Self-Portrait of a Holocaust Perpetrator : The Wartime Correspondence of a German Policeman

This book provides an insightful exploration of how a German policeman, Mathias Müller (Police Battalion 309), was involved in Nazi atrocities and mass murder behind the frontline in the Soviet Union during the Second World War. It does this through the analysis of Müller’s own words and the actions he describes in the voluminous correspondence he shared with his wife at the time.

Self-Portrait of a Holocaust Perpetrator examines the correspondence from the perspective of the police unit’s operational history and considers Mathias Müller’s language in relation to discourses and discursive elements of the Third Reich. Schnell reflects on the personalities behind the letters, Mathias and Meta, and the rules of their ‘correspondence game’. He also goes on to consider the narrative strategies Müller uses to convince his wife that he has an important role to fulfil in the East, without openly talking about what he and his comrades actually were doing. For though Müller was very much in line with the ideas and aims of the NS-leadership, his wife was not, and he had to navigate this problem skilfully in the correspondence.

The book is a unique and revealing study of a lower-rank Holocaust perpetrator that will enrich the understanding of all students and scholars of the Holocaust and the Second World War.