Otto Palotai

Otto Palotai, prior to the Magyarization named Otto Rosenthal, was one of Hungary’s outstanding middle-distance runners. He represented FTC from Budapest, at the time much better known as football club. Between 1911 and the outbreak of World War I, Palotai secured numerous victories in races between 400 m and on mile. Initially, he also competed in high jump and in 1913 in cross-country running. In 1912, he was entered for the middle-distance events at the Stockholm Olympics but did not start. At the Hungarian Championships, he won bronze over one mile in 1911 and over 880 yd in 1912 as well as silver over 880 yd in 1913. About six weeks after the Olympics, he set a national record in the 800 m and 880 yd in the same race with 1:57.4 and 1:58.4, respectively.

Palotai was trained as a clerk and became a representative of the German chemistry company Agfa in Budapest. In 1932, he was temporarily arrested, charged with currency smuggling during the world economic crisis. Two years later, he married Olga Brichta. In the 1940s, he was general manager of the local subsidiary of the German IG Farben group, named Bunadil. With Germany’s increasing pressure, Palotai was laid off due to his Jewish background. With almost all Hungarian Jews he was deported to the concentration camp Monowitz (Auschwitz III) and died in 1944.