Otto Mainzer Collection

The Otto Mainzer collection documents the life and professional activities of Otto Mainzer, lawyer, writer, and financial consultant; the collection also sheds light on the life of Otto Mainzer

The collection includes correspondence, financial, vital, immigration, and legal documents, notes, photographs, printed materials, and writings, by Otto Mainzer and Ilse Wunsch as well as a small number of manuscripts by other authors.

The collection is divided into two distinct sections, one pertaining to Otto Mainzer and the other to Ilse Wunsch.

The first section, dealing with Otto Mainzer is by far the larger one and includes a wide variety of materials documenting his personal life as well as his activities as a writer and financial consultant.

The bulk of the series consists of correspondence, personal as well as general and writings by Otto Mainzer with a few manuscripts by other authors.

Personal correspondence includes correspondence with friends and family, with the correspondence between Otto Mainzer and his wife, Ilse Wunsch being by far the most prominent.

Additionally there is Otto Mainzer's correspondence with a number of other women that he was romantically involved with.

Other personal materials include an abundance of photographs of his friends and family as well as photographs of nature that were taken by Otto Mainzer himself.

General correspondence includes a large body of correspondence pertaining to Otto Mainzer’s restitution case against Germany. Restitution related materials also include documents and court materials

A much larger portion of the general correspondence includes a very extensive correspondence concerning Otto Mainzer’s attempts to publish his numerous works of fiction, poetry, dramaturgy and other. This correspondence documents the struggles of Otto Mainzer and his final victory when some of his work was eventually published, and consists of correspondence with publishers as well as with literary agents, most notably Karl Ludwig Leonhardt.

Writings constitute another large portion of the section. Most of the works collected here, explore human sexuality as a dominant trend in human behavior and as a result an underlying factor in human interactions. Nearly all the manuscripts collected here belong to the pen of Otto Mainzer with other authors constituting nothing more then a fraction of overall materials.

Writings include fiction, poetry, and plays as well as his non-fiction works.

Some of the works have been rewritten during different periods in the life of Otto Mainzer and can serve as an indicator of the changes in his perception of the world. There is an abundance of Otto Mainzer diaries that he religiously kept during most of his life. Later his diaries served as a base for his autobiographical work entitled Auf die höchsten Sterne will ich zielen: Autobiographisches uund Tagebuchnotizen.

Additionally, there are printed materials consisting of reviews and other publications related to Otto Mainzer and his literary work. These materials give a very good insight into the way his work was received by critics and general public, which in some cases did not share the same views.

The second section includes materials dealing with various aspects of the personal and professional life of Otto Mainzer’s wife, Ilse Wunsch. Materials collected here shed life on her personal life as well as her professional activities as a pianist, teacher, and writer.

The bulk of personal materials consists of Ilse Wunsch’s correspondence with friends and family. Other personal materials include documents, such as personal, immigration, and legal, materials pertaining to her divorce form Max Janowski, Last Will, and materials related to the Otto and Ilse Mainzer Fellowship Fund, and photographs.

Ilse Wunsch’s professional activities are well documented by her correspondence with colleagues, professional organizations, academic institutions, and publishers; a few concert programs; teaching materials such as notes and manuscripts, and materials related to the Münchener Sommerprogramm, an exchange student program that Ilse Wunsch helped organize.

Other materials related to Ilse Wunsch’s professional activities include various magnetic tapes and computer floppy discs with her lessons, draft versions of her book, Mein Leben mit Prometheus, and other media materials.

The bulk of the manuscripts collected in this section relate to Ilse Wunsch’s immediate occupation as a music teacher and explore various aspects of teaching, from practical training to theoretical problems such as grading.

Additionally, there is an autobiographical work, Zurück nach vorn, which was published in 1998 by Stroemfeld Verlag.

And finally, there is a biographical prose-Otto Mainzer and Mein Leben mit Prometheus, dedicated to Ilse Wunsch’s husband, Otto.