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Michelantonio Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro (Aka Tony) 1922/2022 was a American photographer. During the war Vaccaro was armed with an M1 rifle but he also brought along his personal camera: A relatively compact Argus C3 he'd purchased secondhand for $47.50 and had become fond of using as a high-school student in New York.
In addition to fighting on the front lines during the Battle of Normandy and the ensuing Allied advance, Vaccaro photographed what he was seeing.
Tony Vaccaro
During his 272 days at war, he captured thousands of photos. After the Allied victory, he felt sickened and debilitated by the devastation he saw. He wasn't ready to return to the US. And he never wanted to photograph armed conflict again.
So it is that in March 1947 he photographed in Frankfurt the moment of crying of a German soldier who had returned home. That image turned out to be iconic, and this is how he describes that moment:
"This man came back [from being a prisoner of war in the USA]. He's crying. … He gave up. You see where his family had been. The war is over. He came back, and his house had been destroyed. That's why I call this the Defeated Soldier. He was German. … Later I was told that he lived here."
"The point is, you see, on this Earth there is only one species, one church. Unfortunately we take this one species and create hundreds and thousands of churches, and each one is different from the next. And that's why man is not attaining peace yet."
In addition to fighting on the front lines during the Battle of Normandy and the ensuing Allied advance, Vaccaro photographed what he was seeing.
Tony Vaccaro
During his 272 days at war, he captured thousands of photos. After the Allied victory, he felt sickened and debilitated by the devastation he saw. He wasn't ready to return to the US. And he never wanted to photograph armed conflict again.
So it is that in March 1947 he photographed in Frankfurt the moment of crying of a German soldier who had returned home. That image turned out to be iconic, and this is how he describes that moment:
"This man came back [from being a prisoner of war in the USA]. He's crying. … He gave up. You see where his family had been. The war is over. He came back, and his house had been destroyed. That's why I call this the Defeated Soldier. He was German. … Later I was told that he lived here."
"The point is, you see, on this Earth there is only one species, one church. Unfortunately we take this one species and create hundreds and thousands of churches, and each one is different from the next. And that's why man is not attaining peace yet."