From a picture posted to /r/malehairadvice (funnily enough) - can anyone tell me what the medals/pins on the soldier's chest are, what the insignia on his collar means and what the little ribbon below his lapel signifies?

by EldestPort

I'm assuming he's WW2 Wehrmacht - http://i.imgur.com/hzjwckj.jpg

Astrogator

The soldier is Luftwaffe, you can see it on his collar tabs (the wings on it were used as rank insignia for Luftwaffe personnel), in the rank of Obergefreiter (private 1st class). The colour of the cloth underneath the wings would tell to which kind of troop he belonged to (e.g. blue for medical, yellow for paratroopers, deep red for AA/Artillery and so on). On his button-front is the ribbon to the Iron Cross 2nd class.

The lower left of the three badges is the Deutsche Sportabzeichen of unknown Level (Gold/silver/bronze?), the German Sports Badge, awarded for passing certain tests, a civil, not a military award. The letters DRA on it stand for Deutscher Reichsausschuss für Leibesübungen, German Reich Committee for Physical Education.

The top one is the Fallschirmschützenabzeichen der Luftwaffe, the Paratrooper Badge, awarded for successful completion of the paratrooper training course.

On the lower right is the Hitlerjugend-Leistungsabzeichen, the Hitler Youth Performance Badge, again there were different levels in iron, bronze, and silver but it's hard to tell from the picture. It was awarded to members of the HJ who performed well in internal HJ-competitions in several areas: sports, shooting and paramilitary exercises.