Hans Otto Roth

Hans Otto Roth (29 April 1890 – 1 April 1953) was a Transylvanian Saxon politician and lawyer. Roth was best known for his unsuccessful attempts to counter the rise of the radical Nazism favored within the German Party and within the German ethnic group in Transylvania.

Born in Sighișoara, Roth studied law at various universities around Europe before graduating with a doctorate from the ELTE Faculty of Law in 1913. In 1918, Roth joined the Saxon Central Committee to support the unification of Transylvania with Romania. In 1919, he won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies representing the German Party, and by 1922, he replaced as Parliamentary Chairman of the party. His time in parliament saw him focus on the issues of denominational schools and cooperation between the Germans and Hungarians before he retired in 1938. During his time in parliament, he was also briefly Chairman of the Association of German Minorities from 1931 to 1934, where he at first advocated for pan-Germanism. He met Adolf Hitler in June 1933, which altered some of Roth's views, although many Jews in Transylvania still felt betrayed by Roth.

In the following years, Roth became increasingly anti-Nazi with the advent of the "renewal movement". Roth's views were generally considered Christian liberal, which put him in opposition to many of the Nazi Party's views. He was approached many times to be a minister in various Romanian cabinets, but declined because the Iron Guard all had places in these cabinets. In 1943, this led to a climax between Andreas Schmidt and Roth, and Roth was expelled from the party. He kept working at the time as regional church curator of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Romania, a position he had held since 1932. His various attempts to stop the self-Nazification of the church led to failures. After the 1944 Romanian coup d'état, Roth asked Saxons to remain loyal to the Romanian state and wrote numerous memorandums to the Romanian government asking them not to judge his people too harshly. Roth was first arrested in August 1948, which triggered a wave of alarm, although he was eventually released. He was re-arrested in 1952 and held in the Ghencea concentration camp, where he died.

Early life and education Hans Otto Roth was born on 29 April 1890 in Sighișoara on the street Kleingasse 1 (now Strada Tache Ionescu), which was then part of Austria-Hungary. He was the sixth and youngest child of lawyer and city judge of Sighișoara Karl Roth (1846–1901) and Louise Roth (née Hausenblaß, 1855–1915) and was the grandson through his maternal side of a factory owner. He attended elementary school in Sighișoara where he graduated in 1900, and then attended the local Protestant high school in Sighișoara until 1908 where he was a part of the student self-government called Coetus Chlamydatorum. In January 1916, he was conscripted for military service in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and he served as an auxiliary for Infantry Regiment No. 31 in Brno, performing exclusively clerical duties. He was specifically chosen as secretary for aligning with the "Little Saxon" tradition, which advocated for legalism and integration into Romania, which had started to be prominent around 1900. He wrote the program after many Saxons complained about the reforms following the accession, and he also led a delegation of Saxon peasants to Cluj to present their complaints to the Directory Council.

Political career Parliamentary work Rudolf Brandsch (pictured here) and Roth were rivals in the German Party for most of Roth's career. In the 1919 Romanian general election, Roth won a seat in the Chamber of Deputies representing the German Party. In a speech in October, the month before the elections, he stated his campaign consisted of renewing confidence in the national vitality of Saxons, recognizing that the rejection of Hungary was not a betrayal and was justified citing the "abandonment" of the minority, and affirming that the pledges of King Ferdinand I to follow the results of the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia were honest.

In 1922, Roth replaced Rudolf Brandsch as leader of the Parliamentary Group of the German Party. Roth was generally believed to have been chosen to replace Brandsch because Brandsch favored the strengthening of German self-consciousness and did not want to seek compromises with the ruling Romanian National Party, while Roth saw the possibility of the German-Romanians rights being enforced by a compromise. At the time in 1922, Roth admitted that he did not see ripe cooperation at the moment, but thought it only "conceivable", as he acknowledged Iuliu Maniu's position and said that the Romanian government was favorable to Saxons.

Soon after, in December, Roth defined what the German Party wished at a conference: the unconditional recognition of the Romanian state of the Saxons, full political and parliamentary activity even in matters that did not concern the minority, and implementation of the people's political program. In parliament, Roth tried to secure the rights he thought were promised to Germans, including German-language schools, equal rights in the economy, preservation of assets of the Transylvanian Saxon University, and land ownership. In 1924, Roth made a repeated plea for denominational schools, saying it was clearly enshrined in the 1919 Peace Treaty, and saying that Romania was "virtually confiscating" minority rights.

Roth officially retired from parliament in 1938. One of his last actions in parliament was in January when he was received by King Carol II of Romania, where they discussed the German ethnic groups in Romania. In 1939, he was made a senator by right in the Senate of Romania, which he was awarded because he had won a seat in parliament in ten elections in accordance with the 1923 Constitution of Romania.

Association of German Minorities In 1931, Roth was appointed Chairman of the Verband der deutschen Minderheiten in Europa . His appointment as chairman was largely just a figurehead position, as the Reich wanted leadership that would not be portrayed in a radical National Socialist light and would not interfere in the Association's Berlin operations.

In 1933, Roth led a large-scale parade in Passau, where he said that Germans feel unimaginable pain due to conflicts. On 15 June 1933, in his capacity as chairman, Roth had a conversation with Adolf Hitler. In the meeting, Roth drew attention to the fact that the anti-semitic measures of the German Reich could have a negative impact on the treatment of German minorities, although Hitler defended his moves and dismissed Roth's concerns. He was replaced by in 1934. This was because Roth's views were generally considered Christian liberal, which put him in opposition to many of the Nazi Party's views. Roth also received criticism in 1936 from Nazi-aligned members within the Transylvanian Saxon community, who accused him of dissolving Völkisch organizations to replace them with loyal commissioners, deliberately harming the other main Transylvanian Saxon party at the time called the German People's Party, and that his banking policies led to loss of land. He had long been an opponent of the increasingly popular under Fritz Fabritius, with Andreas Schmidt calling him a divider of the movement. However, Roth encouraged his circle to join the National Renaissance Front, a surrogate party for the Nazis, in 1939 due to tactical reasons, although he deliberately missed the deadline for admissions to be a member himself. His appointment was generally believed to be because King Carol II wanted to preserve the territorial possessions of Greater Romania, which he though Germany would enforce after seeing the successes of the Wehrmacht on the Western Front in 1940. In September 1940, Ion Antonescu was appointed Prime Minister, and on 8 September he asked Roth to join his cabinet as Minister of Justice. Ross refused, so Antonescu then offered him the Ministry of Education and eventually a ministry of his choice. Schmidt justified this further by saying that Roth was one of the rare exceptions that did not understand the Nazi revolution, and he added that this revealed his attitude toward the ethnic group. Then, in September, Roth urged Romanian-Germans not to flee the country and called for loyalty to the state of Romania, especially since many Swabians were leaving after the Nazi "Swabian Self-Protection" organization intimidated and frightened Swabians to evacuate Banat. On 27 October, Roth signed a memorandum which argued there was danger in punishing all Romanian-German supporters of Hitler, saying people who were not guilty were dragged, and he added that "the seducers and the seduced will be judged by the same measure". Writing in 1948, Roth blamed the SS actions of 1943, which conscripted ethnic Germans into military service with the approval of the Romanian government, calling it "the most serious mistake in Saxon history". Roth was arrested for the first time in August 1948 by the Siguranța while on vacation in Sibiu. He was accused by authorities of concealing his part ownership of a large Saxon bank owned by the Reich, which triggered a wave of alarm by the Saxons as they feared a new wave of persecution.

In 1950, the house in which the Roth family resided on Constantin Noica Street in Sibiu, Romania, was expropriated. The other prominent member of the German Party, Rudolf Brandsch, was arrested in Sibiu the night before. The regional church curator was the highest secular office in the church community, which supported the bishop in his duties and represented the bishop. The Nazi-controlled church leadership then attempted to transfer church assets and place church schools under the Nazi-controlled consistory.

Post Nazi-control period In October 1944, Bishop resigned, and Roth wished to replace Staedel as bishop with episcopal vicar Friedrich Müller, which Glondys disagreed with. An agreement was made soon after where Roth took over the political contacts of the church with the government where he had to legitimize the newly denazified church.

Personal life Roth married Paula Copony in 1918. His father-in-law, Deputy Traugott Copony, held a seat in the Hungarian Parliament, and was close to the Romanian government. Together, Roth and Paula had a daughter, physicist , who was born in 1930 and made her residence in Sibiu. They also had one son, Herbert Hoth, who like Maria Luise was sent to multiple correctional prisons starting in 1958 for possessing a letter written be detainee Fritz Theil. He was also included in a special exhibition at the History Museum in Sighişoara on the law and constitutional practices of the Transylvanian Saxons, which the Department for Interethnic Relations presented in 2024. Thomas Frühmesser also wrote a doctorate on him in 2011.