A German soldier returns home to Frankfurt am Main after the end of the war in 1946.

The photograph of a German prisoner of war returning to his hometown of Frankfurt to find his house bombed and his family missing captures the kind of depressing moments of dejected people we associate with images of war.

Photographer Tony Vaccaro is no stranger to scenes of despair. He captured the defeated man in the throes of his grief, while the bombed-out ruins of his former homes loom eerily behind him.

It is an unimaginable pain to be drawn into a war that will scar a country for generations to come, and then to return home, looking for relief after all the hell you have been through, only to find that no one is there.

He thought of her repeatedly as he set off alone to get home safely. This evokes a quiet grief, a silent inner turmoil raging within the man devastated by the overwhelming news about his loved ones.