Parts of his estate are archived at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.
The filmcomposer Ernst Roters wrote his first movie for a film in 1932 for the documentary "Frauen, Masken und Dämonen" (1932).
Under the Nazis, he taught at the Deutsche Filmakademie in Babelsberg from 1940 to 1944; he also collaborated with Erich Engel on Der Weg zu Isabel and with Veit Harlan on his adaptation of Tolstoy's Die Kreutzersonate.
He worked as a composer, conductor and opera director.
Roters's last film, Am Galgen hängt die Liebe (dir. Edwin Zbonek), was awarded the Golden Spike at the 1961 Valladolid International Film Festival in Spain. It premiered two months after the composer's death in East Berlin on August 25, 1961.