Otto’s Retirement and Last Years

Abstract

Earlier chapters have provided evidence that Otto had been toying with the idea of retirement for some years before the crisis that faced him on his return from the Carte du Ciel conference; he just seemed unable to make a decision. He celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday a few days after his return home; only eighteen months earlier he had had a long illness during which, as he admitted privately to his friends, the administration of the Observatory suffered. It was clear that whatever happened, Otto must give up the directorship soon. Many members of the Academy may have thought it best, both for Otto and Pulkovo, to precipitate the decision. To this extent, Otto may have been right in accusing them of “ulterior motives” (Chapter 15), although he may have misread those motives for something worse than they were. Nevertheless, the situation was a complex one with many factors affecting the course of events.