The Ruins of Normandy: Color Photos From France, 1944

[mystery-ak]

http://life.time.com/history/after-d-day-unpublished-color-photos-from-normandy-summer-1944/#1

The ruins left behind after warfare speak a language of their own. Even more strikingly, no matter where the conflict has taken place — whether it’s in northern Europe or the South Pacific, the Middle East or Central Africa — the vernacular of destruction is often the same. Buildings reduced to rubble and dust. A scarred, tortured landscape seemingly devoid of life, aside from small human forms trying to piece it back together. Twisted, rusting, abandoned vehicles. And always, above it all, the indifferent sky.

continued at link with photos

[PzLdr]

The building with the sign "Legion Voluntaires Francais" recruitrd Frenchmen to fight on the Eastern Front with the Germans. A bunch of those guys wound up dying in the battle for Berlin as the SS "Charlemagne" division [actually a regiment(minus)].

the two pictures of the destroyed tanks are of the same tank, a German  Mark V "Panther".