Gotsche, Otto

Born July 3, 1904, in Wolferode. German author from the German Democratic Republic.

Gotsche is the son of a miner and a member of the Communist Party. He has been the secretary of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic since 1960. His first novel, Spring Thunder (1933), which dealt with the role of youth in the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat from 1918 to 1921, was destroyed by the Gestapo and reissued in 1953. His novel Deep Furrows (1949; Russian translation, 1952) deals with the building of a new life in the countryside. The novel Between Night and Morning (1956) describes the building of a democratic Germany and the resistance of progressive Germans to Hitlerism. The novel The Banner of Krivoi Rog (1959, filmed in 1967) recounts the feat of the miners of Mansfeld, who preserved a memorial to Lenin and the banner of the Krivoi Rog miners during the years of fascism. Our Little Bugler (1961) is a novel depicting the legendary proletarian hero Fritz Weineck. The struggle against fascism is recounted in the novel Life Prevails (1967).