Operating in the rugged terrain of Tenerife's Anaga mountains after escaping prison, he carried out a series of killings that drew national law enforcement attention and extensive media coverage. The murder of a German couple in particular elevated the manhunt to an international dimension, making him Spain's most wanted fugitive at the time. His crimes left a lasting mark on the Canary Islands, where he remains the most notorious figure of his kind in the region's recorded history.

Over the course of two days in September 1995, a sixteen-year-old carried out one of the deadliest mass killings in modern French history, moving from a family home to a village street and leaving fifteen people dead. The attack unfolded in rural Provence with a speed and scale that had no close precedent in the country, prompting serious examination of how such violence could emerge so suddenly and with so little warning.

His conviction for homicide at a war crimes trial — a first — reflected a record that went beyond administrative culpability: Göth was found to have personally killed, maimed, and tortured an unidentified but substantial number of prisoners under his command. As commandant of Kraków-Płaszów, he oversaw the camp through its most lethal period, with authority exercised through direct violence as much as through institutional machinery. The personal scale of that violence, documented at trial, is what distinguishes his case within the broader history of Nazi camp administration.