Translation of German Photograph Help Please!!!

bickerstonehall

bickerstonehall

Active member
Have this photograph of two German Soldiers and not speaking German all I can make out is the name Joseph and the year 1944.
Could anyone translate this handwriting and any observation on the photo most welcome.
Thank You to all.
 

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My multilingual moderator on my forum had a look, this is what she said:
It's in French. This is what I can make out:

Souvenir Joseph. (Memory of Joseph)
Janvier 1941. (January 1941)
St Benin d'Azy. (Found that place in in central France fitting the letter pattern by googling)
M?ri? - sorry, that one is beyond me
hope this helps. 👍
 
The Highway Man said:
My multilingual moderator on my forum had a look, this is what she said:
It's in French. This is what I can make out:

Souvenir Joseph. (Memory of Joseph)
Janvier 1941. (January 1941)
St Benin d'Azy. (Found that place in in central France fitting the letter pattern by googling)
M?ri? - sorry, that one is beyond me
hope this helps. 👍
Click to expand...
Yeah my friend got some of these. He's still learning
 
The Highway Man said:
My multilingual moderator on my forum had a look, this is what she said:
It's in French. This is what I can make out:

Souvenir Joseph. (Memory of Joseph)
Janvier 1941. (January 1941)
St Benin d'Azy. (Found that place in in central France fitting the letter pattern by googling)
M?ri? - sorry, that one is beyond me
hope this helps. 👍
Click to expand...

The uniforms tie in with 1941 as opposed to 1944, if you look at the tunic on the right side soldier it appears to have pleats on the pockets which makes it an M-41 tunic or earlier (M-36 or 40), the M-42 tunic (issued 1942) removed those pleats, the M-43 removed all pleats.

Also they both appear to be wearing "Jackboots" which by 1943 they had ceased issuing to regular soldiers instead they switched to the ankle boot and gaiters.
 
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Many of these villages remain with few changes so with a bit of effort it "may" be possible to geolocate the building in relation to the hill behind them.
 
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I watch a TV programme here in the UK called, "Help, we bought a village" it's about people buying disused villages in Europe and renovating them.
 
The Highway Man said:
I watch a TV programme here in the UK called, "Help, we bought a village" it's about people buying disused villages in Europe and renovating them.
Click to expand...
I have seen a lot of dieing towns in Italy offering 1€ houses to try and repopulate the area, of course there are a lot of conditions.

But in this case the hill behind them is very prominent and if you use Google Street view there is a very similar hill looking west from St Benin d'Azy so it could be possible to make a good guess at the location especially if that turns out to be a buttress on the wall behind them.
 
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