In 1924 he moved south, taking a position with the theatre company of the at which the spirit of the pre-war court theatre which the baroque building had accommodated before 1918. There are indications that there may have been explosive clashes of will between Hans Otto and the enthusiastic youthful Theatre General Intendant ("theatre director") . Gera lacked the "big city dynamic" of Frankfurt, Hamburg or Berlin, and according to one source it was with some relief that in 1926 Otto returned to Hamburg, where between 1926 and 1929 he performed at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus, to which Erich Ziegel transferred from the Kammerspiele Theatre at around the same time. Ziegel moved on after a couple of years, but Otto remained at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus under his successor, , for another year.