Otto Weidt initially trained as a painter and gilder. In his youth, he was organized in anarchist circles, was politically active, and referred to himself as an “individualistic anarchist.”
After the almost complete loss of his eyesight, Otto Weidt became a brush maker. In 1939 he and his business partner Gustav Kremmert opened Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind, which relocated to Rosenthaler Straße 39 in Berlin in 1940.
Otto Weidt was a determined opponent of National Socialism. He employed mainly Jewish staff, and did what he could to protect them from persecution. His wife Else Weidt supported his efforts.
Eventually he was unable to protect his workers from deportation, even by bribing Gestapo officers. He therefore found hiding places for some of them. Several people survived thanks to his help.
Not all those he helped and for whom he arranged hiding places were able to survive underground. Some were betrayed, arrested by the Gestapo, deported from Berlin, and murdered.
The Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem honored Otto Weidt posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations in 1971.