[5] He quickly joined the Centre Party, chaired by the former Bonn County Council member, Peter Hensen (1888–1958).

After Hensen resigned from the chairmanship in 1931, Roth was chosen to succeed him[6] In March 1933, he was elected to the Bonn County District Council for a full term.

Recorded in the Burgschule history where he worked as a teacher, is this: "On Monday, March 13th, the national revolution was carried out in Godesberg.

An SA team (Sturmabteilung) occupied the town hall and forced the mayor, both salaried councilors, and three other officers to take a "leave of absence" immediately.

Such a department of 20–30 men also appeared at the Burgschule and caused the teacher Roth to be put on leave immediately because he had vehemently fought the National Socialists in his capacity as chairman of the Godesberg Centre Party.

[12] When the war broke out in 1939 Roth was initially drafted into the army, but due to an acute shortage of teachers and his age, he was dismissed in 1940.

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.

[15] On 16 September 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.

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.

After Polish prisoners had dug the grave, Roth was buried by the immediate family: his wife, his children, and his siblings Ernst (in the capacity as a priest), Karl and Elisabeth (1899–1968).

[23] In 1989, Bernd Wittschier wrote for the first time about the "martyr Roth" in his paper Theology, a supplement of the newspaper Offerten Zeitung für die katholische Geistlichkeit,.

[24] In 1996, a call for witnesses for Roth was made by Monsignor Helmut Moll of the Journal of the Press Office of the Archdiocese of Cologne (No.

Finally in 1999, Roth was included in the compendium Zeugen für Christus (i. e. Witnesses for Christ) edited by Moll and was declared a martyr a year later by Pope John Paul II.

When the exhibition was shown in his hometown Friesdorf in 2003, the local newspaper General-Anzeiger wrote in its issue of 12 May 2003: "A follower becomes a Nazi victim."