Man on the cover of my book finally identified

[Eric Queen]

For those who may be interested, I have finally been able to identify the man on the cover of my book. The copy of this photo originally came to me from Anders Skotte, via George Petersen. How Anders ended up with a copy of it...I have no idea. Anyway, both Roger Bender and myself thought it was a fantastic image, so we decided to us it for the cover of the book.

It turns out that this was Helmut Melitzer, one of the original members of the FIK. Here is his early "tarn" ausweis.

[Eric Queen]

Here is the original photo, still in his photo album.

[Eric Queen]

I was also lucky enough to obtain his Kretaschild....

[Eric Queen]

This is kind of neat.....

[Bill D.]

Truly amazing, Eric !

From an unidentified para to an identified soldier.

I imagine that there is an interesting story behind this discovery.

Is he, by any chance, still alive ?