La Cambe German WW2 War Cemetery

The La Cambe German War Cemetery is the largest of its kind in Normandy, France, and serves as the final resting place of over 21,000 German soldiers killed during the Second World War. Located near Omaha Beach, this cemetery stands in solemn contrast to the nearby Allied cemeteries and offers a sobering insight into the human cost of war.

La Cambe was originally the site of an American battlefield cemetery where American and German personnel were buried in two adjacent fields. After the war most of the American remains were transferred back to the United States and the remainder were reinterred at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial

In 1957 the site became an official German cemetery under the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge),the first one in France and the remains of 12,000 German soldiers were moved there from 1400 locations throughout the Calvados and Orne departments. Today the remains of more than 21,000 are buried in the cemetery.

There is a small information centre on site in the memory of those who lost their lives during Operation Overlord. The information centre has access to a database to locate the graves of known military personnel in the cemetery.