What do you make of this?

[JimboCymru]

G'day gang,
Can somebody please shed some light on this photo?

When I first acquired it I assumed that he was a Fallschirmjager officer due to the fliegerbluse - now I am not so sure.

He is wearing the 'German Cross in Gold' (sewn) on his right breast, but no sign of aircrew/para badge on his left breast, although there are two obvious holes. Also, he doesn't appear to have any collar tabs....which leads me to think he's been captured and maybe took them off; although whey he never removed the German Cross, no idea.

Strangely enough, I initially thought he was at a briefing due to the documents in his left hand. If you look closely you'll also notice that the tree trunks near his right shoulder indicate he's in some form of basic structure (they've been cut and there is wire about 20cm from top of closest trunk).

Any thoughts? Much appreciated.

Jimbo

[AMTG]

It looks like a German trench he is in.....Luftwaffe feild division maybe

[JimboCymru]

Many thanks for your quick response!

Herman Goring, perhaps? Any idea why he's missing badges and collar tabs? Not familiar with the field divisions, but assume they follow similar dress regs as other arms of the Luftwaffe?

The forage cap seems to be piped quite noticeably - the HG Div had white piping didn't they?

Cheers
Jimbo

[AMTG]

Yeh I believe they did have white piping.....looking at it again, the bloke is unarmed.....maybe a training exercise, I mean he looks very calm, almost posed in front of a command bunker or similar....the training scenario could explain lack of insignia....maybe they hadn't been fitted out properly yet?.....before we went to Iraq in 2005, we got a partial uniform issue with no insignia of our desert clobber at the beginning of the training period and the rest got issued just before we deployed.....in m opinion, this is what it looks like, maybe a Ersatz unit had been formed, training in Germany and still awaiting thrir full issue

[Adrian Stevenson]

I am certain he is from one of the Luftwaffe Feld divs.

Lack of colar tabs: very dark looking waffenfarbe (would be dark green).

If he were "HG" he would wear the cuff title.

Cheers, Ade.