Herbert Otto Roth (7 December 1917 – 27 May 1994) was a notable New Zealand socialist, labourer, librarian and historian. He was born in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
, Austria in 1917.
In Austria, he was known as "Otti" but in New Zealand he was known as "Bert".
Roth was the leader of the
Red Falcons in Austria. He fled from there to avoid conscription after having sworn an allegiance to
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
. He then lived in
Grenoble
Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...
, where he was later imprisoned as an
enemy alien
In customary international law, an enemy alien is any alien native, citizen, denizen or subject of any foreign nation or government with which a domestic nation or government is in conflict and who is liable to be apprehended, restrained, secur ...
. His mother managed to organise a permit for him to emigrate to New Zealand, and he arrived in
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...
in April 1940. He immediately became politically active in left-wing circles, but was forbidden by the
Department of Justice to take on official positions, as he was classed as an enemy alien. Roth applied for naturalisation in 1944, and was granted
citizenship
Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state.
Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationalit ...
in March 1946.
Roth joined the
Air Force
An air force in the broadest sense is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an army aviati ...
and this allowed him to study towards a Bachelor of Arts degree at
Victoria University College. After attending the New Zealand Library School, he worked for the National Library Service in Wellington. He was later the president of the
New Zealand Library Association. In January 1962, he started work for the
University of Auckland Library. He retired in 1983.
He married Margaret (Margot) Frances Hogben on 29 November 1946. She was a journalist, and the granddaughter of
George Hogben, the seismologist. Roth's first book was a biography him. After that, Roth mostly wrote about labour history. His most important work is ''Trade unions in New Zealand past and present'', which was published in 1973. He was a major collector of union and labour publications, and his collection is today a major resource for the
Alexander Turnbull Library.
He died at his home in
Mount Eden on 27 May 1994. He was survived by his divorced wife, two sons and a daughter.
In recognition of Roth's contribution to labour movement archives and history, the
Bert Roth Award for Labour History was created by the Labour History Project in May 2013.
It is awarded annually to the best work in the field of labour history published in the previous calendar year.
See also
*
Socialism in New Zealand
Socialism in New Zealand had little traction in early colony of New Zealand, colonial New Zealand but developed as a political movement around the beginning of the 20th century. Much of socialism's early growth was found in the labour movement. ...
References
External links
Labour History Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Roth, Herbert Otto
1917 births
1994 deaths
20th-century New Zealand historians
New Zealand librarians
New Zealand socialists
Writers from Vienna
Austrian emigrants to New Zealand
Victoria University of Wellington alumni
People educated at Gymnasium Wasagasse