Amon Göth

From Metapedia

Amon Leopold Göth (or Goeth; November 12, 1908 – September 13, 1946) was a Hauptsturmführer of the SS and was the commandant of the German labour camp at Płaszów, Poland.

[edit] Early Life

Göth was born in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a family in the printing industry. At the age of 22, Göth became a member of the Austrian branch of the NSDAP. In 1930 he was assigned the Party Number 510764. Göth simultaneously joined the Austrian SS and was appointed an SS-Mann with the SS Number 43673.

Göth's early SS activities are little known, largely due to the fact that the Austrian SS was an illegal and underground organization until the Anschluss of Austria by 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. Between 1938 and 1941, he was a member of SS-Standarte (Regiment) 11 operating from Vienna and was commissioned an SS-Untersturmführer on July 14, 1941.

[edit] World War II

In August of 1942, Amon Göth left Vienna to join the staff of the SS and Police Leader of Krakow. He was appointed as a regular SS officer of the Concentration Camp service, and on February 11, 1943 was assigned to construct and command a labor camp at Plaszow. The camp took one month to construct and, on March 13, 1943, the Jewish Ghetto of Krakow was closed down with the Jews moved to new camp. On September 3, 1943, Göth was further tasked to close down the Jewish ghetto at Tarnow.

On April 20, 1944, Amon Göth was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer, having received a double promotion and thus skipping the rank of SS-Obersturmführer. He was also appointed a regular officer of the Waffen-SS. His assignment as Commandant of the Plaszow Labor Camp continued, now under the direct authority of the SS Economics and Administration Office.

On September 13, 1944 Amon Göth was relieved of his position as Commandant of Plaszow and was assigned to the SS Office of Economics and Administration. Shortly thereafter, in November of 1944, Göth was charged with theft of Jewish property (which, according to Nazi legislation, belonged to the Reich), and was arrested by the Gestapo. He was scheduled for an appearance before an SS and Police Court, however due to the progress of the Second World War, and Germany's looming defeat, a tribunal was never assembled and the charges against him were summarily dismissed. He was next assigned to Bad Tolz, Germany were he was quickly diagnosed by SS doctors as suffering from mental illness. He was committed to a sanitarium where was arrested by American troops in May of 1945.

[edit] Execution

After the war, the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków found Göth guilty of murdering tens of thousands of people. He was hanged on September 13, 1946, aged 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.

In 2002, an interview book with Göth's daughter, Monika, was published in Germany under the name Ich muß doch meinen Vater lieben, oder? (But I must love my father, mustn't I?).