[2][3] Otto Richard Sigismund Tschirch was born in Guben, then a mid-sized industrial town straddling the Neiße River, located between Berlin and Breslau.
[1][4] His elder brother, Alexander Tschirch (1856-1939), later gained distinction as a professor of pharmacy at Bern.
He obtained his teaching certificate in June 1882 and in October of that year took up a position as a Referendary at the Luisenstädtische Gymnasium (secondary school) in Berlin,[7] switching early on to the Saldern-Gymnasium (secondary school) in Brandenburg an der Havel, where from 1884 he had a permanent contract.
[8] In 1899 he was appointed to the newly created (though at this point unpaid) office of Brandenburg municipal archivist, and in 1902 he was nominated as a professor.
[6] Otto Tschirch died following a traffic accident in Brandenburg an der Havel on 13 March 1941.
Of these, Ilse married in 1917 an evangelical minister called Karl Ludwig Wilhelm Lencer; Siegfried became a ship's officer and, later, captain.