Ms. Kirsten Goetze

Professional Background

Ms. Goetze studied law and history in Berlin and Freiburg. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Ms. Goetze conducted research on her project “Eichmann as a Source: Assessing the 1960-61 Interviews for Information on the Hungarian Operation of Spring-Summer 1944.”

In her career as a judge, Ms. Goetze was assigned to the Central Office of the State Justice Administration for Investigation of Nazi Violent Crimes, in Ludwigsburg in 2007. During that time she investigated and prepared prosecution recommendations on many notable cases, such as that of John Demjanjuk. Demjanjuk, who was first identified by the U.S. Department of Justice in the 1970s, was extradited and tried in Israel in the late-1980s in a famous case of mistaken identity. After his second denaturalization by U.S. Department of Justice in Cleveland in 2001, he was deported, tried and convicted in Munich 2011 at the age of 91 for his role as a guard at the Sobibor death camp.

Ms. Goetze has given several panel presentations. In May 2014 she participated in a panel in Richmond on Nazi-era war crimes investigations and prosecutions in the wake of the Munich Demjanjuk decision, and received the Virginia Bar Foundation's 2014 Law Day Award for her ground-breaking work on that case. In 2013 she participated in a panel on SS-Ausbildungslager Trawniki, at Fundacja Ars Vivendi, Historical Institute of the University Cardinal Stefan Wyszynskieg and a panel on Law, Justice and the Holocaust at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. In 2012 she moderated “Experiences in Investigating War Crimes,” World War II, Nazi Crimes, and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union conference at the Higher School for Economics in Moscow. In 2011 she was a participant in a panel on the conviction of John Demjanjuk in Munich and implications for future German legal proceedings at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Since 2002 she has been a lecturer in civil law at the School for Administration of the Baden Württemberg municipal counsel in Karlsruhe.

In May 2014 she received the Rule of Law Award of the Virginia Holocaust Museum and the Virginia Law Foundation. She is also a jury member  for the EuropeanDialogue Silver award, Karlsruhe.

Fellowship Research

For her fellowship at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Ms. Goetze examined the pre-trial interviews of Adolf Eichmann conducted by Israeli police Captain Avner Less through a legal framework in conjunction with the Ferenczy reports and trial transcripts, the Edmund Veesenmayer interrogations, and the personal records of Hauptmann Avner W. Less to determine what information could be gained regarding the Hungarian Operation of 1944.

Ms. Kirsten Goetze was in residence at the Mandel Center until June 1 to August 31, 2014.