Amon Göth

Lore & Background

Amon Göth was born in Vienna to a family involved in the book publishing industry. As a young man, he joined a Nazi youth group at seventeen and later became a member of the antisemitic nationalist Heimwehr paramilitary. He left this group to join the Austrian Nazi Party in 1930 and also entered the Austrian SS. His early Nazi activities included working as a courier and smuggling radios and weapons into Austria from a base in Munich after the party was banned in Austria. He was arrested twice by Austrian authorities but escaped custody and fled to an SS training facility near Dachau. After a period of inactivity due to disagreements with a superior, he returned to Vienna following the Anschluss and resumed party work. He married in an SS civil ceremony after passing physical tests required by the SS. During the war, he served as an action leader and financial officer in East Upper Silesia, gaining a reputation as an administrator in the Nazi efforts to isolate and kill the Jewish population. He was later transferred to Lublin to join the staff of Odilo Globočnik as part of Operation Reinhard, where he was responsible for rounding up victims for transport to extermination camps. His defining assignment came in early 1943, when he was ordered to oversee the construction of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp on the grounds of two old Jewish cemeteries, using slave labor. He became its commandant, and upon the camp’s population, he declared to the prisoners, “I am your god.” He was convicted after the war for personally ordering imprisonment, torture, and extermination, and for personally killing, maiming, and torturing a substantial number of people. He was executed by hanging near the former site of the camp.

Reader's Guide

Göth’s conduct as commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów camp defined his legacy. He oversaw its construction on the grounds of two Jewish cemeteries, using forced labor to complete the facility within a month. Upon the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, he directed the transfer of fit prisoners to his camp while thousands deemed unfit were sent to extermination camps or murdered in the streets. In his inaugural address, he declared himself the prisoners’ god, exercising absolute authority. His trial by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland marked a legal milestone: he was convicted of homicide for personally killing, maiming, and torturing a substantial but unidentified number of people, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial. This verdict established a precedent for holding individual perpetrators accountable for direct acts of murder, beyond the broader charge of crimes against humanity. His execution near the former camp site, and his depiction in the film *Schindler’s List*, cemented his image as a symbol of unchecked cruelty within the Nazi camp system.

Did You Know?

• Göth was the first person convicted of homicide at a war crimes trial by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland.
• He was executed by hanging near the former site of the Płaszów camp.