 1932/33 Gotsche served as a city councillor in Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, while continuing to pursue his work as a party official.

Respecting the agreement between President Roosevelt and General Secretary Stalin, in July 1945 the US army removed itself from the region and the Soviets moved in.

Otto Gotsche was promptly installed as vice president of the regional administration to be based in Merseburg, with special responsibility for implementing land reform.

[1] The party merger nevertheless had its opponents from among those who had never been Communists, and within the Merseberg district Otto Gotsch, as president of the regional administration, handled the situation with nimble-footed intransigence.

During the next couple of decades Otto Gotsche, described on various occasions as "Ulbricht's Paladin",[13] was a loyal supporter of the leader, with whom he worked closely, and on whose behalf undertook a succession of increasingly important tasks and roles.

Between 1960 and 1971 Otto Gotsche served this institution as its secretary, a position in which he reported directly to Walter Ulbricht, who was installed as the body's chairman.

[10] Although he would experience a major loss of power and influence after 1971, Gotsche would continue to be listed as a Central Committee member till he died at the end of 1985.

[17] Reflecting the close links between literature and politics in East Germany, Otto Gotsche was also prominent as a representative of the Working Writer's Movement (Zirkel Schreibender Arbeiter).