Schindler 39;s List Officer

[Karleen Chura]

Gth was tried after the war by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland at Krakw and was found guilty of personally ordering the imprisonment, torture, and extermination of individuals and groups of people. He was also convicted of homicide, the first such conviction at a war crimes trial, for "personally killing, maiming and torturing a substantial, albeit unidentified number of people."[1]

Gth was executed by hanging not far from the former site of the Płaszw camp. The 1993 film Schindler's List, in which Gth is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, depicts his running of the Płaszw concentration camp.

Gth was born on 11 December 1908 in Vienna, then the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to a family in the book publishing industry.[2] Gth joined a Nazi youth group at age 17 and was a member of the antisemitic nationalist paramilitary group Heimwehr (Home Guard) from 1927 to 1930. He dropped his membership to join the Austrian branch of the Nazi Party, being assigned the party membership number 510,764 in September 1930. Gth joined the Austrian SS in 1930 and was appointed an SS-Mann with the SS number 43,673.[3]

Gth began working for the party in the Ortsgruppe (local group) of the Margareten district in Vienna and soon moved to the Mariahilf Ortsgruppe, where he was a political leader in the Sturmabteilung (SA). Gth joined the Austrian SS in 1930, and was granted full membership in 1932 after the two-year candidacy period. He was appointed an SS-Mann with the SS number 43,673.[4][5]

Gth served with the SS Truppe Deimel and Sturm Libardi in Vienna until January 1933, when he was promoted to serve as adjutant and Zugfhrer (platoon leader) of the 52nd SS-Standarte, a regimental-sized unit. He was soon promoted to SS-Scharfhrer (squad leader).[6] 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. From this base, Gth smuggled radios and weapons into Austria and acted as a courier for the SS. [7] He was arrested in October 1933 by the Austrian authorities but was released for lack of evidence in December 1933. He was again detained after the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss in a failed Nazi coup attempt in July 1934. He escaped custody and fled to the SS training facility at Dachau, next to Dachau concentration camp.[7] He temporarily quit the SS and Nazi Party activities until 1937 because of differences with his Oberfhrer (commander) Alfred Bigler, and lived in Munich while trying to help his parents to develop their publishing business. He married on the recommendation of his parents, but was divorced after only a few months.[8]

Gth returned to Vienna shortly after the Anschluss in 1938 and resumed his party activities. He married Anna Geiger, a woman he met at a motorcycle race, in an SS civil ceremony on 23 October 1938.[9] 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.[10] The couple had three children: Peter, born in 1939, who died of diphtheria aged seven months;[11] Werner, born in 1940; and a daughter, Ingeborg, born in 1941.[12] The couple maintained a permanent home in Vienna throughout World War II.[13]

He was transferred to Lublin in the summer of 1942, where he joined the staff of SS-Brigadefhrer Odilo Globočnik, the SS and Police Leader of the Krakw area, as part of Operation Reinhard, the code name given to the establishment of the three extermination camps at Bełżec, Sobibr, 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, Gth was responsible for rounding up and transporting victims to these camps to be murdered.[17]

Gth was assigned to the SS-Totenkopfverbnde ("Death's head" unit; concentration camp service). His first assignment, starting on 11 February 1943, was to oversee the construction of the 200 acre Krakw-Płaszw concentration camp, which he was to command.[18] Gth was atypical of most SS officers who served in concentration camps, as most hailed from small municipalities.[19] 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.[20] Located on the grounds of two old Jewish cemeteries, the camp took one month to construct using slave labour.[21][22] On 13 March 1943, the Jewish ghetto of Krakw was liquidated and those still fit for work were sent to the new camp at Płaszw.[23] Several thousand deemed not fit for work were sent to extermination camps and murdered. Hundreds more were murdered on the streets by the Nazis as they cleared out the ghetto.[24] In his opening address as the Kommandant of the newly populated camp, Gth told his new prisoners, "I am your god."[25][26][27] Gth had complete authority over the camp, especially in this early stage.[20][28]

In addition to his duties at Płaszw, Gth was the officer in charge of the liquidation of the ghetto at Tarnw, which had been home to 25,000 Jews (about 45 percent of the city's population) at the start of World War II.[29] About 10,000 were sent to Płaszw to be slave labourers.[14] By the time the ghetto was liquidated, 8,000 Jews remained. The final roundup began on 1 September 1943, when the remaining Jews were assembled in Magdeburg Square, which was surrounded by heavily armed guards. The trains were loaded and departed by midday the next day. Most of the victims were sent to Auschwitz concentration camp; less than half survived the journey.[29] Most of the survivors were deemed unsuitable for slave labour and were murdered immediately on their arrival at Auschwitz. According to testimony of several witnesses as recorded in his 1946 indictment for war crimes, Gth personally shot between 30 and 90 women and children during the liquidation of the ghetto.[29]

On his birthday in 1943, Gth ordered Natalia Karp, who had just arrived in Płaszw, to play the piano. Karp performed Frdric Chopin's Nocturne in C-sharp minor so well that Gth allowed her and her sister to live.[30]

Gth 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 Gth's trial indicates he delegated this task to a subordinate, SS-Hauptscharfhrer Josef Grzimek, who was sent to assist camp commandant SS-Hauptsturmfhrer Hans Kellermann with mass killings.[31][32] Between 21 September 1943 and 3 February 1944, the camp was gradually liquidated. Almost all of the Polish inmates were transferred to Płaszw or the Bochnia Ghetto, where Gth was also in command. Around a thousand Jews were taken to the nearby forest and shot, and the remainder were sent to Auschwitz, where most were gassed immediately on arrival. After the liquidation, Gth had all the camp's supplies sorted and transported to Płaszw.[31][33]

On 28 July 1943, Gth was assigned to Section F, the SS and Police Fachgruppe (section of experts) that specialised in ghetto liquidation and transport. By April 1944, Gth had been promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmfhrer (captain), the highest of the company grade ranks, having received a double promotion, skipping the rank of SS-Obersturmfhrer (first lieutenant).[34][35] He was also appointed a reserve officer of the Waffen-SS.[36] In early 1944 the status of the Krakw-Płaszw Labour Camp changed to a permanent concentration camp under the direct authority of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (WVHA; SS Economics and Administration Office).[37] This distinction made Krakw-Płaszw one of 13 official concentration camps in Poland.[38][28] Mietek Pemper[a] testified at the trial that it was during the earlier period that Gth committed most of the random and brutal killings for which he became notorious.[40] In early May 1944, Gth was informed that 10,000 Hungarian Jews would soon be sent to be imprisoned in Płaszw. To create space for the new arrivals, on 14 May Gth ordered all children in the camp to be moved to the kindergarten. The next day, Gth had the majority of them, with only a few exceptions, sent to Auschwitz to be killed.[28] Concentration camps were more closely monitored by the SS than labour camps, so conditions improved slightly when the designation was changed.[41]

The camp housed about 2,000 inmates when it opened. At its peak of operations in 1944, a staff of 636 guards oversaw 25,000 permanent inmates, and an additional 150,000 people passed through the camp in its role as a transit camp.[43] Gth, described by survivors as a huge and imposing man, personally murdered prisoners on a daily basis. His two dogs, Rolf, a Great Dane, and Ralf, an Alsatian mix, were trained to tear inmates to death.[37][44] He shot people from the window of his office if they appeared to be moving too slowly or resting in the yard.[37] He shot a Jewish cook to death because the soup was too hot.[45] He brutally mistreated his two maids, Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig and Helen Hirsch, who were in constant fear for their lives, as were all the inmates.[46] During his time at Płaszw, Gth lived comfortably in a villa, owning cars and horses that he rode in the camp. He had a Jewish cobbler inmate make him new shoes each week.[47]

As a survivor I can tell you that we are all traumatized people. Never would I, never, believe that any human being would be capable of such horror, of such atrocities. When we saw him from a distance, everybody was hiding, in latrines, wherever they could hide. I can't tell you how people feared him.

Gth believed if one member of a work team escaped or committed some infraction, the entire team must be punished. On one occasion, he ordered the shooting of every second member of a work group because one of the party had escaped.[50] On another occasion, he personally shot every fifth member of a crew because one had not returned to the camp.[51] If inmates were caught smuggling food, they were shot.[52] The main murder site at Płaszw was Hujowa Grka ("Prick Hill"), a large hill that was used for mass killings and murders.[53] Pemper testified that 8,000 to 12,000 people were murdered at Płaszw.[54]

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