1923

 

Otfried Preußler 1930

On October 20, 1923, Otfried Preussler is born in Reichenberg in Northern Bohemia. Among his ancestors in the foreland of the Isergebirge and Riesengebirge, there are glassmakers and peasants, rural craftsmen and some copper engravers, and among his relatives there are even two magicians. 

 

Both his parents are teachers, and in his spare time, his father does research in the local history.  

  

Reichenberg and surroundings around 1920

  

From his earliest childhood, Otfried Preussler finds motives in the large  library of the family. . 

The local popular storytellers, above all his Grandmother Dora, who disposes of an inexhaustible fund of stories, have another formative influence on him.

Grandmother Dora

"My grandmother´s story book – which actually has never existed – is the most important of all the books I have ever known in my life."  
 

 

First grade in the Rudolfschule

with teacher Effenberger, in 1930		  

It is from his Bohemian home country that Otfried Preussler acquires his themes. As a little boy, he often makes excursions with his father, who collects the myths of the Bohemian Isergebirge. 

Together with his father, he often sits in the people´s parlours by the light of the oil-lamp in the evenings, listening to their stories about magicians, poachers, witches, water-sprites and ghosts.

  

School theatre of the Rudolfschule in 1935

Otfried Preussler (sitting) as Herodes