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 Rudolf Brandsch 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.