Clydeside Images.co.uk
  • Home
  • About
  • Galleries
    • Scotland
    • England
    • Europe >
      • Cyprus
      • Germany >
        • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport >
          • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport - German & Austrian Airlines
          • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport - British Airlines
          • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport - Other European Carriers
          • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport - American Airlines
          • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport - Rest of World
          • Germany: Dusseldorf Airport - Biz-Jets & GA
      • Greece
      • Hungary
      • Iceland
      • Irish Republic
      • Italy
      • The Netherlands
      • Poland
      • Spain
      • Switzerland
    • The Americas >
      • Canada >
        • British Columbia
        • Nova Scotia >
          • Nova Scotia: Halifax >
            • Nova Scotia: Halifax Citadel
            • Nova Scotia: Halifax Waterfront >
              • Nova Scotia: Halifax Harbour Ships >
                • Nova Scotia: Halifax Naval Dockyards
            • Nova Scotia: Halifax - Statues & Memorials
        • Nova Scotia: Annapolis Royal
        • Nova Scotia: Digby & Digby Neck
        • Nova Scotia: Kejimkujik National Park
        • Nova Scotia: Lunenburg
        • Nova Scotia: Cape Breton Island >
          • Nova Scotia: Joe`s Scarecrow Theatre
        • Nova Scotia: Blank
      • Mexico
      • Tobago
    • Africa >
      • Angola: Quatro de Fevereiro Airport
      • Namibia Main >
        • Namibia: Etosha >
          • Namibia: Etosha (West)
          • Namibia: Etosha (Centre)
          • Namibia: Etosha (East)
          • Namibia: Etosha Animals - Antelope & Other Herbivores
          • Namibia: Etosha Animals - Carnivores
          • Namibia: Etosha Animals - Elephants & Rhino
          • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes >
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Chudop
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Dolomietpunt
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Gemsbokvlakte
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Goas
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Halali
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Kalkheuwel
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Kleine Namutoni
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Koinachas
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Namutoni
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Natco
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Nebrownii
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Okaukuejo
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Ombika
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Ozonjuitji M'Bari
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Rateldraf & Klippan
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Salvadora
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Suedo
            • Namibia: Etosha Waterholes - Blank
        • Namibia: Etosha Safari Lodge
        • Namibia: Damaraland
        • Namibia: Elegant Farmstead
        • Namibia: Erongo Mountains
        • Namibia: Midgard Country Estate
        • Namibia: Mushara Outpost
        • Namibia: Namib-Naukluft National Park >
          • Namibia: Sossusvlei
          • Namibia: Solitaire
        • Namibia: Okonjima Nature Reserve >
          • Namibia: Okonjima - Africat
        • Namibia: Okutala Etosha Lodge
        • Namibia: Skeleton Coast >
          • Namibia: Swakopmund
          • Namibia: Walvis Bay
        • Namibia: Vingerklip
        • Namibia - Bird Gallery
  • Image Search
  • Image Sales
  • Contact
  • Links
France
The D-Day Battlefields
La Cambe German War Cemetery
Picture
La Cambe is the largest military cemetery in Normandy and contains the graves of more than 21,000 German soldiers. Like other similar sites in France and Belgium, including those relating to the Great War, this cemetery has a dark, sombre atmosphere when compared with those of the Allied nations. These figures on top of the large grass mound, or ossuary, which acts as a focal point represent grieving parents. Panels around the base of the mound list the names, where known of 296 soldiers who are buried underneath. 
Picture
Opposite the cemetery entrance is an Information Centre, inaugurated in September 1996, which contains an exhibition aimed to show the personal cost of war to the individual participants, with photographs of both German and Allied war dead and extracts from documents and private letters. There are also quotations from several historical figures including Albert Schweitzer and Martin Luther King. A Peace Garden started on the same day as the Information Centre opened enables individuals, communities or organisations to sponsor the planting of a tree to Peace, or in memory of personnel of whatever nationality who died during the war. The line of trees, now more than a thousand in number, lines the road to Bayeux.
Picture
Picture
This site at La Cambe was originally chosen as a battlefield cemetery by the United States Army Graves Registration Service during WW2, and American and German soldiers, sailors and airmen were buried in two adjacent fields. After Victory in Europe, work began to exhume the American remains and transfer them in accordance with the wishes of the bereaved families. Beginning in 1945, the Americans subsequently transferred two-thirds of their fallen from La Cambe back to the United States, while the remainder were reinterred at the new permanent American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer, which overlooks the OMAHA Beach landing site.
Picture
Due to the constantly changing front-line and defensive positions during the Battle of Normandy, the Germans who died were scattered over a wide area, many of them buried in isolated field graves - or small battlefield cemeteries. In the years following the war, the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge) sought to establish six main German cemeteries in the Normandy area. A Franco-German Treaty on War Graves was signed in 1954 which allowed the remains of 12,000 German soldiers to be moved to La Cambe from 1,400 locations within the French departments of Calvados and the Orne.
Picture
Picture
There is a site plan and cemetery register just inside the entrance building but extensive computer records can be accessed from within the Visitor Centre.
Picture
 La Cambe was officially inaugurated as a German War Cemetery in September 1961 and since that date, the remains of over 700 German soldiers have been found on battlefields across Normandy, and reinterred here. The majority of the German war dead fell between 6 June and 20 August 1944 and their ages range from 16 to 72. They died attempting to repulse the Allied landings and during the ensuing combat.

​Among those buried here are SS-Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann who was the most senior officer present during the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June 1944. The 2nd SS Panzer Division `Das Reich`, then in southern France, had been mobilised following the D-Day Landings and was making its way north when information was received that the French Resistance had captured an SS Officer who was being held nearby. Oradour was sealed off and within a short space of time over 640 inhabitants had been executed. Diekmann maintained the atrocity was in retaliation for the partisan activity but numerous protests followed, including from Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, General Gleiniger, the German commander in Limoges, and the Vichy government. An investigation pending court martial was ordered but Diekmann was killed in action in Normandy shortly afterwards along with many of his men who had conducted the massacre.

Also laid to rest here after being found in an unmarked site is SS-Hauptsturmführer Michael Wittmann, the Tiger tank ace and his crew. They met their deaths on 8 August 1944 and were rediscovered in 1983.
Picture
Above: Looking back to the entrance from the viewing platform at the base of the statues. It`s only after visitors make the short climb to this vantage point that the extent of the site becomes apparent.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
The groups of low stone crosses are symbolic only and do not represent graves. The locations of identified individuals are marked by low-lying stones, with four or more soldiers often buried together. The Germans call this `Comradeship in Death` but the fact that a liberated France was understandably reluctant to donate land to their invader may have contributed to the approach adopted by the German government.
Picture
Picture
Picture
​Please bear in mind that all images on this website are Copyright. They are not free to use and have been embedded with a digital watermark. Any historic photographs from the Imperial War Museum and other organisations`collections have been used courtesy of a `Share & Reuse` policy and are also subject to copyright restrictions.
Picture
Top of Page
OMAHA Beach Main Page
D-Day Main Page
France Main Page
Home
About
Galleries
Images Search
Images Sales
Contact
Links
Copyright © 2021