Unmasked after 80 years - the Nazi executioner in infamous WWII photo: Historian uses AI to uncover identity of killer in 'The Last Jew of Vinnytsia' image

A Nazi executioner in an infamous World War II photograph has been unmasked for the first time after 80 years, using Artificial Intelligence. 

The man holding a pistol to the head of a kneeling Jewish victim in the harrowing photo known as 'The Last Jew of Vinnytsia' has been identified by a historian as Schutzstaffel (SS) officer Jakobus Onnen, who was 33 at the time of the killing.

The heart-wrenching photograph, long regarded as one of the most haunting images of World War II, shows a German soldier in spectacles aiming his weapon at a man kneeling beside a mass grave while several other soldiers look on.

The victim's name has never been discovered, but the image, believed to have been taken in 1941, has come to symbolise the systematic slaughter of Europe's Jews.

The killer's name was revealed by Jürgen Matthäus, who has studied the Holocaust for decades. He says he is 99 per cent certain that Onnen was the executioner. 

Matthäus has previously pinpointed the exact location and timing of the mass execution seen in the image, which was first made public during the 1961 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

After the picture was handed over by a Holocaust survivor shortly following his liberation in 1945, it was circulated by an American news agency. 

At the time, it was thought that the execution took place in Vinnytsia, around 125 miles southwest of Kyiv. 

But a diary kept by Austrian soldier Walter Materna later revealed the massacre actually occurred in Berychiv, a city between Kyiv and Vinnytsia. 

The man said the shooter in the photo bore a striking resemblance to his wife's uncle.

Although he did not disclose the uncle's name, he provided key biographical details, including his place and year of birth.

Other essential information included his entry into the SS in 1932 and his death while fighting against partisans in 1943. 

Using this information, Matthäus scoured historical archives and identified the man as Jakobus Onnen. 

Before the war, Onnen taught French, English, and gymnastics at the Deutsche Kolonialschule in Witzenhausen. 

In 1939, he became fully active within the SS, serving as a guard at the Dachau concentration camp before being deployed to the Eastern Front with Einsatzgruppe C in 1941. The unit was tasked with the killing of Jews before a visit by Hitler. 

It is estimated that the unit slaughtered more than 100,000 people until 1942. 

Matthäus said the combination of AI technology, historical records, and personal accounts made it possible to unmask the executioner behind one of history's most chilling images, a photograph that has come to represent the brutality of Nazi Germany's crimes against humanity.

Last month, the historian said a detailed analysis of the background in the picture gave him the exact location of the scene. He then used facial recognition to determine Onnen's identity. 

Born in 1906, Onnen came from a family of educated people and had joined the Nazi Party by 1933. He was killed on August 12, 1943, while in combat in the Zhytomyr region in what is now present-day Ukraine. 

 His name is still listed on a memorial plaque for fallen soldiers in the town of Weener, near his birthplace of Tichelwarf in East Frisia, close to the Dutch border.

Authorities are now considering removing his name or using other methods to remove it from the memorial.  

The 1941 massacre

According to reports in the Einsatzgruppen, on September 1 and 2, leaflets deemed inflammatory were distributed by Jews in Berdychiv.

Since the perpetrators were not found, around 1,300 Jews were rounded up and executed by a unit of the Higher SS and Police Leaders.

One witness who saw the killings said: 'They had to wear their festivity-dresses. 

'Then their clothes and valuables were taken. The pits were dug and filled in by war prisoners who were executed shortly after.'

It has been estimated by the Nazis may have killed 20,000 to 30,000 Jews in the area. 

German forces had a Nazi prison and a forced labour camp in Berdychiv. 

The Stalag 339 camp, which housed prisoners of war was also located there.  

The execution pictured in 'The Last Jew of Vinnytsia' is believed to have taken place during this wave of killings, carried out by Einsatzgruppe C with help from local collaborators. 

The victims were executed at the edge of open pits and buried where they fell.

Source: Mail Online,  Kevin Adjei-Darko, October 15, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde