Oswald Rothaug

Who was Oswald Rothaug?

Oswald Rothaug was a Nazi jurist.

In June 1933 Rothaug was named a prosecutor in Nuremberg, and in April 1937 he became the regional court director in Schweinfurt and director of Nazi "special courts" or "Sondergerichts" at Nuremberg. In 1938 he became a member of the German Nazi Party, though he had applied the year previously. He worked closely with the Sicherheitsdienst or intelligence apparatus of the Nazi SS.

In 1942 he sentenced a 25-year-old Polish slave-laborer to death, explaining that "the inferiority of the defendant is clear as he is a part of Polish subhumanity."

Rothaug sought after and presided over the trial of Leo Katzenberger in March 1942, ordering his execution for "racial defilement" in May 1943. Rothaug accused the elderly Jewish man of having sexual relations with a younger German woman, Irene Seiler, which was a crime in Nazi Germany according to the Rassenschande or "racial purity" laws, a part of the Nuremberg Laws. Both Katzenberger and Seiler denied the accusations. Following the trial, Rothaug was brought to Berlin as a member of the Nazi People's Court.

During the Nuremberg Trials Rothaug was sentenced to life imprisonment on 14 December 1947 for crimes against humanity. He was the only defendant not to be convicted of all charges, being found guilty only of "crimes against humanity," and not guilty of "war crimes through the abuse of the judicial and penal process" and "membership in a criminal organization." Nonetheless, the court commented in its judgment that: