Otto Roth


Otto Roth, occasionally rendered as Willy Otto Roth or Dr. Rot, was a Hungarian and Romanian lawyer and politician who served as the only Commissioner-in-Chief of the Banat Republic, between October 1918 and February 1919. Hungarian Jewish but non-religious, he entered politics with the Hungarian Social Democratic Party while still a subject of the Kingdom of Hungary. Roth was a local councilor in Timișoara during most of World War I, emerging as a regional leader of the MSZDP before and during the Aster Revolution. He is credited with proclaiming the Banat Republic on 31 October 1918, though the initiative was also attributed to Albert Bartha, who briefly served as its military leader. The state was an autonomous extension of the Hungarian Republic, set up in order to prevent invasion by the French Danube Army, but also aiming to preserve regional integrity against rival nationalisms. It was generally rejected by Romanians and Serbs, who organized their own representative institutions.
Unlike Bartha, Roth acknowledged the terms of the Hungarian armistice, and was subsequently allowed to maintain his executive position by the Kingdom of Serbia, which occupied Timișoara in November. His post became largely symbolic, as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, proclaimed that December, actively pursued an annexation of the Banat; the Commissioner's importance was revived once French forces intervened as peacekeepers. With Swabian support, Roth made an attempt at consolidating his Republic, but was ultimately chased out by Yugoslav soldiers in February 1919. Attempting to prevent the Banat's partition between Yugoslavia and the Kingdom of Romania, he sought alliances with the French and, allegedly, with the Hungarian Soviet Republic. This episode ended with his arrest by Romanian troops during the Hungarian–Romanian War.
Roth was released in 1920, having reportedly promised to stay out of politics. He resumed his law practice in Timișoara, which remained on the Romanian side of the Banat partitions. As reported by his friend Nicolae Brînzeu, he eventually went back on his pledge, campaigning for Banat autonomy, embracing "anti-Bolshevik communism" and anti-fascism, and supporting another friend, Petru Groza, who was emerging as an important figure on the Romanian far-left. During the early stages of World War II, politician Constantin Argetoianu employed Roth as his contact with the Romanian left-wing circles. According to Brînzeu, Roth also sought to prevent clashes between Romania and Regency Hungary, and especially the rapprochement between Hungarian revisionists and Nazi Germany. Defeated in this, he was also exposed to antisemitic persecution, and reportedly prepared himself and his Jewish community for resettlement in Madagascar.
Roth was publicly defended by Groza during World War II, and also networked to have Groza released from prison in 1944. Following the King Michael Coup, he made a final return to politics, rallying with the Romanian Social Democratic Party. With Groza becoming Prime Minister, Roth received minor roles in government. Brînzeu however notes that he remained staunchly critical of the Soviet Union and the Romanian Communist Party, objecting to Groza's close relationship with both. Both Brînzeu and Roth were placed under surveillance by the Securitate.

Biography

Early life

Otto Roth was born to a Jewish family in Nagy-Mutnik, in the Hungarian division of Austria-Hungary. His father was a well-to-do local liquor merchant. Young Roth was educated at Kun Calvinist High School in Szászváros, where he met and befriended Groza and the future Greek Catholic priest Nicolae Brînzeu, who remained Roth's lifelong friends.
By 1930, Roth was no longer an observant Jew, although he was not hostile to religion in general. Various authors describe the German-speaking Roth as belonging to the Swabian community. According to historian Victor Neumann, Roth did not reject Zionism, seeing it as compatible with the socialist platform, but only envisaged emancipation—"an equality of rights was enough." In this, Roth was critical of Jewish assimilation, which had driven most of his correligionists to declare themselves Hungarian. Neumann also views Roth as representative for the "diversity of the Jews' condition": while some "struggle for a social position and implicitly for equality of rights", Roth advanced into mainstream society to hold some "key positions".
According to Groza's recollections, Roth went on to graduate in Law and Economics from the Budapest University, before furthering his studies in Berlin and at the Leipzig University. Another account suggests that Roth took a doctorate in law at the Franz Joseph University, in 1909. Having set up practice in Temes County in 1907, he was already politically active within the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. With its socialist platform and implicit support for emancipation, that group was unusually strong in the Banat region, absorbing a large portion of the Jewish vote. In April 1907, Roth was found guilty of agitation against Hungary's constitutional statutes. He was sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of 300 Kronen. During the electoral campaign of 1910, he allegedly participated in the egging of Albert Apponyi, leader of the rival Party of Independence and '48. He was charged with this misdemeanor and faced trial that September.
At the height of World War I, Roth was a noted philanthropist, collecting funds to assist the families of lawyers who had been killed in combat. As noted by Jewish community historian Geta Neumann, the endeavor made Roth into a "very popular" figure. From 1915, he served as councilor in the county capital of Temesvár, also entering the city's Labor Chamber, to 1930. Shortly before the Aster Revolution of October 1918, Roth had emerged as the MSZDP's regional leader, presiding upon a caucus that comprised mostly Hungarian and Swabian socialists. Anti-Austrian and anti-war riots began in Temesvár around 6 October, when crowds toppled monuments in honor of Ban Coronini and Anton Scudier; Roth and his colleague Leopold Somló joined the protests, speaking in favor of an immediate separate peace. Within this setting, they began popularizing the notion of autonomy for the reconstructed Banat.

As Commissioner

On 30 October, shortly after power in Budapest had been handed to the Hungarian National Council, Roth and Kálmán Jakobi proceeded to discuss the Banat's future with the still-incumbent authorities. Mandated by the MSZDP, they met with Alispán György Kórossy, and later with Lieutenant colonel Albert Bartha, of the Common Army. They agreed to proclaim the Banat as an autonomous region of Hungarian Republic, in hopes that it would be spared invasion by the French Danube Army. Bartha later reported that he had been searching for his own solution to a French invasion, and that, for this reason, he was the Republic's actual mastermind.
That night, Roth also attended a meeting of the national military councils, which had been recognized by the outgoing Austrian military commander, Baron von Hordt; this congress took place inside the Military Casino. Taking the rostrum, Roth informed his public that Charles IV had abdicated as King of Hungary. He then announced the creation of a multi-ethnic legislature, called "People's Council", and ended his speech with a shout of "Long live the Republic". The event also brought a clear split between Roth's followers and ethnic Romanian delegates: taking over leadership of the latter group, Aurel Cosma proclaimed that their allegiance was to a Romanian National State. Roth would later note feeling astonished that Hungarian nationalists and Austrian loyalists were passive witnesses to both proclamations, when any could have used the opportunity to murder Roth and Cosma on the spot. Reportedly, although Cosma rejected Roth's ultimate designs, he assured him that they could still collaborate.
Later on 31 October, the MSZDP convened a rally of supporters in front of Timișoara City Hall. Roth spoke from the balcony, addressing thousands of supporters carrying socialist red flags; he proclaimed himself Commissioner for civilian affairs of the Banat Republic, with Bartha taking over as military Commissioner. Although this is sometimes read as a declaration of independence, Republican officials intended to create a federal Hungary, directly modeled on Swiss cantonalism. Regionally, the result would have meant "limited autonomy within the Magyar state" or a "Republic of Banat within the borders of Hungary." By 3 November, this arrangement was inoperable: the Hungarian armistice allowed the Allied Powers to take up positions in various parts of Hungary. This prompted Bartha to resign in protest, leaving Roth as sole leader of the Republic.
Sometimes described as a "Socialist regime", the new polity reportedly introduced tax brackets, penalizing the highest earners. Roth's speech on 31 October also doubled as a call to non-violence: "The Revolution came, but it has now been fulfilled. We have shown the world, we have shown to our descendants, that the people of the Banat and Timișoara was able to obtain its republic and a brighter future without any bloodshed." Nevertheless, there followed a spread of mutinies and peasant revolts, prompting Republican officials to impose martial law. The Republic was rejected by the Romanians and Serbs, who formed pluralities in, receptively, the eastern and western Banat. Independent Councils were created throughout these areas, rejecting Republican rule. While most activists took to Romanian nationalism or Yugoslavism, Serb peasants in Kusić and Zlatica formed a "Soviet republic" of their own.
On 17 November, the Royal Serbian Army under Colonel Čolović entered Timișoara. This intervention had backing from all community representatives, including Roth. The Commissioner welcomed Čolović with a formal ceremony, under the slogan of "Long live internationalism". The Banat was not formally annexed to the Kingdom of Serbia, and the Republic continued to exist "on paper". Historian Harold Temperley, who visited Timișoara on 7 December, reports that all ethnic communities in the city were temporarily satisfied with the arrangement, noting that "Serb troops have tactfully left the matter alone." However, Roth's National Guard of the Banat was immediately disarmed.
This stalemate did not last beyond December. By then, Serbia had joined the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which looked to annexing as much of the Banat as possible . The situation became tense, as the Kingdom of Romania competed with Yugoslavia for seizing territory in the Banat, including Timișoara, put them on a collision course. The looming threat of war between two former was blocked by a French peacekeeping intervention: on 3 December, 15,000 French troops marched into Timișoara, which became the center of a north-to-south buffer zone.
Following the regime change, Roth reestablished the National Guard with backing from the Swabians' German National Council. The subsequent period witnessed a row between Roth and the Yugoslavs: the Yugoslavist newspaper Srpski Glasnik referred to him as a "chameleon" and a front for Hungarian nationalism. On 20 February 1919, Republican guards were again disarmed and sent to their homes, allegedly by some of the Serb troops still present in the city, but possibly with French acquiescence. The following day, the Yugoslavs recognized Martin Filipon as both Timișoara's Mayor and the regional Župan. Roth's ouster was met with protests and strikes by Timișoara's German and Hungarian workers. Threatened with arrest by the Royal Yugoslav Army, Roth escaped to Arad, finding refuge with the French garrison.

Arrest and return

In late March 1919, the rump Hungarian state became a "Hungarian Soviet Republic" under Béla Kun. According to historian Sándor Kókai, Roth was one of the radicalized MSZDP members who pledged their allegiance to this communist regime. This allegiance is also acknowledged in a 1960 letter by Roth's son, Roland Robert, who refers to Otto as the "general prosecutor for during the Magyar revolution of 1919". However, Brînzeu mentions that Roth took distance from Kun, noting that he had opposed communization on Marxist grounds. Roth is quoted by Brînzeu as arguing that the whole of Eastern Europe still needed to fulfill a capitalist mode of production before going into communism, and therefore that its peoples would inevitably rise up against the Soviets. During early 1919, Roth continued to seek out peaceful alternatives for the Banat. In his meetings with French representatives, he proposed an "independent Banat under French protection", and suggested its subsequent inclusion into the French colonial empire.
Offering to negotiate the release of French captives in Hungary, Roth earned some support from the French general Léon Gaston Jean-Baptiste Farret. In April, he was allowed to move out of Arad and to Lugoj; he and Farret then traveled to Belgrade, where Roth outlines his plan for Banatian independence. Any such design was vetoed by the French Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Louis Gabriel de Fontenay, who was especially derisive of Roth's claim that Banat Romanians also favored independence. Following Romanian complaints about his dealings with Roth, Farret was recalled to France.
From May 1919, the Romanian Army began moving into the eastern Banat. Roth was captured during the Hungarian–Romanian War, and held in custody by Romania to 1920. During this interval, the Banat was effectively partitioned between Yugoslavia and Romania, with Timișoara going to the latter. Constantin Argetoianu, who served as Minister of Internal Affairs, publicly accused Roth of maintaining a seditious correspondence with Budapest, and announced that its publication would uncover a ring of Hungarian irredentists in the Banat. This group, Argetoianu claimed, had been instructed to canvass votes for the Socialist Party of Romania. As argued by Brînzeu, Roth's release came once he formally promised to Artur Văitoianu, the Prime Minister of Romania, that he would not engage in any form of politics. Argetoianu claimed to have personally decided for releasing the "communist ex-president of Timișoara Republic", whom he had previously called a "Hungarian government commissar". Upon his release, Roth remained Argetoianu's devoted friend for at least two decades.
Roth finally returned to his lawyer's practice in Greater Romania. During the interwar, this was located at No. 29 on Regina Maria Boulevard, which was one of Timișoara's main streets. Although formally withdrawn from politics, he still traveled abroad to give public lectures on "democracy and socialism", and still wrote articles for the Banat press. In September 1927, he provided details on his time as Commissioner in an interview for the . He was by then married to Rozalia, a well-known photographer from Timișoara. From 1926, she owned her own studio; called Pittoni or Pollyphoto, it was located at the Marschall Palace, in Elisabetin quarter, then at Carlton Hotel in Cetate area. The couple had three children, all of whom they raised Catholic.
According to scholar Andreea Dăncilă Ineoan, "projects like the Banat Republic of Otto Roth" were still popular with segments of the Hungarian minority during the 1920s. By late 1932, Roth made a discreet return to his autonomist stance, complaining about the centralizing policies of Romanian governments. He attempted to revive this project with help from his Romanian schoolmates Brînzeu and Groza, and also claimed that Văitoianu was approving of this. His initial plan was to gather support for his social critique with a series of conferences at Dimitrie Gusti's Social Institute for the Banat. Brînzeu, who declared himself a right-wing autonomist, notes that Roth was probably an "anti-Bolshevik communist"—albeit one who was well informed about the goings-on in the Romanian Communist Party, including details about the whereabouts of Eugen Rozvan. Brînzeu also records Roth's support for Groza and Adrian Brudariu's far-left Ploughmen's Front, which included attending its 1933 congress in Deva. According to the same diarist, Roth was expecting the Soviet–Japanese border conflicts to explode into a full-scale war, and believed that Romania would prosper as the Red Army's provider of grain.

World War II and after

Already in 1938, Roth made plans to move with his family to French Madagascar, noting that this was a general movement of Jews faced with the rise of antisemitism . A frequent traveler abroad, he checked himself into a sanitarium in Pest, where he treated a nervous condition. Brînzeu's diaries record that he became similarly preoccupied by the diplomatic conflict between Romania and Regency Hungary. Roth reportedly had been told by Regency bureaucrats that Hungarian irredentism was merely facade. In June 1939, he told Brînzeu that "purebred Hungarians" actually favored a personal union between Hungary and Romania, as the only means of protecting their country from becoming a vassal of Nazi Germany.
Roth revisited this stance in early 1940, when he was undergoing surgery in Budapest. He witnessed there the arrival of a large number of Hungarians from Romania, all of whom expected to return to their homes alongside an invading Honvédség. The prospect, he argued, was "crazy". In July 1940, Greater Romania began to crumble as the Soviet Union annexed Bessarabia. This led to a panic among the Romanian Jews, who feared that they would be subjected to retaliation; at the time, Roth resumed his political collaboration with Argetoianu, helping to establish contacts with the Communist Party. His son Roland Robert also recalled that during 1940 he had his first contacts with the Union of Communist Youth.
During parallel negotiations for the Second Vienna Award, which ended up assigning Northern Transylvania to Hungary, the former Commissioner declared himself shocked by Germany's growing influence. As noted by Brînzeu, Roth saw the possibility of the Banat being made into a German protectorate, but argued that its creation under Nazism would spell disaster for the local Jews. As he informed Brînzeu, this likely scenario had turned all Jews into supporters of the Romanian state, seen by them as the better alternative. On 4 July, Ion Gigurtu was appointed Prime Minister, with Romania firmly placed under a far-right Party of the Nation. Before this happened, Argetoianu made one attempt to establish a left-wing regime alongside the Romanian Social Democratic Party ; Roth was called upon to assist in the negotiations.
Following Gigurtu's introduction of antisemitic policies, Roth had to close down his legal practice. The rise of the National Legionary State, followed by the Ion Antonescu dictatorship, expanded on the persecutions. In late 1940, the family was threatened with eviction from its home, the Siguranța having reportedly opened a file on Roth's "Bolshevik" activities; Brudariu successfully intervened for his friend. From April 1941, Germany invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia, creating the Yugoslav Banat into a Nazified territorial unit. In 1942, Roth began fearing that all Banat Jews would be deported into Transnistria Governorate, and that the Romanian Banat would be joined up with the occupied west, under Nazi rule. At this stage in his life, he expressed regret at not having exposed his children more closely to Judaism.
In October, as the Antonescu regime pondered allowing Banat Jews to be killed in the German-organized Holocaust, Groza intervened to obtain him a reprieve. His letter to Antonescu described Roth as apolitical and "unwavering in his pro-Romanian sympathies". During January 1944, Roth himself organized an intervention in favor of Groza, who had been arrested following his involvement with a resistance group, called "Union of Patriots". According to Brînzeu, the effort persuaded Antonescu to let Groza walk free; Roth himself referred to the Union of Patriots as a false-flag operation by Antonescu's men. By then, the Allied forces were in a position to systematically bomb Romania; Roth and his family were driven into improvised shelters.
The Antonescu regime fell during the King Michael Coup of August 1944, which also brought Romania to the Allied side. In September, the Banat was the scene of skirmishes between the Wehrmacht and various pro-Allied forces. Reportedly, 1,500 Swabian civilians fell on Timișoara, preparing a pogrom of the Jewish population. The Roths and all other Jews in the city escaped to Lugoj. Following the seizure of power, Groza emerged as nominal leader of the Communist-dominated National Democratic Front, and Roth returned as his confidant. However, in private he continued to express his qualms about Soviet policies. He also believed that the Hungary was headed for disaster, meaning that the Banat would still be assigned to Romania upon the war's end. He also informed Brînzeu that Groza was ambivalent about his position in the FND, fearing that he was simply being used by Communist agitators, and would end up a Romanian "Kerensky". Around November, Roth made a return as a member of the Banat administration, openly affiliating with the PSDR chapter in Timiș-Torontal County. He was a delegate to the Collaboration Commission, which supplied the Red Army during its passage into Hungary.

Final decade

In March 1945, following a clash between the FND and the right-wing government of Nicolae Rădescu, Groza took over as Prime Minister. Roth viewed this development as alarming. He believed that Romania would end up being absorbed by the Soviet Union, and, as Brînzeu notes, felt "disgusted" by this turn of events, and by Communist "trash making it to the surface"; Brînzeu records his own opinion that Roth had come across as a "decent idealistic soul", having "no ambitions for himself". During August 1945, the former Commissioner used his contacts in the Communist Party to ensure that Brînzeu would not be sent to a concentration camp. In 1946, he encouraged his friend to join Gheorghe Vlădescu-Răcoasa's team at the Ministry for Nationalities.
As recorded by Brînzeu, Roth had come to regard Groza as a "lunatic that should not be disturbed from his dreaming". However, he continued to argue that the Premier could balance British and American interests against the Soviets, and that he was the only pro-Western Romanian not to be tinged by fascist associations; he also recorded instances in which Groza was self-derisive and self-critical. During the process of nationalization, Groza's regime appointed Roth as a caretaker of Romitex. Brînzeu's diary describes Roth as having by then turned against communism, privately expressing his belief that only three people of the Eastern Bloc actually believed in the communist ideology, namely: Stalin, Tito, and Dimitrov.
This transition ended with the proclamation of a Romanian communist republic in 1948. During that year, Roth voiced criticism of the regime's decision to marginalize and persecute Brudariu. As reported by Roland Roth, Otto described Brudariu as an asset, someone who could unify the intellectual left around the communist program. Roth was already a sick man, at a time when his family had been stripped of its income by the results of nationalization. As Brînzeu reports, Roth wrote to Groza to ask for advice, but received in a return a "rather indifferent" letter. Groza also rejected Roth's ideas about organizing multicultural events in Orăștie, and would not commit to overseeing a publication of Brînzeu's memoirs. By 1954, Roth and Brînzeu had been placed under surveillance by Securitate agents, who monitored their correspondence.
Otto Roth died on 22 April 1956. His burial at the Jewish Cemetery of Timișoara was attended by Groza, who was a pallbearer. Rozalia survived her husband by ten years. During that interval, Roland Roth worked as a pediatrician in Bucharest. He and Roth's other two children emigrated to Israel in the 1960s; they later resettled in Canada, where the last surviving one died in 2015. By 1965, Romania had turned to national communism, which frowned upon Roth's legacy: in 1972, some praise of the 1918 Republic was carried in a UTC paper, resulting in intervention by the official censors. In 1979, however, his contribution as a "Swabian autonomist" was covered at length by historian William Marin. According to Geta Neumann, in post-communist Romania, "after decades of oblivion, is progressively revisited." Also according to Neumann, his friendship with Groza and Brînzeu, bridging differences between two ethnicities and three religious backgrounds, can be taken as a "shining example of Banatian cohabitation".