Joseph Roth (politician)

Joseph Roth 1930

Joseph Roth (born 30 January 1896 in Cologne, † 22 January 1945 in Bad Godesberg) was a German politician of the Centre Party). He was first Chairman of the Centre Party in Bad Godesberg, district council member of the District Bonn-country, elementary school teacher and enemy of the Third Reich.

Life and career

Roth was the first of seven children of the church- and decorative painter Wilhelm Roth (1870-1948) and his wife Margarethe Kruth (1866-1932). He grew up in the Belgian Quarter in Cologne in a strict Catholic environment and became a great devotee of Our Lady of Fátima[1] (which is why he gave his three children nicknamed Maria). Three of his younger brothers, Willi (1898-1952), Ernst-Moritz (1902-1945) and Karl Gustav (1902-1987) were priests. Roth was supposed to take over his father's company Roth & van der Kaaij, but then his younger brother, Albert (1897-1914), decided to learn the craft of their father. After attending primary school, Roth trained as a primary school teacher in Euskirchen.[2] From 1914 to 1917 he participated in the First World War as a volunteer in the 5th Westphalian Infantry Regiment No. 53, was wounded at Neuve Chapelle and was awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class and the Wound Badge.[3] After his release in 1917 from the military he graduated in January 1918 from his training as a primary school teacher in Euskirchen. As a trainee, he worked at various places in primary schools: 20 February 1918 - 15 June 1918 in Obergeilenkausen; 17 June 1918 - 15 January 1919 in Honrath; 18 January 1919 - 31 March 1921, the Burgschule Godesberg, 1 April 1921 - 15 July 1921 at the catholic primary school in Rheinbach; 16 July 1921 - 13 September 1921 at the Martin school in Euskirchen; 11 October 1921 - 1 May 1922 in Porz; 2 May 1922 - 31 August 1924 Friesdorf; 1 December 1925 - 31 March 1927 in Mehlem and from 1 April 1927 - 31 July 1927 at the primary school Burgschule in Godesberg. Finally, the Contract was an elementary school teacher on 9 August 1927 at the Burgschule.[4] 1924 married Katharina Paffenholz(1900-1979). His political career started in the Windthorstbund (Windthorst covenant) in Bad Godesberg.[5] Then he moved quickly to the Centre Party, chaired by the former County Council member Bonn-country, Peter Hensen (1888-1958), and a short time later was elected as his deputy in the District Council. After Hensen resigned 1931 the chairmanship of the Centre Party, Roth became the first Chairman.[6] In March 1933 he was elected a full member of the District Council Bonn-country.[7]

Persecution in Nazi Germany

Since 1924, Roth had also worked as editor for the Godesberger Volkszeitung (Godesberg People's Daily), the party newspaper of the Godesberg Centre Party. He published many articles and political resorted again to the Nazis.[8] after the Nazis had seized power in Germany, Roth and Mayor Josef Zander (1878-1951), on 13 March 1933, thanks to the efforts of Heinrich Alef(1897-1966), forcibly and leave for a day in "protective custody". In the school's history of the Burgschule where he worked as a teacher, is this:

"On Monday, the 13th March, the national revolution was carried out at Godesberg. An SA team (Sturmabteilung) occupied the town hall and forced the mayor, both salaried councilors and three other officers to "leave of absence" to leave immediately. Also at the Burgschule seemed such a department of 20-30 men and caused that Roth was the teacher on leave immediately, because he had fought in his capacity as chairman of the Centre Party, the National Socialists Godesberger sharp."[9]

On 3 June 1933, again under massive pressure from Alef, now the National Socialist mayor of Bad Godesberg, he was forced from his position as deputy county council and his position as Chairman of the Centre Party lay in Bad Godesberg. A few weeks later, on 6 April, Alef wrote in his office as a state commissioner to attempt to offset Roth as a teacher:

"Teacher Roth was and is probably still the leader of the local party center. In this capacity he has made impossible by spreading untrue allegations, particularly over the NSDAP, in Bad Godesberg. He is, moreover, as the author of the organ in the local center (Godesberger Volkszeitung) called repeatedly published inflammatory articles that had the development of the national collection right here in the centre of Bad Godesberg particularly difficult and inhibited. Roth is also often known as a public speaker and has not shied away from this even insults and offensive expressions against his political opponents."[10]

Nevertheless, he was still working to 1935 as a teacher at the Bad Godesberg Burgschule. Only in 1935 Alef was able that Roth was transferred to the elementary school of Friesdorf.[11] In the same year was also his brother, vicar Ernst Moritz Roth, in big trouble with the Nazis.[12] When the war broke out in 1939 Roth was initially drafted into the army, but from an acute shortage of teachers and age reasons in 1940 dismissed. After Roth was returning from the front,[13] he met secretly with his friend Hans Karl Rosenberg(1891-1942, martyr of the catholic church):

"Some time after his sudden disappearance, I think there were a few months, Mr. Roth was suddenly there again, but did not appear in the school. However, he came to our house to visit, and my father joined with him in his library. Hours later they parted and I saw him never again. "[14]

Rosenberg died on 17 April 1942 as a result of a medical "non-assistance" cause his father was a Jewish. From 1940 to 1944 Roth had been working as a teacher in Friesdorf. On 22 August 1944, after the attempt on Hitler's life, Operation Valkyrie, he was arrested during the Operation Gewitter (operation storm), confined a day later in the Cologne Gestapo prison EL-DE Haus, and from there with other former members of the Reichstag and politicians democratic parties (including with Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967), Thomas Esser (1870-1948), Josef Baumhoff (1887-1962), Peter Schlack (1875-1957), Otto Gerig (1885-1944, martyr of the catholic church), Peter Paffenholz (1900-1959), Peter Knab (1885-1963) and Hubert Peffeköver) was transferred in the labor camp (Arbeitserziehungslager) in the former exhibition halls in Cologne-Deutz. During his internment in the halls, his son Wilhelm (1932-1995) was questioned by the Gestapo headquarters of Cologne.[15] On September 16, 1944 Roth, Gerig, Schlack, Baumhoff, Knab and Peffeköver with other former politicians and also with the priest Alexander Heinrich Alef (1885-1945) were deported to Buchenwald. Roth's camp number 81555 had previously been the late Resistance fighter Victor Delplanque's.[16] Together with Baumhoff, Gerig, Knap, Peffeköver and Schlack, he was placed in the cell block 45.[17] His younger brother Willi, to this time the Prior of the Dominican convent in Berlin, tried unsuccessfully through a well-known secretary in the Reich Chancellery to help his brother.[18] When he was released on October 28, 1944, Roth was given a so-called fuel injection (injection of phenol) by the concentration camp doctor. Shortly before the end of the year, Roth was ordered by the Gestapo to leave the Rhineland and go to Leipzig, but his brother Ernst hid him with a friend's family in Dattenfeld.[12] At Christmas, weakened by the effect of the lethal injection, he was allowed to return to home.

Death

On January 22, 1945, he died at home from the effects of the poison. The family was not allowed by the authorities to carry out a regular funeral, and even the local priest had to attend many concerns. Closest friends and school children went on two slides the coffin to the cemetery. After Polish prisoners had dug the grave, Roth was from his wife, his children and his siblings Ernst (in the capacity as a priest), Karl and Elisabeth(1899-1968) buried in the immediate family. The Gestapo demanded but still an additional text on the death list:

"His death occurred suddenly in the past because of its air raids heavily shaken health."[19]

After 1945

Katharina Roth had to fight to be seen as politically persecuted victims got, finally the recognition politically persecuted No. 123[20] 1950 Peter Hensen suggested to the City Council, but for his fellow party member and Nazi victims pre-ceremony. Then in the same year was renamed by the Mayor of Bad Godesberg, Heinrich Hopmann, Friesdorfer the village square in Joseph-Roth-Place. After violent public protests, the name of the place was, however, in 1956 abolished and renamed a street off the house of Roth into Joseph-Roth-Street.[21][22] And again the residents protested against the name until the mid-1960s and threatened to boycott the election. But this time the protest was unsuccessful, and the street name remained.[23] Bernd Wittschier wrote in his paper Theology, a supplement of the newspaper quotes for the Catholic priesthood in 1989Offerten Zeitung für die katholische Geistlichkeit,[24] for the first time about the "martyrs Roth". In 1996, the call came to witness for Roth Monsignor Helmut Moll of the Journal of the Press Office of the Archdiocese of Cologne (No. 800). Finally, Roth was taken in 1999, edited by minor Zeugen für Christus and declared a year later by Pope John Paul II to one of their martyrs. In the traveling exhibition "martyrs of the Archdiocese of Cologne from the era of National Socialism," which shows the education work of the Archdiocese of Cologne in various places since 2000, is a replica of his concentration camp number and the red triangle for political prisoners focus, also is a brief outline of a life to see. This exhibition was shown as 2003 in his hometown Friesdorf, The local newspaper General-Anzeiger wrote in its issue of 1/2 May 2003: "A follower is Nazi victims." It took the author of this with a photo that Roth was with local Nazis to show the mid-1930s. After rebuttal of Dr. Walle and granddaughter Jutta Roth(1960) with counter sources and in possession of the original photo, which could prove that the picture was taken in 1928 at a bowling tour, had to make the General-Anzeiger a counter and then reported objectively on 14 May 2003 on the exhibition and the two friends and martyrs Roth and Rosenberg. Nevertheless, there were still several months to anonymous written attacks against the family.[25] In 2003 was created in the Basilica of St. Ursula, a memorial to the martyrs of the present in Cologne, where Roth has also found there in the newly created memorial chapel within the Church a place. End of 2005, paid tribute to the city of Bonn Roth by made his grave to a grave of honor.[26] In May 2006, the artist Gunter Demnig laid before the former living and dying house in Friesdorf a Stolperstein for Roth.[27][28]

Honours

Literature

Notes

  1. ↑ Familyarchive Roth, Letter from 22 Januar 1945 from his sister Elisabeth Roth to their father Wilhelm Roth
  2. ↑ Townarchive Rheinbach: Schulchronik Volksschule 13 Mai 1921
  3. ↑ Familyarchive Roth, letters from the battlefield vom 19. Oktober 1916
  4. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: personnel File Joseph Roth. P. 3.
  5. ↑ Familyarchive Rothmemoirs from Wilhelm Roth: Mein Vater - Joseph Roth. P. 1
  6. ↑ State archives (Hauptstaatsarchiv) Düsseldorf: L.A. Bonn Nr. 972, 958 and 173-b-16-18/27
  7. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: General-Anzeiger. 14. März 1933
  8. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: Godesberger Volkszeitung. vintage 1932–1933
  9. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: GO 8231, P. 160
  10. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: personnel File Joseph Roth. P. 17
  11. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: personnel File Joseph Roth. P. 31
  12. 1 2 Historisches Archiv des Erzbistums Köln: Nachlass Karl-Gustav Roth
  13. ↑ Townarchive Bonn: personnel File Joseph Roth. P. 35/2
  14. ↑ Pia Rosenberg: Schwimmen im Rhein. P. 35
  15. ↑ Familyarchive Rothmemoirs from Wilhelm Roth: Mein Vater - Joseph Roth. P. 2
  16. ↑ Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar: NS 4 Bu Häftlingsnummernkartei 81555
  17. ↑ International Committee of the Red Cross Bad Arolsen, Archive: Auszug aus den Blockverlegungen des Konzentrationslagers Buchenwald, Verlegungen am 29. September 1944 aus dem Zeltlager. Blatt 659
  18. ↑ Familyarchive Roth, letters from September till November 1944, mention of Helene Helmbold, secretary in der Reichskanzlei and penitent from brother Willi
  19. ↑ Familyarchive Roth: memoriam card from Joseph Roth
  20. ↑ Permanent loan to the City Museum of Bonn
  21. ↑ http://stadtplan.bonn.de/strassen_auskunft.php?strasse=1010144
  22. ↑ Joseph-Roth-Straße in der Auskunft über Straßennamen in Bonn.
  23. ↑ Godesberger Heimatblätter: No. 30, P. 73
  24. ↑ 1989, vintage 19 No.11
  25. ↑ Familyarchive Roth: police report Bonn
  26. ↑ Townarchive Bonn, Drucksachen-No. 0513291
  27. ↑ Godesberger Heimatblätter: No. 44, S. 157.
  28. ↑

External links

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