Jürgen Matthäus

As scholarly sources, images require critical engagement to unlock their evidential and explanatory potential beyond what seems visually apparent. Based on newly available documentation, this research note offers corrective evidence and contextual explication for a more historically accurate as well as interdisciplinarity rewarding reading of one iconic Holocaust photograph known as “The Last Jew in Vinnitsa.”

Most scholars who study Holocaust perpetrators have invested more energy in discussing the role of the leadership in the centers of executive power than in investigating the actions of the killers in the field. Research on the latter has focused on identifying personal motives and collective attitudes; comparatively few insights are offered into the synergies between units and agencies or between center and periphery at a specific time. This article explores this interaction for the critical phase of Operation Barbarossa, during which German units, and especially Himmler's SS- and policemen, crossed the line from persecution to the murder of Jewish men, women, and children en masse. The author examines the leadership's expectations and concerns prior to Operation Barbarossa, and analyzes Himmler's response to and interference in his men's actions in the East.