Paul Götze was an SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

-Rottenführer

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 , the Schutzstaffel and was senior to the paramilitary rank of Sturmmann.The insignia for Rottenführer...

at Auschwitz

Auschwitz concentration camp

Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...

 and Buchenwald

Buchenwald concentration camp

Buchenwald concentration camp was a German Nazi concentration camp established on the Ettersberg near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937, one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps on German soil.Camp prisoners from all over Europe and Russia—Jews, non-Jewish Poles and Slovenes,...

 concentration camps.

Born in Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

, 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

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 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

Supreme National Tribunal

The Supreme National Tribunal was a war crime tribunal active in Poland from 1946 to 1948, with jurisdiction over fascist-hitlerite criminals and traitors to the Polish nation.The tribunal presided over seven high-profile cases ....

 at the Auschwitz Trial in Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

 and was sentenced to death

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

. His sentenced was carried out by hanging

Hanging

Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...

 in Montelupich Prison

Montelupich Prison

Montelupich prison was a prison located in Kraków, which was used by theGestapo throughout World War II. Prisoners in Montelupich included politicalprisoners, members of the SS and Security Service who had been...

, Kraków.