Een Wehrmacht soldaat op een hek 1940 - 1945

This unassuming photograph, made by an anonymous photographer, shows a Wehrmacht soldier perched on a fence. It's one of those images that gets under your skin, not because of its dramatic composition, but because of its quiet, almost unsettling familiarity. The palette is muted, a study in greys and browns, which lends it a timeless quality. I keep coming back to the soldier’s pose. It's so casual, almost nonchalant, but there's a tension there too. Look at the way he's holding himself, his hand resting on the fence, his gaze directed somewhere beyond the frame. What’s he thinking? What's he seeing? The texture of the print itself, slightly grainy and worn, adds to the sense of distance, both temporal and emotional. It reminds me a little of some of Gerhard Richter's blurred photographs, in the sense that it invites us to question the nature of seeing, the way images can both reveal and conceal. In the end, it's this very ambiguity that makes it so compelling, a reminder that history is never as simple as it seems.