He volunteered for military service but, due to the logistical difficulties in processing the massive number of enlistees, he was placed on a waiting list and decided to begin his law studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

He served in a field artillery unit on the western front, earned the Hanseatic Cross and was discharged at the end of the war with the rank of Leutnant of reserves.

Rothenberger then sent the same ideas to Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, who proved keener but made his ill-fated flight to Scotland before he could act on them.

[12] Finally, in early 1942, Rothenberger condensed his ideas into a short memorandum and sent them to one of Adolf Hitler's adjutants that he knew, Alwin-Broder Albrecht.

[13] Responding favorably, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag on 26 April 1942, in which he sought to undertake a complete reform of the judiciary based on Rothenberger's proposed principles.

Hans Frank, the President of the Academy for German Law, a body which he had established in 1933, made a series of speeches in June 1942 at several universities defending the status quo as a protest against the Rothernberger proposals.

In politically sensitive cases involving Party officials, the ministry inserted itself into supervising the judicial process, demanding daily communication updates from the trial courts.

How to distinguish between "reformable" and "incorrigible" offenders, and how to decide how these prisoners, once selected, should be murdered were issues that were debated in several meetings in September 1942 between Rothenberger and high-ranking SS officials, including SS-Gruppenführer Bruno Streckenbach from the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA).

[20] It was agreed with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler that all Jews, Sinti and Romani people, Russians, and Ukrainians in state penal institutions were to be handed over without exception.

From late 1942 onward, it is estimated that this policy resulted in over twenty thousand offenders being taken out of the state penal system and transferred to the SS for "annihilation through labor".

[22] Realising that the proposed reforms were causing too much friction at a time when the Second World War was beginning to turn against Germany, and thus were affecting public morale, Martin Bormann saw an opportunity to sabotage Rothenberger, whom he had long distrusted.

Rothenberger's reform efforts were increasingly stymied, and Bormann finally succeeding in having Thierack dismiss him as State Secretary in December 1943 using a charge of plagiarism as a pretext.

[28] At the conclusion of the trial, he was found guilty and was sentenced by the American military tribunal on 4 December 1947 to seven years imprisonment with credit for the time served in pre-trial detention.

[17] In addition, in October 1952, the state awarded him a full pension as a retired higher regional court president, worth 1200 DM per month.

In March 1959, an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau publicized his activities during the Nazi regime and by July an investigation was launched that could have implications for his employment and pension eligibility.