German casualty: Faked or coincidence

[flamethrowerguy]

Take a look at these two pictures. They are from two different books. Is this the same fallen soldier and one photo was somehow edited? Or is the (almost) same position of the deceased a coincidence. The position of the hands is a bit different. The neckwound and the flow of blood seem to be totally identical. What's your opinion?

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/8232/vergob8.jpg

[Hysteria__]

Judging by the backgrounds and a few other elements to my eye it looks like two different soldiers. You'd have to keep in mind a hell of alot of soldiers died in this war, two corpses were bound to look alike.

[tankgeezer]

The top photo appears to be a Finnish soldier, as the entrenching tool looks like Finn issue. . the two photos are different images, and while the lower pic appears legit, the upper may well be a "dramatized" image, no guarantee tho.

[boxerrick41]

somethings fishy here, somethings are different but the creases in his pants are exactly the same

[flamethrowerguy]

That's the impression I am getting more and more, too. The head (with helmet) and the legs seem identical but the torso wih arms and the backgournd could have been exchanged...

[Moreheaddriller]

Well i did notice in pic one he does not have a ring but in pic2 he does

[koala]

They seem very similar. You could try and differentiate by the shape of the ear, but they are very similar and the picture isnt clear enough to make a good judgement.
What would be the point of editing something like this anyway?

[Rising Sun*]

The angle and position of the left hand and arm are completely different in each picture.

Interestingly, and even allowing for different angles of the wrists, in the first picture the hands and wrists appear to be rather different in size, which is not explained by proximity to the lens and depth of field as they're both about the same distance from a fairly standard focal length lens.

In addition to the trouser legs being identical as pointed out by flamethrowerguy, the bottom of the jacket in the second picture appears below the camo jacket in the first picture at the top of his left thigh.

Be interesting to see what's missing from the bottom left corner in the second picture. Note that the first bloke doesn't have an index finger, or maybe a little finger, and there is no index finger shown in the second picture. The finger ends in the first picture look a bit odd, which could have been achieved by photoshopping out the curled ends in the second picture. The thumb in the first picture looks unnatural and is straight where the second one is bent.

The second one looks genuine and seems more likely to be the basis for the first one.

But why would anyone go to all that trouble? Maybe the publisher just lacked a suitable photo for the first image and doctored the second one? What's the caption in each book?

[flamethrowerguy]

The first picture, where the dead soldiers is lying on the sandy roadway, is from the book "Ehrenbuch des deutschen Soldaten" (Book of honor of the german soldier". It seems to be the original version to me. In the book there is no caption to the photo. The second photo is from the book "Im Auge des Jägers", the story of the Wehrmacht sniper Sepp Allerberger. The story of this picture is mentioned in the book as a german soldier hit by a russian sniper during entrenching work. It's quite possible that for this story/book the original picture has been fixed because there was no matching picture around.

[boxerrick41]

i think the bottom picture may be original but the top one has been doctored, the entry wound is visible in both pics right behind his ear, and exactly the same .i think the upper body has been altered or added

[imi]

I think the first image is the copy,and remake of the lowest.
The camo,and the "hands" added posteriorly.

[koala]

I tend to agree with the previous two posts. The bottom/second picture seems to be the original. The legs and head are the same but the torso and background have been changed.
Still why would you go to this trouble for an illustration in a book, you could easily just fake the picture.
Is there something more to this?

[flamethrowerguy]

I tend to agree with the previous two posts. The bottom/second picture seems to be the original. The legs and head are the same but the torso and background have been changed.
Still why would you go to this trouble for an illustration in a book, you could easily just fake the picture.
Is there something more to this?

No big deal behind it, I think. Probably the author edited the picture for his own needs to match the story and he wanted it to look genuine. I think he managed to do so, maybe the camo jacket looks a little too "new".