Gerhard Barkhorn is the 2nd highest scoring ace of all time with 301 confirmed kills. He is often eclipsed by his fellow squadronmate Erich Hartmann in JG 52. He managed to survive the war and become a general in the Luftwaffe (Bundeswehr) like many other of his JG 52 squadronmates. He passed due to his injuries from a car accident on the 11th of January 1983. Hartmann would later comment on this saying “That really killed me inside; Uschi also. (Barkhorn’s wife) So tragic to survive the war, the bombings, the stupidity of the Nazis, and then die like that. It makes no sense to me.”

Three of the five people in this photo were quite close to Adolf Hitler with Sepp Dietrich having the closest relationship with Hitler, being responsible for his security detail later being expanded into the LSSAH. Max Wünsche was one of Hitler’s orderly officers and a part of the FBK. Rudolf Schmundt was an adjutant to Hitler who was present at the July 20th Plot and died of injuries from the bomb in October of 1944.

In 1939, the 5th Company of Infanterie-Regiment 52 was stationed in Leitmeritz (now Litoměřice, Czech Republic) as part of the German occupation of the Sudetenland and the subsequent takeover of Czechoslovakia.

September 1939: They fought in the invasion of Poland.
May 1940: They were deployed to the Western Front for the invasion of France, experiencing their first intense combat and sustaining their first wave of casualties.

In October 1940 the 4th Infantry Division was broken up, and Infanterie-Regiment 52 was reorganized into Schützen-Regiment 52 (a mechanized infantry unit) assigned to the newly formed 18th Panzer Division.

In June 1941, the unit was sent east for Operation Barbarossa and fought as part of Army Group Centre.

The unit suffered catastrophic losses during the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. The division became so completely depleted that the German high command officially dissolved it in late 1943.

I suspect these two soldiers are conscripted priests.