opacasilentianoctis:

A dead Volkssturm soldier lies next to his Panzerfaust in a town in German, 1945.

Fûr das Vaterland

Caption with this Life photo reads:
Frank Scherschel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

An abandoned German machine gun, France, June 1944.


In fact the MG is a Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun that belonged to the French Army.It fired the 8 mm Lebel cardridge and was the standard French MG of WW1. It was manufactured by the French arms company Hotchkiss et Cie, which had been established in the 1860s by American industrialist Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. The Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon, remained in active service with the French army until the early 1940s.
And then the Germans invaded France and this MG(along with countless tons of warmaterial) was seized and pressed into German service.In june 1944 it became French again and who knows what still  happened to it :)
Part of the info I copied from Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchkiss_M1914_machine_gun
greetz,brummbar

Abandoned German MG nest

German soldiers inspect the remains of an Allied glider, painted with invasion stripes, somewhere in Normandy, France, June 1944.