Paul Götze

Who was Paul Götze?

Paul Götze was an SS-Rottenführer at Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.

Born in Halle, Götze was a painter by profession. He joined the Nazi party 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 Buchenwald.

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 amounts 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 at the Auschwitz Trial in Kraków and was sentenced to death. His sentenced was carried out by hanging in Montelupich Prison, Kraków.