Otto "Abbadabba" "Berman" Biederman by Ace Preston 1935

Otto "Berman" Biederman, along with Dutch Schultz, Abe Landau, and Bernard "Lulu" Rosenkrantz was a member of Dutch Schultz's organization. He was shot to death on the night of 10/23/35, in a Newark diner called The Palace Chophouse.

Since fleeing New York, Schultz had converted the back room of the Chophouse into his hideout, and held regular meetings there with his associates.

Otto "Abbadabba" "Berman" Biederman, was an accountant. He is known for coining the phrase "Nothing personal, it's just business."

Berman was arrested at age fifteen for attempted rape but found not guilty, so he became an accountant. Part of the New York nightlife scene, he befriended writer Damon Runyon.

In the 1930s Berman became the accountant for, and advisor to, gangster Dutch Schultz. In 1935 Berman was having a meeting at the Palace Chophouse tavern in Newark, New Jersey with Schultz and gunmen Abe Landau and Bernard "Lulu" Rosenkrantz when assassins hired by Lucky Luciano burst into the room. Berman was hit by several bullets as well as buckshot from a 12-gauge shotgun, and was the second of the four men to die. A photo of his bullet-riddled body appeared alongside a photo of Schultz undergoing surgery in the next morning's newspaper, under the headline, "Schultz, Five Pals Shot" (only 4 others were shot: Berman, Landau, Rosenkrantz, and Marty Krompier, one of Schultz's lieutenants). The article claimed that Berman was a gunman for Schultz; Damon Runyon quickly submitted an editorial to the newspaper, defending Berman.