Looking for a German Needle in an Iowa Haystack

A friend of mine from a totally-not-history-related forum remarked that she'd found some old photographs in the attic of the house she's moving into near Des Moines. She's not terribly interested, and her landlord didn't want them, so I oh-so-generously agreed to take the pictures of the German private off her hands...
...one in duty uniform, model 1939 (I think) feldbluse....
...one in dress uniform, with a pic of his wife and kids...
...and one of 3 GIs sweeping the snow off some parked army trucks...
(I've created an album if anyone wants to check them out.)

I figured they'd probably been taken as souvenirs from a dead or captured soldier, and brought back to Iowa. Then the box arrived in the mail...

There are those four images, plus 22 snapshots of his wife and kids (I assume) and a couple much older photos of his parents' wedding - the ears are a dead giveaway - oh, and that's his mom in the original picture, presumably with him as a child... and of his father in WW1 uniform (1916 or thereabouts, I think), and some school pictures... All clean and in good condition; in other words, NOT a bunch of pictures someone lugged around France in his pack.

So now I'm curious. I want to figure out who this guy was and how his family photos wound up in an attic in Iowa.

I've revised my theory: He was captured, but the photos, or at least some of them, were mailed to him while he was a guest of the US Government, possibly at Camp Algona or a satellite camp. I suppose he could simply have emigrated after the war, but there are no pictures from a clearly-later time frame, so I kinda think not...
Question 1: Does anyone know if PWs were allowed to get photos in the mail?

Some of the photos have stamps from the photographer or lab on the back, "Handwerkliches Lichtbild, Foto Atelier Schultz, Eberswalde" (duty uniform portrait), and "OPTIK-FOTO D [-three-digit number] WOHLRAB" (farmhouse snapshots), and "Atelier [something] Darmstadt" (a portrait... his mother?) They're all on German photo paper, as far as I can detect, except for the GIs, who are on Kodak.
Question 2: Anyone familiar with these specific photographer stamps?
Question 3: Is it possible to track down a specific US Army truck from the ID stenciled on the bumper?

So..... Possibly his family was in the south, near Darmstadt, and he enlisted in '39 or so and was stationed for some odd reason at Eberswalde, near the Polish border, where he had uniform portraits made... Perhaps?

I know there's a museum for Camp Algona, but unless they have scanned all the prisoner records for me to browse through (only about 10,000 men) looking for those ears and eyebrows, I need to figure out more about the guy.

Any brilliant ideas or clever insights appreciated (except "give it up", which I already have on file for when I need it)...

 

The GI's sweeping snow are very post WW2, 60's era uniforms and vehicles.

 

Obviously the German soldier in the early years of the war is the same man as the boy next to his mother and sister. This is my theory:

I believe these pics could have been brought to the USA by the sister. I mean why would a G.I. bother bringing family pics and frames , instead of trophees?
Considering the son was drafted in 1939 and possibly before , there are little chances he survived the combats al lthe way until 1945. The mother seems to be a WWI widow (there is no father on the picture) , so it would be reasonable to think that the sister met a G.I after 1945 and became a war bride, moved to the USA, taking the pictures of her bother and mom with her. Just a theory, but a possible path to investigate.

 

Oh I love these! I hope you'll keep us up to date, you have a couple of really good theories to follow up with.

 

Yes, I do need to scan the rest, but it'll be a few days before I can get it done.

lukedrifter: Friend has a new baby to keep her busy, and my understanding is that her landlord wanted to wash his hands of the whole matter. Still, a guy can ask (and there might be some sort of privacy concern on his part too, but still a guy can ask...)

Skipper: The grandfather (?) white moustache and all, appears in a couple of the family/farm pictures, so he seems to have survived his stint in the Kaiser's army. There is, however, a bride-and-groom photo with no direct tie to any of the other images; I see no reason why it might not be the 'little sister' and her husband.

formerjughead: Thanks. I thought there was something not-quite-right about that, but nothing I could put a finger on... I figured they might be a different sort of uni for camp guards, or even prisoner-issue.

Thanks all, will post other pix as soon as they're scanned.