Ottomar Wilhelm Berndt was a Soviet composer of German descent. He was born on 1 July 1896 in Rivne, Volhynia Governorate, Russian Empire, and died in the Soviet Union in September 1941.
Berndt graduated from the Kharkiv Conservatory, where he studied piano and composition, and also studied for a time with Semion Bohatyrev. From 1921 he taught at the Kharkiv Music College. He worked as a concertmaster for the Ukrainian choral chapel DUKH and was one of the founders of the Kharkiv Association of Proletarian Musicians.
His output centred on mass songs, including “March of Dnipro Hydroelectric Station”, “Red Army March”, and “They Will Rise on the Rhine and the Thames: March of October Demonstrators”, to words by N. Bulatovych. He also wrote children’s songs and arrangements of Ukrainian folk songs for choir.
Berndt’s other works include the symphonic poem “Four Ashug Songs”, a Scherzo for symphony orchestra, a piano concerto, a suite on Crimean Tatar folk themes, and piano pieces, including works for instructional repertoire.