Gender Male
Otto Bremer was born on October 22, 1867 in Seesen, Germany, son of a banker father. He immigrated to the United States, arriving in November 1886 with his brother Adolf. He worked as a stock clerk for a St. Paul, Minnesota wholesale hardware company before he took a position as a bookkeeper at the National German American Bank in 1887. During the
next decades, he was promoted to higher positions, and became a major stockholder in the bank. In 1921, he became Chairman of the new American National Bank, and continued as Chair for 20 years.
Adolf and Otto Bremer owned 25 percent of Schmidt's Brewery stock by 1901.
Following the death of Jacob Schmidt in 1911, Schmidt's son-in-law and Bremer's brother Adolf assumed control of the Schmidt brewery. Both Bremer brothers were active in politics, having lobbied against the Minnesota County Option Law in the 1890s, a law which would have allowed counties to institute alcohol prohibition. Following Adolf's death in 1939, Otto served as President of Schmidt's Brewery.
During the Great Depression, from 1929 thru the 1930s, Bremer invested money in many small town banks in the area, often showing up with a satchel of cash to save the local bank from failing. By the mid 1930s, he held stock in 55 banks in the area. He had also risked the full capital value of the bank, and had to be rescued by his brother Adolf, who pledged the shares in Schmidt Brewing Company held by him and his wife (Marie Schmidt Bremer, the daughter of brewery founder Jacob Schmidt). With his brother Adolph, Bremer ran the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company.
