Cristoph Vollmer (February 12, 1915 - 1944) was a Waffen-SS Schütze (Private) and photographer in the infamous Dirlewanger Brigade. He played a role in cementing one of the most infamous pictures of the Perekhody Village Massacre.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
Cristoph Vollmer was born on February 12, 1915, in Dresden, Saxony. A troubled youth, he spent his early years frequently in and out of reformatories due to petty crime, violent outbursts, and multiple sexual offenses. By 1936, he had been convicted of rape, serving time in Bautzen Prison before being transferred to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1940 as a forced laborer.
Like many convicts in Nazi Germany, Vollmer was given a choice in 1943: continue serving his sentence or "redeem" himself by enlisting in the Dirlewanger Brigade, an SS penal unit made up of criminals, sadists, and political deviants. He chose the latter.
His experience as an amateur photographer—originally a hobby from his youth—was noted by his superiors in the Einsatzgruppen, leading to his assignment as a war photographer and propagandist.
Military Career[]
By the time of the Perekhody Massacre, Vollmer had become an active participant in war crimes, often seen documenting executions, rapes, and mass burnings at the behest of his superiors. Unlike war correspondents, his role was not for journalism but for Nazi propaganda and internal records. He enjoyed taking photos of dismembered bodies and victims. He was known as Oskar Dirlewanger’s personal photographer for such crimes.
Perekhody Massacre (1943)[]
During the massacre, he infamously photographed a Obersturmführer, Unterscharführer, Scharführer, and another SS soldier posing with Florya, the shell-shocked village boy, as the church barn burned behind them. This sadistic photograph, meant as a trophy, became one of the most infamous moments of the massacre.
Vollmer was also known to smirk and joke while taking pictures, often treating mass killings as artistic compositions rather than atrocities. His camera was seen as an extension of the perverse and voyeuristic nature of the Dirlewanger Brigade, which delighted in mocking and humiliating their victims before slaughtering them.
Death in the Warsaw Uprising (1944)[]
After the collapse of German positions in Byelorussia, Vollmer was reassigned to Poland, where the Dirlewanger Brigade was deployed to crush the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944.
During Operation Kutschera, he was seen photographing the brutal executions of Polish insurgents and civilians. However, as resistance grew, the Dirlewanger Brigade came under increasing partisan attacks. On August 22, 1944, Vollmer was ambushed by Polish Home Army fighters while attempting to take a photograph of a group of dismembered Polish hostages.
He was shot multiple times in the stomach before being dragged into a side street, where he was executed with a single shot to the head. His body was stripped of its uniform, and his camera was taken as a trophy by Polish partisans.