Amon Göth

Amon Leopold Göth (alternative spelling Goeth; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal.

He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in German-occupied Poland for most of the camp's existence during World War II.

Göth was tried after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people.

He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial, for "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified number of people."

Göth was executed by hanging not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp.

Goeth was born on 11 December 1908 in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a family in the book publishing industry.

Goeth joined a Nazi youth group at age 17 and was a member of the antisemitic nationalist paramilitary group Heimwehr (Home Guard) from 1927 to 1930.

He dropped his membership to join the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party, being assigned the party membership number 510,764 in September 1930.

Goeth joined the Austrian SS in 1930 and was appointed an SS-Mann with the SS number 43,673.

Göth began working for the party in the Ortsgruppe (local group) of the Margareten district in Vienna and soon moved to the Mariahilf Ortsgruppe, where he was a political leader in the Sturmabteilung (SA).

Göth joined the Austrian SS in 1930, and was granted full membership in 1932 after the two-year candidacy period.

He was appointed an SS-Mann with the SS number 43,673.

Göth served with the SS Truppe Deimel and Sturm Libardi in Vienna until January 1933, when he was promoted to serve as adjutant and Zugführer (platoon leader) of the 52nd SS-Standarte, a regimental-sized unit.

He was soon promoted to SS-Scharführer (squad leader).

He fled to Germany when his illegal activities, including obtaining explosives for the Nazi Party, made him a wanted man.

The Austrian Nazi Party was declared illegal in Austria on 19 June 1933, so it set up operations in exile in Munich.

From this base, Göth smuggled radios and weapons into Austria and acted as a courier for the SS.

He was arrested in October 1933 by the Austrian authorities but was released for lack of evidence in December 1933.

He was again detained after the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed Nazi coup attempt in July 1934.

He escaped custody and fled to the SS training facility at Dachau, next to Dachau concentration camp.

He temporarily quit the SS and Nazi Party activities until 1937 because of differences with his Oberführer (commander) Alfred Bigler, and lived in Munich while trying to help his parents to develop their publishing business.

He married on the recommendation of his parents, but was divorced after only a few months.

Göth returned to Vienna shortly after the Anschluss in 1938 and resumed his party activities.

He married Anna Geiger, a woman he met at a motorcycle race, in an SS civil ceremony on 23 October 1938.

Prior to the wedding, the couple had to pass a set of strict physical tests administered by the SS to determine the suitability of the marriage.

The couple had three children: Peter, born in 1939, who died of diphtheria aged seven months; Werner, born in 1940; and a daughter, Ingeborg, born in 1941.

The couple maintained a permanent home in Vienna throughout World War II.

On 5 March 1940, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht with the rank of Unterfeldwebel (Under Field Sergeant), but his continuous SS service record indicates he did not actively serve.

Initially assigned to 89th SS-Standarte, Göth was transferred to the 1st SS-Sturmbann of the 11th SS-Standarte at the start of the war, and was promoted to SS-Oberscharführer (staff sergeant) in early 1941.

From mid-1941 to late May 1942, as Einsatzführer (action leader), and financial officer in East Upper Silesia in the Kattowitz office of the Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums – RKFDV (Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood), he gained a reputation as a seasoned administrator in the Nazi efforts to isolate, relocate, and kill the Jewish population of Europe.

He was commissioned to the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) on 14 July 1941.

Göth also received a Dienstleistungszeugnis (Certificate of Service) from his commanding officer, praising his service, as well as his physical and ideological traits.

He was transferred to Lublin in the summer of 1942, where he joined the staff of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globočnik, the SS and Police Leader of the Kraków area, as part of Operation Reinhard, the code name given to the establishment of the three extermination camps at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.

Nothing is known of his activities in the six months he served with Operation Reinhard because participants were sworn to secrecy, but, according to the transcripts of his later trial, Göth was responsible for rounding up and transporting victims to these camps to be murdered.

Göth was assigned to the SS-Totenkopfverbände ("Death's head" unit; concentration camp service).

His first assignment, starting on 11 February 1943, was to oversee the construction of the 200 acre Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, which he was to command.

Göth was atypical of most SS officers who served in concentration camps, as most hailed from small municipalities.

He likely had a personal interview with Heinrich Himmler before being appointed to the post, as was the standard procedure when assigning SS camp commanders.

Located on the grounds of two old Jewish cemeteries, the camp took one month to construct using slave labour.

The 1993 film Schindler's List, in which Göth is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, depicts his running of the Płaszów concentration camp.