| Amon Leopold Göth | |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 December 1908 Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) |
| Died | 13 September 1946 (aged 37) Kraków, Poland |
| Allegiance | Nazi Germany |
| Service/branch | Schutzstaffel |
| Years of service | 1930–1945 |
| Rank | Hauptsturmführer |
| Unit | SS-Totenkopfverbände |
| Commands held | Arbeitslager KL-Plaszow |
| Other work | SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt |
Amon Leopold Göth (11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946; pronounced [ˈɡøːt]) was an Austrian Nazi and the commandant of the Nazi concentration camp at Płaszów, General Government (a German-occupied area of Poland). A Hauptsturmführer (Captain) of the SS, he was tried as a war criminal after the war.
After the war, the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków found Göth guilty of murdering tens of thousands of people. He was executed by hanging on 13 September 1946, age 37, not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp.
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Göth was born in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a family in the book publishing industry. Göth joined a Nazi youth group at the age of 17, moved to a nationalist paramilitary group at the age of 19, and at the age of 22, became a member of the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party. In September 1930, he was assigned the Party Number 510,764. Also in 1930, Göth simultaneously joined the Austrian SS and was appointed an SS-Mann with the SS Number 43,673.
Göth's early activities are little known, largely because the Austrian SS was an illegal and underground organization until the Anschluss of Austria with Nazi Germany in 1938. Between 1932 and 1936, Göth was a member of an Allgemeine-SS company in Vienna and, by 1937, had risen to the rank of SS-Oberscharführer (Staff Sergeant). Between 1938 and 1941, he was a member of 11th SS-Standarte operating from Vienna and was commissioned an SS-Untersturmführer (Second Lieutenant) on 14 July 1941.
On 11 August 1942, Göth departed from his current position to join the staff of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globočnik, the SS and Police Leader of the Kraków area.[1] He was appointed a regular SS officer of the Concentration Camp service, and on 11 February 1943 was assigned to construct and command a forced labour camp at Płaszów. The camp took one month to construct using forced labour and, on 13 March 1943, the Jewish ghetto of Kraków was closed down (liquidated) with the surviving inhabitants imprisoned in the new forced labor camp. Approximately 2,000 people died during the evacuation. At his later war crimes trial, it was revealed that Göth had personally killed a little over 500 Jews during the Płaszów camp's time in operation.[2]
On 3 September 1943, Göth was given the further task of shutting down the ghetto at Tarnów, where an unknown number of people were killed on the spot. On 3 February 1944, Göth closed down the concentration camp at Szebnie by ordering the inmates to be murdered on the spot or deported to other camps, again resulting in several thousand deaths.
By April 1944, Göth had been promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain), having received a double promotion and thus skipping the rank of SS-Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant). He was also appointed a reserve officer of the Waffen-SS. His assignment as Commandant of the Płaszów Labour Camp continued, now under the direct authority of the SS Economics and Administration Office.
Göth believed that the Jews themselves should pay for their own executions, so on 11 May 1942, in the small town of Szczebrzeszyn, the Gestapo ordered the Jewish council to pay 2,000 złoty and 3 kilograms of coffee to cover the expenses for the ammunition used to kill the Jews.[3]
During his tenure as commander of Płaszów, Göth tortured and murdered prisoners on a daily basis. Göth is believed to have personally killed more than 500 imprisoned Jews and sent thousands more to be executed on Hujowa Górka, a large hill that was used for mass killings along Płaszów's grounds. Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindler Jews, said, "When you saw Göth, you saw death." According to Płaszów survivor Helen Jonas,
As a survivor I can tell you that we are all traumatized people. Never would I, never, believe that any human being would be capable of such horror, of such atrocities. When we saw him from a distance, everybody was hiding, in latrines, wherever they could hide. I can't tell you how people feared him.[4]
Göth spared the life of a Jewish prisoner Natalia Hubler, later famous as Natalia Karp, after hearing her play a nocturne by Chopin on the piano the day after she arrived at the Płaszów camp.
On 13 September 1944, Göth was relieved of his position as Commandant of Płaszów and was assigned to the SS Office of Economics and Administration. Shortly thereafter, in Vienna around November 1944, Göth was charged with theft of Jewish property (which, according to Nazi legislation, belonged to the State), and was arrested by the Gestapo. He was scheduled for an appearance before SS judge Georg Konrad Morgen, but due to the progress of World War II, and Germany's looming defeat, a court martial was never assembled and the charges against him were summarily dismissed.
He was next assigned to Bad Tölz, Germany, where he was quickly diagnosed by SS doctors as suffering from mental illness and diabetes. He was committed to a mental institution. He remained there until he was arrested by the United States military in May 1945. At the time of his arrest, Göth claimed to have been recently promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer and, during later interrogations, several documents listed him as "SS-Major Göth". Rudolf Höss was also of the opinion that Göth had been promoted and, when called to give testimony at Göth's trial, indicated that Göth was an SS-Major in the Concentration Camp service.
Göth's service record, however, does not support the claim of a late war promotion and he is listed in most texts as having held the rank of only SS-Hauptsturmführer, equivalent to Captain.[5]
After the war, the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland in Kraków found Göth guilty of murdering tens of thousands of people. He was hanged on 13 September 1946, at the age of 37, not far from the former site of the Płaszów camp. At his execution, Göth's hands were tied behind his back. The executioner twice miscalculated the length of rope necessary to hang Göth, and it was only on the third attempt that the execution was successful.[6]
Göth was married and divorced twice. His first marriage was to Olga Janauschek in January 1934. They were divorced in July 1936. His second marriage was to Anny Geiger in October 1938, which ended in 1944. Soon after his second marriage ended, Göth was engaged to Ruth Irene Kalder, (nicknamed "Majola" in the Płaszów camp during her stay in Göth's "Red Villa"), who had taken Göth's name shortly after his death. Through these relationships, Göth had two sons and two daughters. Göth's first child, a boy named Peter, died seven months after his birth from a diphtheria infection. Göth had two more children with Anny Geiger, a daughter named Ingeborg and a son named Werner. Göth's last child was a daughter named Monika (chosen mainly from Göth's childhood nickname, "Mony") whom he had by Ruth Irene Kalder. Monika was born on 23 October 1945.[1]
Göth's actions at Płaszów Labor Camp became internationally known through his depiction by British actor Ralph Fiennes in the 1993 film, Schindler's List. In a subsequent interview, Fiennes recalled,
Evil is cumulative. It happens. People believe that they’ve got to do a job, they’ve got to take on an ideology, that they’ve got a life to lead; they’ve got to survive, a job to do, it’s every day inch by inch, little compromises, little ways of telling yourself this is how you should lead your life and suddenly then these things can happen. I mean, I could make a judgment myself privately, this is a terrible, evil, horrific man. But the job was to portray the man, the human being. There’s a sort of banality, that everydayness, that I think was important. And it was in the screenplay. In fact, one of the first scenes with Oskar Schindler, with Liam Neeson, was a scene where I’m saying, You don’t understand how hard it is, I have to order so many-so many meters of barbed wire and so many fencing posts and I have to get so many people from A to B. And, you know, he’s sort of letting off steam about the difficulties of the job.[7]
Fiennes won a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role and was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and his portrayal ranked 15th on AFI's list of the top 50 film villains of all time. Notably, he ranks as the highest non-fiction villain. When Płaszów survivor Mila Pfefferberg was introduced to Fiennes on the set of the film, she began to shake uncontrollably, as Fiennes, attired in full SS dress uniform, reminded her of the real Amon Göth.[8] At the film's climax, Göth's hanging is dramatized. However, he is incorrectly shown patting his hair in place and saying "Heil Hitler" moments before an officer in the People's Army of Poland kicks a chair out from under him.[9]
In 2002, Monika Göth Hertwig published her memoirs under the name Ich muß doch meinen Vater lieben, oder? ("I Must Still Love My Father, Mustn't I?"). Monika also described the subsequent life of her mother, Ruth Kalder Göth, who unconditionally glorified her fiancé until confronted with his role in the Holocaust. Ruth ultimately committed suicide in 1983 closely after giving an interview in Jon Blair's documentary Schindler.[10]
Monika Hertwig's experiences in dealing with her father's crimes are also detailed in Inheritance, a 2006 documentary directed by James Moll. Also appearing in the documentary is Helen Jonas, one of Amon Göth's former house slaves. The documentary details the meeting of the two women at the Płaszów memorial site in Poland.[11]
Dates of rank
Awards
(Source: SS Service Record of Amon Göth - National Archives & Records Administration; College Park, Maryland)
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