Otto Frank

Otto Frank
Born	Template:Birth date Germany
Died	August 19, 1980(1980-08-19) (aged 91) Birsfelden, Switzerland
Occupation	Entrepreneur
Known for	Father of Anne Frank; editor and publisher of Anne Frank's diary; founder of Anne Frank Foundation

Otto Heinrich Frank (12 May 1889 – 19 August 1980) was a German entrepreneur and the father of Anne Frank. He was responsible for editing and releasing the initial edition of Anne’s diary in 1947, which became known in English as The Diary of a Young Girl. Additionally, he provided guidance on its adaptations for stage and film. During the 1950s and 1960s, he founded several European charitable organizations bearing Anne’s name and established the trust that manages the wartime secret annex, now the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

Early life

Born into a Jewish family in Germany, Otto Frank was the second child among four siblings to Alice Betty (née Stern) and Michael Frank. His brothers were Robert and Herbert, and his sister was Helene (Leni) Frank. Among his relatives were the furniture designer Jean-Michel Frank and his grandfather Zacharias Frank. Otto’s father relocated from Landau to Frankfurt in 1879 and married Alice Stern in 1886. The family placed great importance on a middle-class education; Otto received music instruction, learned to ride horses, and frequently attended theater and opera performances. Their household was known for its extensive social network and hospitality.

Otto pursued economics studies at Heidelberg University between 1908 and 1909. Through a college acquaintance, Nathan Straus Jr., he completed an internship at Macy's in New York City. Following his father’s death in 1909, Otto briefly returned to Germany before resuming his stay in the United States, ultimately returning to Germany permanently in 1911.

Military service

During World War I, Frank served in the Imperial German Army. He was conscripted in August 1915 alongside his two brothers, undergoing training in Mainz. He was assigned to an artillery unit deployed on the Western Front, where many soldiers had backgrounds as mathematicians or surveyors. In 1916, he served as a range-finder attached to infantry units during the Battle of the Somme. Promoted to lieutenant in 1917, he participated in the Battle of Cambrai, where two French cousins lost their lives. His military service earned him the Iron Cross decoration.

Marriage and children

Initially, Frank worked at the family banking business, which he co-managed with his brothers until it collapsed during the early 1930s. On his 36th birthday, 12 May 1925, he married Edith Holländer, who was heir to a scrap-metal and industrial supply enterprise; their wedding took place in Aachen. The couple had two daughters: Margot Frank (born 16 February 1926) and Anne (Annelies Marie) (born 12 June 1929). Edith perished from starvation and illness at Auschwitz on 6 January 1945. Margot and Anne were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp late in 1944, where they succumbed to typhus.

In 1953, Otto remarried Holocaust survivor Elfriede (Fritzi) Markovits, who later assisted him in founding the Anne Frank Foundation based in Basel. Markovits’s daughter, Eva Schloss, is also a Holocaust survivor and active international speaker.

World War II

With the rise of Nazism and increasing anti-Jewish legislation in Germany, Otto arranged for his family’s relocation. In August 1933, they moved first to Aachen, then subsequently settled in Amsterdam, Netherlands. That same year, Otto’s widowed mother escaped to Switzerland.

Erich Elias, Otto’s brother-in-law, was employed by Opekta, a company specializing in spices and pectin that was expanding across Europe. Erich facilitated Otto’s appointment as Opekta’s representative in Amsterdam, providing financial support for his family. The Franks lived in Amsterdam-Zuid among other German expatriates. In 1938, Otto launched Pectacon, a wholesaler dealing with herbs, pickling salts, and mixed spices used for sausage production; Jewish butcher Hermann van Pels from Osnabrück served as an advisor to Pectacon. Edith Holländer’s mother resided with the family until her passing in 1942. After Germany occupied the Netherlands in 1940, Otto transferred ownership of his businesses to employees classified as "Aryan" to avoid confiscation.

Between 1938 and 1941, Otto sought visas for emigration to the United States or Cuba on behalf of his family. Although he obtained a Cuban visa, it was never utilized due to its cancellation following declarations of war by Germany and Italy against the U.S. Attempts to secure British visas also proved unsuccessful.

In July 1942, when deportations commenced, Otto concealed his family within a secret annex located above Opekta’s Amsterdam offices behind a movable bookcase. This decision followed Margot receiving an order for labor conscription in Germany. Shortly thereafter, Hermann van Pels and his family joined them, followed by Fritz Pfeffer. Their concealment was supported by Otto’s colleagues Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies and Jan Gies, Victor Kugler, and Bep Voskuijl.

The group remained hidden for two years until their arrest in August 1944 under circumstances that remain unclear. SS officer Karl Silberbauer apprehended them along with two helpers. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl avoided capture and safeguarded Anne Frank’s diary after Nazi authorities cleared out the hiding place.

Following their detention in Amsterdam, they were transported first to Westerbork transit camp then onward to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Otto was separated from Edith and their daughters upon arrival and placed with other men in separate barracks. At Auschwitz liberation by Soviet forces on 27 January 1945, he was confined to the sick barracks. Subsequently, he contacted his mother residing in Switzerland and spent six months searching for surviving relatives and friends within the Netherlands. By late 1945, Otto remained as the only survivor among those who had hidden at Prinsengracht.

Post-war life

Following confirmation of Anne Frank's death in 1945, her diary and documents were entrusted to Otto Frank by Miep Gies, who, alongside Bep Voskuijl, had salvaged them from the looted secret annex. Otto Frank began transcribing the diary for relatives residing in Switzerland, believing it provided crucial insight into the Nazi persecution. Prior to publication, he removed sections deemed excessively personal or trivial. Dutch historian Jan Romein subsequently reviewed the manuscript for Het Parool in April 1946, which led Amsterdam’s Contact Publishing to agree to publish the work that summer. Today, Otto Frank is acknowledged as a co-author of the diary.

The initial Dutch version was released on 25 June 1947 under the title Het Achterhuis ("The Secret Annex"). Its popularity spurred an English translation in 1952, followed by a stage adaptation in 1955 and the 1959 film The Diary of Anne Frank, where Joseph Schildkraut portrayed Otto.

On 10 November 1953, Otto Frank wed Auschwitz survivor Elfriede Geiringer in Amsterdam; the couple later relocated to Basel, Switzerland, where he had family ties and shared his experiences. In 1963, he established the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel (separate from the Amsterdam foundation), with a mission to manage global rights to the diary. This non-profit organization channels its earnings into charitable initiatives, education programs, human rights advocacy, anti-racism efforts, and social justice promotion.

When a demolition order threatened the building where the family had hidden during WWII, Otto Frank together with Johannes Kleiman founded the Anne Frank Foundation in Amsterdam on 3 May 1957 to safeguard and restore the site as a museum. Thanks to public contributions, the property was acquired and opened as the Anne Frank House museum on 3 May 1960; it continues to operate today.

Otto Frank devoted his life to ensuring publication of the diary and advancing its messages. He passed away from lung cancer on 19 August 1980 in Birsfelden; his ashes were interred there alongside Elfriede’s eighteen years later. He left behind stepdaughter Eva Schloss, as well as sister Helene Frank (Edith’s sister-in-law) and her two children.

Otto Frank appointed the Basel-based Anne Frank Foundation as his exclusive heir and legal successor; this organization retains copyright over all of Anne Frank’s literary works.

Legal disputes involving Nazi supporters

After the diaries were made public, Otto Frank encountered numerous legal challenges from parties claiming that he or others had fabricated the manuscript, with such accusations persisting beyond his passing in 1980. In 1959, Frank initiated a criminal lawsuit for libel, defamation, and antisemitic remarks against two members of the right-wing Deutsche Reichspartei, Lothar Stielau and Heinrich Buddeberg, who had dismissed the diary as a work of fiction.

In 1976, Ernst Römer, known for his Nazi sympathies, accused Frank of tampering with Anne's diary. Frank responded by filing a lawsuit, and the judiciary affirmed the diary’s genuineness. Römer sought a further inquiry through the Hamburg District Court, which involved the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA). Claims that portions of the diary were penned using ballpoint ink produced after 1951 were refuted; these fragments consisted of separate notes in distinct handwriting and were not part of the original document. It is believed that some page numbers were inserted by Otto Frank during the diary’s assembly. No entries within the diary contained ballpoint pen ink. The timing of Frank’s death prevented journalists from obtaining his comments on these matters.

Books

• The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank
• Anne Frank Remembered, Miep Gies and Alison Leslie Gold
• The Hidden Life of Otto Frank, Carol Ann Lee
• Roses from the Earth: the biography of Anne Frank, Carol Ann Lee
• Love, Otto, Cara Wilson
• Eva's Story, Eva Schloss
• Mirjam Pressler, Treasures From The Attic
• The Last Secret of the Secret Annex: The Untold Story of Anne Frank, Her Silent Protector, and a Family Betrayal, Joop van Wijk-Voskuijl and Jeroen De Bruyn

External links

• Overview of Otto Frank's early years, provided by the Anne Frank House
• BBC interview with Otto Frank from 1976 (RealPlayer required)
• Article detailing Otto Frank's later life, including a 1979 photograph
• Documentary exploring Otto Frank's correspondence about his family’s efforts to escape Nazi persecution
• BBC interview featuring Otto Frank from 1976 (RealPlayer required)
• Footage of Otto Frank and Miep Gies at the Anne Frank House inauguration in 1960 (English subtitles)
• Oral history testimony of Otto Frank at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Official website of the Anne Frank Foundation Basel