Amon Goeth

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Göth during his time in Polish custody (photo 1946)

Amon Leopold Göth (born December 11, 1908 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † September 13, 1946 in Krakow , Poland ) was an Austrian SS officer, most recently with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer .

Already in his youth, Göth was a sympathizer of right-wing national circles and an avowed anti-Semite. In 1930 he joined the NSDAP . After joining the Schutzstaffel, he quickly rose in the hierarchy there. After the beginning of the Second World War , Göth was initially used for various offices in the Generalgouvernement . In 1943 he was responsible for the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and the deportation and murder of thousands of Jewish residents , along with other war crimes that had already been committed . However, Göth gained fame as the commander and "butcher of Płaszów" of the concentration camp of the same name as well as his acquaintance with the industrialist Oskar Schindler . The story of Göth during his time in Cracow is told in excerpts in the Oscar-winning film Schindler's List .

Göth was arrested by the Gestapo in the summer of 1944 for personal appropriation of Jewish valuables and various official offenses and brought before an SS court of honor. He escaped a final conviction at the end of the war. Caught by the US authorities and immediately handed over to the Polish authorities, he was tried in 1946 for mass murder and other crimes before the Supreme National Tribunal in Krakow. He was sentenced to death by him and hanged a few days after the verdict was announced.

Childhood, youth and professional career

Amon Göth was born on December 11, 1908 in the Gumpendorf district of Vienna as the only descendant of Amon Franz (* 1880) and his wife Bertha Göth, born in Schwendt (1877-1936) in their parents' house at 5 Morizgasse. The child was baptized on December 18 of the same year in the Gumpendorfer parish church . At that time, Göth's parents ran a joint book and art business, which had mainly specialized in the distribution of religious writings and military works. The proceeds made it possible for the family to lead a good, middle-class lifestyle. Due to their trading activities, Amon's parents found little time to look after their child. Therefore, the young Göth grew up mostly with a childless aunt on his father's side. From this he got the nickname Mony .

In 1915 Göth started school at a private elementary school. However, he showed little interest in what was happening in the classroom, which is why his academic performance remained poor. Thereupon he was placed in 1920 by his legal guardians in the care of a strictly run Catholic boarding school in Waidhofen an der Thaya , where he was to lay the foundation for a later successful professional life at the secondary school there. These hopes were not fulfilled. Instead, Göth, who was perceived as stubborn by those around him, developed an aversion to the authority of the teaching staff. In addition, he showed a tendency to sadistic jokes. In the summer of 1925, he finally dropped out of school without a degree and began an apprenticeship as a publishing bookseller in his parents' company.

Around this time, the now 17-year-old Göth began to get seriously enthusiastic about National Socialism and its ideology. In the years that followed, his anti - Semitic view of the world was consolidated in the environment of "swastika activists" and other German national groups . Around 1927 Göth turned to the paramilitary association of the Styrian Homeland Security in Vienna. The historian Johannes Sachslehner suspects that Göth was looking for possible career alternatives in this step. Against this background, he is said to have tried - albeit unsuccessfully - to study agriculture. Regardless of the efforts mentioned, Göth was soon disappointed by the homeland security. In particular, he was bothered by the lack of radicalism there as well as the quarrels among the home leaders, so that he returned to the "swastika people" around 1929/30.

On January 24, 1940, he joined his father's company as a partner in Vienna's 6th district at Mariahilfer Straße 105. The publishing house for military and specialist literature Amon Franz Göth was henceforth operating as the publishing house for military and specialist literature A. Franz Göth & Sohn .

Career in the SS

Beginnings and advancement

Basic transportation data

The successes of the aspiring National Socialists in the Reichstag election in 1930 in the German Reich motivated Göth to join the NSDAP ( membership number 510.764) on May 13, 1931 at the Vienna branch in Margareten . After a purely formal change to the Mariahilf local group in Vienna , he assumed the functions of political administrator there . Striving for a quick career, Göth applied in the same year for his admission to the Schutzstaffel . After a positive decision on his application, he was registered under SS no. 43,673 were assigned to the "Deimel" troop, a sub-formation of the Vienna SS storm "Libardi". In January 1933 he was transferred as adjutant to the staff of the 52nd SS standard "Danube" in Krems . In addition, he was appointed motor relay leader. In the latter capacity, Göth, who held the rank of SS-Scharführer from May 1933, sustained serious injuries in a traffic accident with SS-Standarte 11 near Drosendorf . Appealing to this, he applied in vain to acquire the blood order .

Göth's personal role in the so-called July coup of the National Socialists in Krems in the summer of 1933 and the resulting ban on the Austrian NSDAP are still contentious and the subject of numerous controversies. What is certain is that Göth evaded a police search for him by fleeing to Munich , where he found shelter with a dog breeder. From there he worked as a smuggler and courier driver in the German-Austrian border area . In October 1933, however, Göth was tracked down on domestic territory by judicial officers and taken into custody. The trial against him ended in December 1933 with acquittal for lack of evidence. In the following, Göth returned to his parents' business, but continued to maintain contacts with the Nazi movement operating underground. This relatively stable phase of life broke up with the death of his mother in March 1936 and the failure of Göth's first marriage in the summer of the same year. Bored with the sale of books and his desire for further use in the SS, Göth finally moved to Munich in 1937. After the annexation of Austria , he returned to Vienna in spring 1938, where he was assigned to SS-Standarte 11 “Planetta”. In the autumn of the same year he married again.

After the outbreak of World War II , Göth volunteered for the Waffen SS in March 1940 . In this he was assigned the functions of an administrative manager in the operational command east in Upper Silesia with his office in Teschen . According to his own statements, he is said to have been entrusted, among other things, with the registration of horse stocks and other farm animals. This activity was short-lived, however, because as early as the autumn of 1940 Göth, now as treasurer, moved to the Katowice- based office of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle (Vomi) - a kind of contact and coordination point for ethnic Germans willing to relocate . In this position he was promoted to SS-Oberscharführer in January 1941 and to SS-Untersturmführer on November 9, 1941 . His service assessments made to date have all been without objection.

Radicalization

The motives and circumstances for Göth detail in the annexed by the German Reich General of Lublin to the personal staff to Odilo Globocnik in early 1942 are speculative. Possibly any personal contacts or his reputation as a good organizer played an important role. The Julius Schreck barracks was his new place of work there. At the time, in the former school building on Pierackistrasse , in addition to the alleged masterminds of the ongoing Reinhardt campaign , the police and SS teams deployed for this purpose were stationed, including murderers and war criminals such as SS Oberführer Reinhold Feix (1909-1969). It is possible that Göth radicalized himself by leaps and bounds in the vicinity of these men and their racial annihilation madness. But Göth was still excluded from such murders.

Instead, he was initially entrusted with the construction supervision in the context of the expansion of the already existing SS labor camp in Budzyń , whereby additional camp barracks were built for around 2000 mainly Jewish slave laborers from the Końskowola ghetto . Göth then took part in the organizational selection process for the evacuation of the Bełżyce ghetto and the deportation of the disabled, the elderly and children to the Majdanek concentration camp . In addition to countless atrocities by members of the SS Einsatzgruppen, Göth's hundreds of assumptions of bribery, so-called “ransom purchases”, which were to establish his later reputation as a “corrupted officer”. However, the embezzlement of the booty, consisting mainly of valuable skins, furs and precious stones, was uncovered. The investigative proceedings initiated against Göth remained without consequences.

Throughout the summer of 1942, Göth was then entrusted with the procurement of building materials for "secret building measures" called in SS jargon. Presumably this was the requisition of raw materials and materials for the construction of the crematoria in the extermination camps Belzec , Sobibor and Treblinka . The access permit issued to him to the said warehouses could, however, also be related to the control and registration of the art and valuables stored there. In the period from October 1942 Göth was entrusted with the construction supervision for the conversion of the POW camp Poniatowa into a labor camp for Jewish forced laborers.

At around the same time, the expansion work on the Płaszów labor camp began, the capacity of which was to be expanded to include employable Jews from the Krakow ghetto . Since the construction work there had progressed extremely slowly, the local SS and Police Leader Julian Scherner commissioned Amon Göth, who was already known to him from his time in Munich, with the further construction management. At the same time, he offered him the prospect of becoming its camp commandant after completion , which he accepted. Göth's first task in his new sphere of activity was the ruthless expulsion of the Polish families still living in the immediate vicinity of the camp from their homes. At the same time, he tightened the schedule for the completion of the new barracks under threat of the death penalty.

Göth made use of this ultima ratio on March 5, 1943, when the absence of two girls was noticed during the daily morning roll call and he then shot two Jewish kapos standing near him indiscriminately with his service weapon in a fit of rage . The missing children were tracked down during the day and, on Göth's orders, they were hanged in public on the camp grounds while the hit hit “Come back!” By Rudi Schuricke was recorded . Background music when performing selection or expiation actions subsequently developed into a feared trademark of Göth. The inmates of the labor camp soon became aware of the special role of the headgear of their new commandant. If Göth wore a cap while on duty, there was no great threat, but if he had his officer's cap on, this signaled imminent danger. But if he wore his Tyrolean hat and white gloves or a white scarf, everyone who knew him knew that he was now looking for a victim.

In addition to building the barracks, the convicts were also responsible for building the brick-built accommodations for the SS officers and men. SS-Oberscharführer Albert Hujar supervised this special construction team. When cracks appeared on one of the walls of the future guard barracks due to the use of damp bricks, Göth asked the Jewish engineer Diana Reiter, who was responsible for this, to describe the cause of the problem. Within a few minutes, he was so enraged that Göth ordered them to be shot immediately, which Hujar shot through the neck. According to eyewitness reports, Göth is said to have been satisfied.

Liquidation of the Krakow ghetto

The Krakow ghetto after its liquidation in March 1943

Göth was just as cruel as he was ruthless in the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in mid-March 1943. The evacuation of the district, which had already been divided in the run-up to the action, began on the morning of March 13, 1943 with the request that all residents of Ghetto A (workers) for the move to Płaszów on Zgodyplatz. Here Göth was particularly noticeable for the physical abuse of women, children and infants and their subsequent killing.

Goeth and his followers followed the same procedure when they evacuated Ghetto B on March 14th. In addition, from the elderly, the sick and children who were mainly housed there, he selected around 150 more fit for work Jews for his labor camp. However, his "quota" was classified as too high by the head of operations SS-Obersturmbannführer Willi Haase (1906–1952), which is why he ordered the immediate execution of half of this group. In balance, around 1,000 Jews were murdered and another 4,000 deported by police and SS Einsatzgruppen during these two days. Eyewitnesses from one of the numerous executions then reported the desecration and rape of women who had already been killed by members of the SS.

Commander of Płaszów

staff

The former Villa Göths (photo 2018)

As the commandant of Płaszów, Göth initially lived in the so-called “Red House” on Jerozolimska Street (called SS Street at the time ) not far from the main entrance to the warehouse ; his closer SS staff was also housed here. Drinking and drinking parties were the order of the day there. He later moved to a villa above the camp grounds that had been specially renovated for him. The building, which was abandoned for a long time, has been extensively renovated in the meantime and is now located on Heltmana-Str. 22 in Kraków's Podgórze district and is once again used as a residential building.

Directly subordinate to Göth were numerous volunteers , several dozen SS guards and the command staff, which consisted primarily of officers. The latter included SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Grün (1902–1975) , who was also from Vienna . The former boxer acted as Göth's bodyguard and right-hand man and was notorious for unscrupulous brutality. On the other hand, the SS-Untersturmführer Leonhard John (* 1900) had the habit of ambushing women on their way to the latrine at night and mistreating them in the worst possible way. The SS-Hauptscharführer Edmund Zdrojewski , who murdered without hesitation at Göth's call, proved to be another compliant henchman . SS-Oberscharführer Albert Hujar, SS-Hauptscharführer Willy Eckert and SS man Willi Stäubl, all of whom were radical in character, counted among the commander's closer circle of people.

Servants

Mietek Pemper from Krakow was responsible for Göth's correspondence as well as interpreting . He made Leon Gross his personal physician. Both men enjoyed special privileges within the camp; for example through increased food rations. In addition, Göth had a large number of other personal servants. Including several domestic servants, maids and messengers, a groom and stable boy, a masseur as well as a chauffeur, bodywork technician, varnisher and car mechanic for his fleet of three passenger cars. Carelessness in the care and maintenance of the vehicles was punished draconically by Göth.

The kitchen staff could also expect blows to the point of unconsciousness or Göth slaps in the face if the food served was too little or too much salted. The same procedure threatened his shoemaker if the wrong materials were used or if the shoes made for him by hand were too big or too small. Up to six pairs of shoes are said to have been produced for Göth per week.

Everyday warehouse life

The Płaszów labor camp in 1942

Everyday life in the camp was subject to Göth's strict order and was characterized by arbitrary executions, harassment, humiliation and torture by himself or the guards. After the morning roll call, the inmates were driven to their assigned work. Escape attempts or sabotage were generally punishable by the death penalty, while smuggling food, for example, carried 100 lashes. Successful outbreaks were punished with the execution of every tenth prisoner from the group of refugees. Often Göth did this personally. He believed that with such measures he could memorably demonstrate his ideas of order and discipline. Göth was given the nickname "Butcher of Płaszów" by the inmates early on because of his habit of shooting at random prisoners with a bolt- action rifle from the balcony of his villa in the morning or having them mangled by his two dogs - a mastiff and a mixed breed sheepdog. He personally killed at least 500 people. After he had murdered a person, he requested his / her file card to have relatives killed as well, because he did not want any “dissatisfied people” in the camp. It is further reported that Göth killed indiscriminately almost every day. A wrongly interpreted look was enough for this, which is why the prisoners preferred to look at the floor in the presence of Göth. Another time he shot a victim just for forgetting a show of honor . According to other reports, Göth had a woman whom he accidentally caught eating a potato thrown into a large kettle full of boiling water to cook her alive.

Göth's “revisions” were still feared among the inmates. The raids on the barracks for hidden valuables of all kinds, carried out at irregular intervals, primarily served his personal enrichment, for example with diamonds or money in foreign currency. Göth forced information about hiding places under threat of the death penalty, but mostly with the use of a riding whip. He kept the looted property thus appropriated in a safe in his villa. Bulky items such as pictures, carpets and furniture, on the other hand, were sold on the black market through middlemen and the proceeds were put into their own pockets. According to an estimate made by Pemper in 1946, the assets that were moved to Vienna were said to have amounted to tens of millions of zlotys. The exchange rate to the Reichsmark at that time was 2: 1. The whereabouts of the "blood treasure" is still unclear today.

Among other things, the stolen money allowed him, together with his father, to invest 300,000 marks (equivalent to around EUR 1,170,000 today  ) in shares in the Vienna Hermes-Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt AG . It was only after the son's conviction in Krakow that the Austrian authorities felt compelled to investigate the matter, but without imposing sanctions on the father.

He also treated SS subordinates harshly and brought them to an SS and police court for minor offenses . Not least because of this, the camp personnel split into two groups, a clique of loyal followers and those who disliked Göth or who even hated him.

For his services and achievements in setting up the Płaszów camp, Göth was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer by the Higher SS and Police Leader East (HSSPF) Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger on July 28, 1943 - skipping the rank of SS-Obersturmführer .

Oskar Schindler

Göth maintained a close friendly relationship with the industrialist and later friend Oskar Schindler . It was characterized by interdependence. On the one hand, Schindler was dependent on Göth's benevolence towards his workers, who mainly came from Płaszów, while Göth was dependent on Schindler's diplomatic skills with higher officials and functionaries as well as his contacts with the Krakow black market scene and his extensive logistical possibilities. He needed the latter in order to be able to transfer his looted property unhindered. Probably before the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in March 1943, the two men met for the first time. The sympathies that were cherished for one another were mutual. Schindler soon became a welcome guest in the commandant's house - not least because of his often changing female companions.

As early as April 1943, Schindler succeeded in convincing Göth to have a separate external warehouse built for the workers at Schindler's enamel factory. The reason he gave for this was that the daily three-kilometer route from Płaszów harmed the productivity of his company. The camp, which consisted of eleven barracks, was completed at the end of May 1943. There, the “Schindler Jews” were beyond Göth's direct discretion and received better food.

Płaszów concentration camp

With effect from January 10, 1944, Płaszów received the status of a concentration camp. In the course of this, Göth was placed under about 600 SS guards. Among them were Alice Orlowski , who had already become conspicuous in Majdanek through her cruelty, as well as Luise Danz and Hildegard Smiling . Elsa Ehrich , who had previously worked on selection measures for the gas chamber in Majdanek , became SS supervisor .

Preliminary investigation

Göth's persistent black market deals, the strict behavior towards subordinates and his exuberant lifestyle led to a complaint by other SS members in the summer of 1944. A previous trial against him for customs evasion had been discontinued in May 1943 without consequences. The SS-Obersturmbannführer and SS judge Konrad Morgen was responsible for processing the new complaint, and he initiated the corresponding investigative steps. In the course of these investigations, a first wagon with Göth's looted goods was seized at the Opawa station at the end of August 1944, and others were to follow.

arrest

Thereupon Göth was arrested on September 13, 1944 by Gestapo officers in his Płaszów villa. The arrest warrant issued by the responsible SS and Police Court VI (Cracow) was on suspicion of appropriating valuables and money from Jewish prisoners for the purpose of personal enrichment and of improper treatment of prisoners. After staying in Vienna, probably to be able to take care of personal matters, Göth was brought before an SS court of honor. While Scherner, who was accused at the same time, was demoted on the same charges and transferred to the Dirlewanger SS special unit for parole, Göth was released on bail. Presumably he was not entirely at large in the following months, but was at least temporarily detained in Dachau . The one from Pemper in his publication Der rettende Weg. Schindler's List - The true story that Göth was arrested in Vienna has now been disproved.

End of war

At the end of January 1945, Göth visited Schindler for the last time at his new production site in Brünnlitz , Moravia , possibly in order to ascertain the valuables deposited there or to acquire parts of them. He then went to a hospital in Vienna for medical treatment of an ulcer on the duodenum. There Göth was arrested by the field police on February 17, 1945, after further personal booty had been confiscated , and then taken to the prison in Munich via the police building at Rossauer Lände . Waiting for a new trial, Göth was picked up there on April 27, 1945 by members of the SS field police, forced to work with the weapon and assigned to the Flak Replacement Regiment 3 stationed in Munich-Freimann . Due to his still poor health, however, he was transferred to a hospital in Bad Tölz from there .

Internment and transfer

Göth in Allied internment, August 1945

In Bad Tölz, Göth was arrested at the beginning of May 1945 by officers of the American Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) on suspicion of possible war crimes committed in the Dachau concentration camp and placed under arrest. But he succeeded in disguising his true origin by assuming a false identity. In correspondence with relatives, he complained, among other things, of the inadequate supply of food, luxury goods and decent clothing. Around the turn of the year 1945/46, Göth, who was incarcerated in the Dachau internment camp (Dachau War Crimes Central Suspects and Witness Enclosure) under number 4596, hoped for an early release.

In January 1946, Göth applied for a review of the reasons for his detention. In it he stated that he had never worked in the Dachau concentration camp and that the relevant suspicion against him had only come about because he had been arrested together with SS members of the said camp. Instead, he vaguely stated that he had been active in the Kraków area, which prompted the US authorities to conduct further investigations into his person. In view of the new evidence presented, Göth finally admitted during an interrogation in February 1946 that he had been the commandant of Płaszów, but at the same time tried to relativize or trivialize the crimes and camp conditions committed there. However, his statements were refuted by numerous testimony from surviving inmates. At the end of May 1946 Göth was handed over to the Polish judicial authorities together with the former commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Rudolf Höß .

Legal processing

process

The former courthouse in Krakow on Senackastraße 1. The trial of Göth took place here in 1946.

On July 30, 1946, the two mass murderers arrived at Kraków's main train station and were greeted by an angry crowd. Their intention to lynch was not for Rudolf Höß, but for Göth, who had to be protected by specially assigned security personnel.

The trial started on August 27, 1946 before the Supreme National Tribunal (Najwyzszy Trybunal Narodowy) in Krakow in the largest courtroom of the local district court and received great media attention. In addition to numerous press representatives, predominantly Jewish victims of Göth's terror regime took part in the hearing. The four-member criminal chamber was composed of the presiding judge Alfred Eimer and the judges Dobromęski, Zębaty and Jarosz. The prosecution's indictment against Göth was genocide as part of the Nazi extermination campaign against Jews and Poles and was essentially divided into the following charges:

  1. Responsible for the death of ~ 8000 people in the Płaszów camp
  2. Contributing to the death of ~ 2000 people in the course of the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto
  3. Ordering the deportation of ~ 8000 people as part of the dissolution of the Tarnów ghetto
  4. Order to murder and deport an unspecified number of people as part of the liquidation of the Szebnie camp
  5. Illegal appropriation of substantial Jewish assets

Two public defenders had been placed on the defendant. Göth named Leon Gross, Michał Weichert , Oskar Schindler and Mieczysław Pemper as possible witnesses . While Schindler did not appear, Pemper turned out to be one of the main witnesses in the further course of the process.

In order to thwart Göth's expected defense strategy - based on martial law - the court had an international law expert explain in advance that the Nazi rule in Poland between 1939 and 1945 was not a "war" in the true sense of the word , but about an attack, which is why the crimes committed are to be assessed according to Polish law. However, the court's fears remained unfounded. Instead of an expected clever move, Göth pursued the simple practice of rigorously denying all allegations made against him. When testifying about excesses of violence, he questioned the credibility of the witnesses and defended his actions by saying that he had only carried out orders as a soldier, and therefore denied any responsibility. In addition, Göth was unimpressed by the course of the negotiations and expressed his disregard for the court by demonstratively polishing his fingernails.

The evidence against him was overwhelming, however, and his question of guilt was undisputed from the start. In the closing argument on September 3, 1946, the public prosecutor's office called for the death penalty, which in view of the actions of the accused and in view of the special significance of the trial was to be regarded as the only appropriate punishment. Göth's defenders followed this view by asking the High Court for a “fair judgment”. In the closing remarks given to him, Göth complained that he had too little time to present exonerating witnesses on individual charges and that, as the commander of Płaszów, he should take full responsibility for the actions of his subordinates. He leaves the decision-making to the people's court. Otherwise, he pleaded not guilty as charged.

Two days later, on September 5, 1946, Göth was sentenced to death by hanging by the court and found guilty on all five counts. The request for clemency that he then handwritten to the President of the National People's Council was rejected. In his petition for clemency, Göth described his concern in the third person, invoked military obedience to orders and also referred to the German legal situation at the time, which he was unable to evade.

execution

On September 13, 1946, eight days after the verdict had been reached, Göth was handed over to his executioner . The exact date had previously been kept secret by the court due to feared tumult and unrest on the part of the public. The execution took place around 6:00 p.m. in Kraków's Montelupich prison . In addition to the executioner and the prison director, representatives of the prosecution as well as a doctor and a clergyman also took part. The convicted delinquent's hands were tied behind his back on the way to the gallows and the subsequent execution. The smooth execution of the judgment was thwarted by the fact that the prepared rope turned out to be too long. It had to be shortened twice because of Göth's height. Only the third attempt succeeded. Göth's last words were “Heil Hitler!” His body was then cremated and the ashes scattered in the Vistula .

A film of the execution circulating on the Internet is incorrectly attributed to Göth. However, according to the National Geographic documentation "Europe's bloody history", it shows that of Ludwig Fischer , formerly governor of the Warsaw district.

reception

The court proceedings brought against Göth were not staged as a show trial , despite opposing Moscow doctrine , but rather corresponded in its judicial entirety to the legal understanding valid at the time. However, with a negotiation time of only a few weeks, it turned out to be too short to fully reflect the complexity of the events in Płaszów and Krakow and Göth's interrelationships. In contrast to the later trial of Rudolf Höß, only a relatively small outline of the crimes committed could be processed. The psychological aspects of Göth's actions and the question of how he had developed into a mass murderer remained completely unexplored.

Family and private

Amon Göth was married twice. His marriage to Olga Janauschek (* 1905), which he entered into in January 1934, was arranged by his parents, remained childless and lasted only a few years. The divorce took place by the Margareten District Court in July 1936. The church annulment followed in September 1941. As a reason for this, Göth had given that at the time of the marriage he did not have sufficient personal will to marry.

Göth entered into a new marriage bond with Anna Geiger (* 1913) in October 1938. The couple had three children. Peter was born in 1939, but died in infancy of complications from diphtheria . He was followed in 1941 by his daughter Ingeborg and two years later by his son Werner. The marriage was divorced in December 1945 because of proven infidelity by Göth, who had lived together with his lover Ruth Irene Kalder while he was working as a camp commandant in Poland .

Kalder himself was introduced to Göth in the spring of 1943 by Oskar Schindler. She is said to have been instantly fascinated by the character of the commander and his charisma. As a result, an open love affair developed between the two of them. After moving to the Göthsche Villa, she had a moderating effect on her partner. At least Göth should no longer have murdered in her presence. Kalder enjoyed a relatively good reputation among inmates because of her natural way of dealing with them. Göth's illegitimate daughter Monika was born in January 1945 . From their later relationships, several children emerged, including Jennifer Teege (* 1970), who was given up for adoption shortly after birth .

literature

Movies

  • In Steven Spielberg's Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993), based on a novel by the Australian Thomas Keneally based on historical evidence, Göth was portrayed by Ralph Fiennes .
  • In 2006 the documentary film Der Mördervater (original title: Inheritance ) by filmmaker James Moll was released. The film documents the encounter between Monika Hertwig, Amon Göth's daughter, and Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig . The meeting took place on the site of the former Płaszów concentration camp and in Göth's house there. Amon Göth had hired Rosenzweig as a Jewish maid. After Göth's arrest, Rosenzweig was saved by Oskar Schindler . The film describes, among other things, how Hertwig grew up and lives with the past of her father, whom she looks strikingly similar. Hertwig stated that her mother, Ruth Irene Kalder, was never critical of the Nazi past. Kalder increasingly suffered from depression and committed suicide in 1983. Hertwig is actively involved in raising awareness about the dangers of National Socialism.
  • Monika Hertwig is a protagonist in the documentary My Family, the Nazis and Me by the Israeli director Chanoch Ze'evi about the descendants of the Nazi perpetrators.

Web links

Commons : Amon Göth  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johannes Sachslehner: The executioner: life and deeds of SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Leopold Göth. Styria Verlag Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-222-13416-6 , pp. 15-18.
  2. ↑ Johannes Sachslehner: The executioner: life and deeds of SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Leopold Göth. Styria Verlag Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-222-13416-6 , pp. 18-21.
  3. ↑ Johannes Sachslehner: The executioner: life and deeds of SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Leopold Göth. Styria Verlag Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-222-13416-6 , pp. 22-25.
  4. ↑ Company logs. In:  Wiener Zeitung , February 13, 1940, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / wrz
  5. ↑ Johannes Sachslehner: The executioner: life and deeds of SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Leopold Göth. Styria Verlag Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-222-13416-6 , pp. 25ff.
  6. ↑ Johannes Sachslehner: The executioner. Styria, Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-222-13416-6 (a reprint of the book Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Wien ), Styria 2008, p. 86.
  7. ↑ Johannes Sachslehner: The executioner: life and deeds of SS-Hauptsturmführer Amon Leopold Göth. Styria Verlag Vienna 2013, ISBN 978-3-222-13416-6 , pp. 92–97.
  8. ↑ Mietek Pemper: The saving way. Schindler's List - The Real Story. Recorded by Viktoria Hertling and Marie Elisabeth Müller. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-455-50183-4 , p. 74.
  9. ↑ Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon - My grandfather would have shot me. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-06493-8 , p. 50.
  10. ↑ This figure was based on the template: Inflation determined, has been rounded to a full ten thousand EUR and relates to January 2020 compared to 1943.
  11. ↑ Bloody money from a Nazi publisher. In:  Austrian Volksstimme. Organ / central organ of the Communist Party of Austria , 11 January 1948, p. 5 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / ovs
  12. ↑ Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon - My grandfather would have shot me. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-06493-8 , p. 72.
  13. ↑ "Bloody Tales" - Executions on IMDb .
  14. ↑ Becky Evans: Did 'executed' Nazi criminal in Schindler's List escape justice? Historians claim video of camp commander being hanged is NOT him ( English ) Daily Mail . March 21, 2013. Archived from the original on January 24, 2014. Retrieved July 1, 2014.
  15. ↑ Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon - My grandfather would have shot me. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-06493-8 , pp. 41–42.
  16. ↑ Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair: Amon - My grandfather would have shot me. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-498-06493-8 , p. 42 and p. 82–83.
  17. ↑ Julia Schaaf: Jennifer Teege - Ich bin mehr , FAZ, September 14, 2013, accessed on September 18, 2013.
  18. ↑ Jennifer Teege, grandaughter of a Nazi concentration camp commander , Deutsche Welle , November 22, 2013, accessed November 30, 2013.
  19. ↑ The murderer father ( memento from April 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), arte , August 28, 2011.
  20. ↑ Monika Kaiser: Unmask the charming sadist , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , March 25, 2005, accessed on February 15, 2012.
  21. ↑ Livia Bitton Jackson: Monika Goeth. In the Shadow of the Evil ( Memento from April 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), The Jewish Press , July 8, 2009, accessed February 15, 2012.
  22. ↑ My family, the Nazis and I ( Memento from July 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (see website Das Erste from June 13, 2012).
personal data
SURNAME Goeth, Amon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Göth, Amon Leopold (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian SS officer, most recently with the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1946
Place of death Krakow , Poland