An Official Press Photo Of Knight’s Cross Recipient Lieutenant Arthur Jahnke

A photo, measuring 175x125mm, near mint condition, lightly warped. It shows Knight’s Cross recipient Lieutenant Arthur Jahnke walking past a military band and honouring unit, Regiment 919 of the 709th Grenadier Division. The man in front of him is Division Commander Lieutenant General Karl-Wilhelm von Schlieben (1894–1964), himself a recipient of the Knight’s Cross.

The photo is dated to Montebourg (Brittany) on May 30, 1944.

Footnote: Lieutenant Arthur Jahnke from Flensburg (northern Germany) was awarded the Knight’s Cross on April 20, 1944 for his actions on the Eastern Front: commanding the 5th Company of the Grenadier Regiment 572 in the lower Dnieper vicinity near Nikopol, he led his men in taking a hill from the Russian forces on his own accord. After being wounded, he was transferred to the Western Front as part of the defense of the Atlantic Wall. There he met Feldmarschall Rommel on May 11, 1944 on Utah Beach. Jahnke then went on to lead a platoon of the 3rd Company in the 1st Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 919, part of the 709th Infantry Division. His headquarters were at Wn 104 (Widerstandnest = Resistance Pocket, often wrongly named Wn 5) on La Madeleine Beach. He was captured shortly after the D-Day landing. Jahnke died on August 28, 1960 in Sønderborg (Denmark).