My grandmother died a few years ago, but I've only just started seriously going through all of her photographs. I found these two pictures of her father, my great-grandfather. On the back, she wrote that he was around 17 years old in these pictures, during World War 2.
He remarried when she was fairly young. After that, she was pretty much ousted from the family by her stepmother, so we're not in contact with them. I'm trying to see what I can find out about him without having to contact her family. This photo seemed like a good place to start.
Judging by the uniform, it looks like he was stationed somewhere cold, maybe Russia or Scandinavia? I looked up images of German World War 2 uniforms from these regions, but I didn't see any that had the same double-breasted coat that he is wearing here. Maybe that's a minor detail, but I'm not sure.
Thank you for the help! Let me know if this doesn't belong in this subreddit...I don't believe it's violating any rules.
He was part of the Luftwaffe.
The second picture indicates that he was a "Flieger" (the basic rank, OR-1), signified by the one eagle on his collar. If we assume that the colour behind the eagle is yellow (it's too bright to be anything else), he was part of the ground personnel or he was still in training for flying.
The first photo seems to depict a normal wool or cloth coat of the Luftwaffe.
Hello there! As your question is related to looking for identification/information regarding military personnel, our Guide on Military Identification may be of use to you. It provides a number of different resources, including how to request service records from a number of national agencies around the world, as well as graphical aids to assist in deciphering rank, unit, and other forms of badges or insignia. While the users here may still be able to lend you more assistance, hopefully this will provide a good place to start!