VII Nazi ReportSeven Circles of Responsibility

English source-aligned edition

Amon Göth

convicted in Poland and executed in 1946 1908–1946

Amon Göth served as commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów camp and SS officer in the Kraków district. The profile reconstructs the person’s function in Kraków, Płaszów, Tarnów and Szebnie in occupied Poland through documented office, decisions, supervision or operational conduct. It does not assign every crime committed by an institution or region to one individual.

War crimesCrimes against humanityHolocaustOther genocidesForced labour

Confirmed findings

  • Göth worked in Globocnik's Operation Reinhard apparatus before becoming commandant of the Płaszów forced-labour camp on 11 February 1943.
  • He imposed starvation, forced labour, public executions and arbitrary violence at Płaszów, and postwar witnesses testified that he personally killed prisoners.
  • He directed the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto and participated in operations against the Tarnów ghetto and the Szebnie labour camp.

Place in the chain of responsibility

Göth combined camp command with field operations and personal violence. The profile confines attribution to documented locations and actions rather than treating him as responsible for every crime in the Kraków district.

Key events and mechanisms

  • appointment as commandant of Płaszów, 11 February 1943
  • liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, March 1943
  • arrest by the SS on corruption charges, September 1944
No victim-count ranking

The circle records authority, function and agency. Several profiles may describe different parts of the same persecution chain, so profile-level totals must not be added together.

Postwar accountability

US forces captured Göth and extradited him to Poland. The Supreme National Tribunal convicted him of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including participation in genocide, and he was hanged in Kraków on 13 September 1946.

Limits of the evidence

Survivor testimony documents both command responsibility and personal killings; the profile does not extend those findings beyond the operations and camp under examination.

Sources

The source set combines institutional, archival, trial or scholarly material from at least two independent publishers.