Help with photo ID

[Byzanti]

Hello all, this is my first post to the photos and paper forum, so it's nice to meet you all! I'm hoping and wondering if you all might be able to help me ID some officers in thus photo I have...I can only tell that one officer is wearing a fairly obvious tk cuff title...any help is most welcome...thank you!

[John Toner]

Second from left might be Hellmuth Becker.

John

[Jaime]

Second from left might be Hellmuth Becker.

John

You are wrong, second man from left Max Simon, Kommandeur des SS-Totenkopf-Infanterie-Regiment 1.

Jaime.

[John Toner]

Thanks, Jaime. They look so similar.

John

[Tim W]

The SS officer in the middle sure looks like Hermann Buchner.
Tim

[Jaime]

Thanks, Jaime. They look so similar.

John

Yes, John, I have also confounded them sometimes.

Jaime.

[Byzanti]

Thank you guys so much! That's interesting, too...everyone I know asks about the shorter fellow in the center holding the binocs...any idea who he could be?

[Tim W]

The officer holding the binoculars is who I was talking about. Hermann Buchner, can't bet my life on it but it sure looks like him.
Tim

[Byzanti]

Hey thanks Tim, and then that's Simon on his right, correct?

[Tim W]

Yes Sir you are correct. Tall guy Simon, shorter guy in leather coat possibly Buchner. There are plenty of images of both on the internet to compare.
Tim

[Tim W]

A quick google search of the internet, Buchner photos to compare.
Tim

[Byzanti]

Wow, that's amazing,, thank you!! I thought this was a cool photo now I'm sure of it! Great stuff...

[MarcRikmenspoel]

I agree on Simon, and as to Buchner, it resembles him and the prominent chin is the same. He had reason to be there, with Totenkopf Infanterie 1 (which wore the skull armband instead of a written one).

Simon's EKI is still shiny and new. He won it on October 2, 1939. This means the photo is probably from the time of the forming of the then-new Totenkopf Division, either circa November 1939 or February the next year (not the depths of winter, but just before or just after).

[Byzanti]

Holy cow that is amazing