Amon Leopold Göth (German: [ˈɡøːt] ⓘ; alternative spelling Goeth; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal.

Göth was tried after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Kraków and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people.

The 1993 film Schindler's List, in which Göth is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, depicts his running of the Płaszów concentration camp.

Göth was born on 11 December 1908 in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a family in the book publishing industry.

[3] Upon joining the Nazis, Göth began working in the Margareten district Ortsgruppe (local group) in Vienna.

[5] He fled to Germany when his illegal activities, including obtaining explosives for the Nazi Party, made him a wanted man.

The Austrian Nazi Party was declared illegal in Austria on 19 June 1933, so it set up operations in exile in Munich.

He was again detained after the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed Nazi coup attempt in July 1934.

[6] He temporarily quit the SS and Nazi Party activities until 1937 because of differences with his Oberführer (commander) Alfred Bigler, and lived in Munich while trying to help his parents to develop their publishing business.

He married Anna Geiger, a woman he met at a motorcycle race, in an SS civil ceremony on 23 October 1938.

[8] Prior to the wedding, the couple had to pass a set of strict physical tests administered by the SS to determine the suitability of the marriage.

On 5 March 1940, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht with the rank of Unterfeldwebel (Under Field Sergeant), but his continuous SS service record indicates he did not actively serve.

[13] From mid-1941 to late May 1942, as Einsatzführer (action leader), and financial officer in East Upper Silesia in the Kattowitz office of the Reichskommissariat für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums – RKFDV (Reich Commissioner for the Consolidation of German Nationhood), he gained a reputation as a seasoned administrator in the Nazi efforts to isolate, relocate, and kill the Jewish population of Europe.

[15] He was transferred to Lublin in the summer of 1942, where he joined the staff of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globočnik, the SS and Police Leader of the Kraków area, as part of Operation Reinhard, the code name given to the establishment of the three extermination camps at Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka.

Nothing is known of his activities in the six months he served with Operation Reinhard because participants were sworn to secrecy, but, according to the transcripts of his later trial, Göth was responsible for rounding up and transporting victims to these camps to be murdered.

[18] He likely had a personal interview with Heinrich Himmler before being appointed to the post, as was the standard procedure when assigning SS camp commanders.

[19][27] In addition to his duties at Płaszów, Göth was the officer in charge of the liquidation of the ghetto at Tarnów, which had been home to 25,000 Jews (about 45 percent of the city's population) at the start of World War II.

The final roundup began on 1 September 1943, when the remaining Jews were assembled in Magdeburg Square, which was surrounded by heavily armed guards.

According to testimony of several witnesses as recorded in his 1946 indictment for war crimes, Göth personally shot between 30 and 90 women and children during the liquidation of the ghetto.

Karp performed Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor so well that Göth allowed her and her sister to live.

[29] Göth was also the officer in charge of the liquidation of Szebnie concentration camp, which interned 4,000 Jewish and 1,500 Polish slave labourers.

Evidence presented at Göth's trial indicates he delegated this task to a subordinate, SS-Hauptscharführer Josef Grzimek, who was sent to assist camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Kellermann with mass killings.

[37][27] Mietek Pemper[a] testified at the trial that it was during the earlier period that Göth committed most of the random and brutal killings for which he became notorious.

[45] During his time at Płaszów, Göth lived comfortably in a villa, owning cars and horses that he rode in the camp.

[55] Göth 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, the charges against him were dropped in early 1945.

In the 2020s, researchers, including Jonathan Kalmus and Rabbi Naftali Schiff, found documentation that proved a story told by survivor Josef Lewkowicz, who had claimed that the Americans initially lost Göth in their prisoner population.

[1][57] Göth was found guilty of membership in the Nazi Party (which had been declared a criminal organisation) and personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people.

[61] In addition to his two marriages, Göth had a two-year relationship with Ruth Irene Kalder [de], a beautician and aspiring actress originally from Breslau (or Gleiwitz; sources vary).

Kalder suffered from emphysema[66] and committed suicide in 1983 shortly after giving an interview in Jon Blair's documentary Schindler.

Göth's actions at Płaszów Labour Camp became internationally known through his depiction by Ralph Fiennes in the film Schindler's List (1993).