Paul Götze (13 November 1903 – 24 January 1948) was an SS-''

Rottenführer ''Rottenführer'' (, ) was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in the year 1932. The rank of ''Rottenführer'' was used by several Nazi paramilitary groups, among them the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) an ...

'' at

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

and

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

concentration camp A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploitati ...

s. Born in Halle,

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

, Götze was a painter by profession. He joined the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

in 1937 and the SS in 1942. In July 1942 he was posted to Auschwitz, where he initially served as a guard and supervisor of work groups. From February to May 1943 he was ''Blockführer'' in the Auschwitz main camp, later performing the same function in the gypsy camp in Birkenau from May 1943 to August 1944. In August 1944 he was transferred to

. Although prisoners held Götze as a reasonable man out of SS men at the camp , he took an active part in the killing of Jews and prisoners unable to work in the Birkenau gas chambers, such as assisting with the loading and unloading of people marked for gassing when large numbers of people were marked for extermination. He participated in the liquidation of the gypsy camp in August 1944. Götze was tried by the

Supreme National Tribunal The Supreme National Tribunal (; NTN) was a war crime, war-crime tribunal active in Polish People's Republic, communist-era Poland from 1946 to 1948. Its aims and purpose were defined by the State National Council in decrees of 22 January and 17 Oc ...

at the

Auschwitz Trial The Auschwitz trial began on November 24, 1947, in Kraków, when Poland's Supreme National Tribunal tried forty former staff of the Auschwitz concentration camps. The trials ended on December 22, 1947. The best-known defendants were Arthur Lie ...

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

and was sentenced to

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

. His sentence was carried out by

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

Montelupich Prison The Montelupich Prison, named for the street on which it is located, the ''ulica Montelupich'' ("street of the Montelupi family"),Ulica Montelupich or "street of the Montelupis" itself is named after the Montelupi manor house (Kamienica (archite ...

, Kraków.

Bibliography

*Cyprian T., Sawicki J., ''Siedem wyroków Najwyższego Trybunału Narodowego'', Poznań 1962

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gotze, Paul 1903 births 1948 deaths Auschwitz trial executions Buchenwald concentration camp personnel Executed German mass murderers Executed people from Saxony-Anhalt Holocaust perpetrators in Poland People from Halle (Saale) People from the Province of Saxony SS personnel