Otto Fischer was an outstanding Austrian football player and coach of the Liepāja football team Olimpia. He was killed in Liepāja on 3 July 1941 during WWII.
The Liepāja Jewish Heritage Foundation is doing research on pre-war life and sports career of O. Fischer.
Otto Fischer (Schloime) son of Heinrich was born on January 1, 1901 in Vienna. He was killed on July 3 during the Nazi occupation of Liepāja. He was the striker of the Austrian national team, later coach.
Otto Fischer started his football career at the Vienna club “Hertha” (ASV Hertha Wien), where he played for the first time in the Austrian championship.As a left-handed winger, he played alongside Otto Höss and then with Hungarians Kálmán Konrád and Antal Siklóssy. In September 1923, Fischer played for the national team for the first time, after the team lost 0-2 in Budapest against the Hungarians. During three years of playing ining in, the Döblinger team they became vice-champions twice and won the Austrian Premier Football League Cup twice.After SC Hakoah Wien lost during their first North American tour, they had to take care of recovering their losses, and Fischer had become one of such options. In 1925, the position of the left wing was taken over by Gustav Wieser or Ferdinand Wesely until Fischer joined the team again. He played 1.5 seasons for Krieauern and also took part in the second North American tour in the spring of 1927.
In the beginning of 1928 O. Fischer moved to SC Wacker Wien, where he created left sparring with Ignaz Tachs, but a knee injury soon caused Otto Fischer to end his football career. For health reasons, he should have finished his playing career even earlier.
He played his last national team game in October 1928 against Switzerland (Schweiz) in the Nations Cup.
After finishing his active career as a player, Fischer began his coaching career with the national football teams in Switzerland, France and Yugoslavia, as well as FC Salzburg.
In 1932 he took over coaching duties at DSV Saaz, where he worked for two years, and then returned to Yugoslavia, where was supervising as a coach.
In 1936 he was invited to Liepāja, where he has worked as the coach of the football club Olimpia until his murder in 1941.
On June 10, 1941 Otto Fischer registered his marriage with a pharmacologist Anna Lemkina, This was his second marriage. Otto made an impression of a very dignified person. He always dressed fashionably and was considered a kind of dandy. He had a pleasant low tone of voice.
During his work as a coach at Olimpija team, O. Fischer took an active part in preparing young football players of Maccabi Liepāja.
Thanks to his unique methods of training, Otto Fischer has brought the Olimpija team to the title positions in the history of Latvian football. Olympia won the championships of Latvia in 1936, 1938 and 1939.