Alfred Roth was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 politician and writer noted for his anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

. He was sometimes known by his pseudonym Otto Arnim. Away from politics, he was a leading figure in the Commercial Employees Union.

Activism

Roth was active in Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch

Theodor Fritsch, originally Emil Theodor Fritsche , was a German publisher and pundit. His anti-semitic writings did much to influence popular German opinion against Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

's Reichshammerbund

Reichshammerbund

Reichshammerbund was a German anti-Semitic movement founded in 1912 by Theodor Fritsch.Based on The Hammer, a journal founded by Fritsch in 1902, the Bund argued that Jewish influences had contaminated Germany and attempted to argue that their racism had a basis in biology...

(Imperial Hammer League) before serving as an officer in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. After the death of Karl August Hellwig in 1914 he became leader of this group and he used this body to build up the strongly anti-Semitic Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund

Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund

The Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund was the largest, most active, and most influential anti-Semitic federation in Germany after the first World War, and one of the largest and most important organization of the German völkisch movement during the Weimar Republic, whose...

, which he formed in 1919 by fusing the League with other groups. He as leader of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz und Trutzbund he became noted for his propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 work and was credited with attracting some 200,000 members to the group by the time it was banned in 1922 following the murder of Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau

Walther Rathenau was a German Jewish industrialist, politician, writer, and statesman who served as Foreign Minister of Germany during the Weimar Republic...

. He was especially prone to attacking Zionism

Zionism

Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

 and regularly quoted Zionist works as proof that Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 did not belong in Germany.

He subsequently became a member of the German National People's Party

German National People's Party

The German National People's Party was a national conservative party in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. Before the rise of the NSDAP it was the main nationalist party in Weimar Germany composed of nationalists, reactionary monarchists, völkisch, and antisemitic elements, and...

 (DNVP), briefly sitting in the Reichstag

Reichstag (Weimar Republic)

The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...

 for them in 1924. He faded from the political scene after this and, in keeping with most DNVP politicians, played little role under Nazism

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

.

Writing

In 1919 he published a book, The Jew in the Army which claimed that most Jews involved in the war were only involved as profiteers and spies. Roth claimed that his book was the result of the 1916 Judenzählung. He also blamed Jewish officers for imparting a defeatist mentality to their soldiers, with the book thus central to the Stab-in-the-back legend.