Artificial intelligence has revealed the true identity of a man previously honored as a “fallen soldier” to be a former German SS gunman captured in a haunting Holocaust photograph. Jakobus Onnen, once commemorated on a war memorial, was identified as one of the SS perpetrators in a 1941 execution image where innocent Jewish individuals were murdered by SS troops.

In response to this discovery, city officials have announced plans to cover Onnen’s name on the memorial with a plaque containing a QR code directing visitors to historical information at the local Holocaust remembrance center. Additionally, an explanatory display will be installed to detail Onnen’s role as a perpetrator.

Historian Dr. Jürgen Matthäus’s breakthrough has sparked national outrage, leading to calls for a reassessment of local monuments in Germany that may inadvertently commemorate war criminals as victims. The mayor of Weener, Lower Saxony, Heiko Abbas, commended Matthäus’s work as a crucial step towards acknowledging the truth and taking responsibility.

Through the use of artificial intelligence, Dr. Matthäus was able to identify Jakobus Onnen as the SS shooter in the notorious photograph, shedding light on the historical reality of the Holocaust. The collaboration with the perpetrator’s relatives was instrumental in utilizing AI effectively in this case.

The ongoing efforts to rectify historical inaccuracies and honor the true victims of the Holocaust have brought about discussions regarding the legacy of local war memorials in Germany. There is now a growing pressure on regional authorities to review other monuments to ensure that no further perpetrators are mistakenly commemorated as victims.

Utilizing digitized Nazi archives and AI facial-matching tools, Dr. Matthäus analyzed the faces of SS men in the photograph depicting the 1941 massacre in Berdychiv, Ukraine, where Onnen is believed to have participated. Despite his death in combat against partisans two years later, Onnen’s name was controversially added to the town’s memorial as a “victim of war and violence.”