Otto Wachs won the bronze medal with the 8-metre class sailing team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics at Kiel, where the sailing events took place. Owner of the boat Germania III was Alfried von Bohlen und Halbach and skipper was Hans Howaldt. The regattas were marred by plenty of protests by teams against each other, and by referees, who were more interested in formalities for submitting protests than trying to resolve the protests themselves.
Wachs was a banker, manager in the shipping industry and regatta racer. He was a member of the supervisory boards of AG Weser, the Towage and Salvage Company, the German Maritime Bank AG, the German-South American Bank, the Midgard German Maritime AG in Nordenham and the Nordseewerke (North Sea Company).