Talk:Amon Göth

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Amon Göth article.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

	Germany Portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles related to Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
Additional information: This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-Class status: Referencing and citation: not checked Coverage and accuracy: not checked Structure: not checked Grammar: not checked Supporting materials: not checked To fill out this checklist, please add the following to the template call: <!-- 1. It is suitably referenced, and all major points are appropriately cited. --> |B-Class-1=yes/no <!-- 2. It reasonably covers the topic, and does not contain major omissions or inaccuracies. --> |B-Class-2=yes/no <!-- 3. It has a defined structure, including a lead section and one or more sections of content. --> |B-Class-3=yes/no <!-- 4. It is free from major grammatical errors. --> |B-Class-4=yes/no <!-- 5. It contains appropriate supporting materials, such as an infobox, images, or diagrams. --> |B-Class-5=yes/no

	This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Stub	This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Additional information and associated task forces: This article is not currently associated with a task force. To tag it for one or more task forces, please add the task force codes from the template instructions to the template call.

This article is part of WikiProject Fascism, an attempt to better organize and unify articles relating to the fascist ideology, its impact on history and present-day organizations closely linked to both of these (ideology and history). See project page, and discussion. This article may be listed on an index of fascist movements or people. Such listing may be controversial; feel free to contribute to discussions there. The presence of this Talk page-only template only implies that the subject is of interest to the associated WikiProject.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
Start	This article has been rated as Start-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]

I've changed the description of the Image:Gothwrifle.jpg to "Amon Göth on the balcony of his house at Plaszow in the summer of 1943" The previous description was "Amon Göth during sniper practice at Plaszow in the summer of 1943" and in the article the shooting practice is mentioned as sniping Jews from the balcony of his house depicted in the movie Schindler's List. However, Internet Movie Database says that "Amon Goeth did not shoot random prisoners from the balcony of his house. His house still stands, and the location of the camp is still known. The camp is on the other side of a hill, so Goeth could not have seen any prisoners from his balcony. However, Goeth did shoot prisoners at random from the top of the hill, and he did parade around his balcony with a rifle." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108052/goofs Jogers

Here's an article from the London Times dated January 27, 2005 that states that Goeth did shoot people from his balcony. Also the quote you reference stating otherwise does not appear on the page you have linked.--198.93.113.49 17:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Other crimes 2 Regarding Other Crimes 3 War Crimes 4 Birthdate 5 Execution 6 Name and birthdate issues

[edit] Other crimes

From the article:

although this grim portrayal (where, for shooting practice, he sniped Jews from the balcony of his house) showed only a subset of his crimes.

What were his other crimes? The article points out the Schindler's List fails to deal with them, but the article doesn't describe them either.--198.93.113.49 17:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding Other Crimes

The article does fail to elucidate on "other crimes" but the indictment against Goeth by the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland in 1946 was crystal clear on what these crimes were:

"(1) The accused as commandant of the forced labour camp at Plaszow (Cracow) from 11th February, 1943, till 13th September, 1944, caused the death of about 8,000 inmates by ordering a large number of them to be exterminated.

(2) As a SS-Sturmführer the accused carried out on behalf of SS-Sturmbannführer Willi Haase the final closing down of the Cracow ghetto. This liquidation action which began on 13th March, 1943, deprived of freedom about 10,000 people who had been interned in the camp of Plaszow, and caused the death of about 2,000.

(3) As a SS-Hauptsturmführer the accused carried out on 3rd September, 1943, the closing down of the Tarnow ghetto. As a result of this action an unknown number of people perished, having been killed on the spot in Tarnow ; others died through asphyxiation during transport by rail or were exterminated in other camps, in particular at Auschwitz.

(4) Between September, 1943, and 3rd February, 1944, the accused closed down the forced labour camp at Szebnie near Jaslo by ordering the inmates to be murdered on the spot or deported to other camps, thus causing the death of several thousand persons.

(5) Simultaneously with the activities described under (1) to (4) the accused deprived the inmates of valuables, gold and money deposited by them, and appropriated those things. He also stole clothing, furniture and other movable property belonging to displaced or interned people, and sent them to Germany. The value of stolen goods and in particular of valuables reached many million zloties at the rate of exchange in force at the time. For those acts the accused was arrested by the German authorities on 13th September, 1944, but he was not brought before any German court. He was later extradited to Poland by the Allied authorities in Germany."

How Goeth's daughter can still maintain any regard for her war criminal father truly beggars belief...

[edit] War Crimes

We have a user who is removing Amon Goth from the Nazi war criminals category, stating he was never convicted and therefore should not be listed. Amon Goth was convicted in 1946 of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. He was executed shortly thereafter. It is not POV that Goth was a war criminal, it is documented legal fact. -Husnock 13:43, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

You should add that he was "convicted" after a show trial in Communist Poland. So how credible is such a conviction, anyway?! With your logic one also should list those Germans that were executed for murdering Poles for Katyn as "war criminals".

Ich stimme überein. 147.153.251.188Babsi147.153.251.188 22:01, 23 August 2006 (UTC)16.00 Uhr 23.August 2006 (Mnt)

This does illustrate some of the complexities. In this particular case, he was both convicted and is nearly universally agreed to be guilty. Some of the others convicted by the Soviet-influenced Polish authorities are more disputed. In any case, the article currently nicely sidesteps the issue by giving a more specific and undisputable category, Category:Executed Nazi concentration camp personnel. --Delirium 03:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, there were no Germans executed for murdering Poles in Katyn. There are no serious doubts if sentences against German war criminals in Poland were credible. In 1946 there lived a great number of eyewitnesses and such persons, like Goeth or Hoess were universally known for their personal cruelty. Unfair show trials in Poland were directed against Poles - alleged spies, not against German war criminals. Moreover, in 1946 the country was still quite normal, stalinist repressions started in late 1940s. Pibwl ←« 21:44, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Birthdate

Goeth's birthdate has been listed as Nov. 12 for over two years now, but this was a swap of the month and day numbers, according to SS records:

The Camp Men, French L. MacLean, 1999, Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., ISBN 0-7643-0636-7

NAME: Göth (Goeth), Ammon
NATIONAL ARCHIVE FILE: A3343 SSO-020A
BIRTHDAY: 11 December 1908
BIRTHPLACE: Vienna, Austria
RANK: SS-Hauptsturmführer
SS NUMBER: 43673
NSDAP NUMBER: 510764
MARITAL STATUS: Married
RELIGION: Catholic
HIGHEST DECORATION: None Listed
WAFFEN-SS: No
NOTE: Kommandant at Plaszow; member of Operation Reinhard, Lublin 1942.
EXECUTED: 13 September 1946

CAMP SERVICE: Plaszow. 1943-1944

JamieMcCarthy 15:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

See "Name and birthdate issues" below, Jamie. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Execution

I've just watched the Isabelle Clarke's documentary La Traque des Nazis (The hunt for nazis); it includes footage of Amon Göth's execution. Two elements were noticeable:

-He had his arms tied behind his back and couldn't do the nazi salute;
-The execution butched the execution twice by miscalculating the length of the rope. Amon Göth died on the third try.

Following this evidence, I have thus deleted the mention of his performing the nazi salute at his execution. Scotchorama 22:38, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name and birthdate issues

We call the article "Amon Göth", then start the lead para with: "Amon Leopold Göeth (or Goeth) ..." – with no mention of Göth. This seems to be a confusion. The letter –ö- is often written as –oe-, but never as –öe-. His legal name was Göth, and it's sometimes written as Goeth. No other versions are correct. I’ve made the changes.

Re the birthday: Jamie McCarthy’s post from February 2007 – which seems to have been totally ignored - seems to be on the money. Other websites also say it was 11 December, not 12 November. I’ll make that change too. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)