La Cambe War Cemetery, La Cambe, France

La Cambe military war grave cemetery contains of 21,000 German military personnel of World War II. It is maintained and managed by the German War Graves Commission. La Cambe was originally the site of a battlefield cemetery, established by the United States Army Graves Registration Service during the war, where American and German soldiers, sailors and airmen were buried in two adjacent fields.

After the war had ended on the continent and paralleling the work undertaken to repair all the devastation that the war had caused, work began on exhuming the American remains and transferring them in accordance with the wishes of their families. Beginning in 1945, the Americans transferred two-thirds of their fallen from this site 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.

Because of the pace of the war, the German war dead in Normandy 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.

References:

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User Reviews

Finn “Dino” van der Sluis (3 months ago)
It has been nice setup. You can also really see the difference between “the losers and the winners” of the war when visiting the Omaha Beach cemetery first.

Jody Romero (3 months ago)
Worth the visit, the unique arrangement set in mature trees was a sight to see while still feeling all those feelings.

Brendan Mahon (15 months ago)
Peaceful and poignant cemetery. Really brings the waste of young lives into perspective.

Brian Kelley (17 months ago)
Not to diminish the Allied stories, but it does provide a bit of balance to the whole Normandy experience. So many very young men buried here, just like all the other military cemeteries in the region.

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