“Would we be there without Hubert Germain?” Emmanuel Macron asked the question Thursday, under the Arc de Triomphe, during the ceremony commemorating the armistice of November 11, 1918 and before going to pay a final tribute to the last of the 1,038 Companions of the Liberation. “Illustrious and anonymous”, they answered the call of General De Gaulle on November 16, 1940. The Grand Charles intended to constitute an “exceptional knighthood” to embody a Free France against that of Pétain. But, with the disappearance of the last “brave”, can the Order survive? “He will live,” said the head of state. He will remain “an eternal source of inspiration for the children of France”. Characterized by absolute solidarity, the Companions had the cross of Lorraine as their insignia and their motto “Patriam servando, victoriam tulit”: “By serving the country, he won victory. “
Hubert Germain buried, who can now keep the flame alive? De Gaulle had thought of it. In addition to the Compagnons, there are also places and cities: Paris, Grenoble, Vassieux-en-Vercors, Île de Sein and Nantes. Eighteen military corps are also distinguished with this title. This is the case with the Normandie-Niemen fighter squadron, of the 1is marines regiment, not to mention the Lorraine Bombardment Group. Created in Damascus in 1941, it was involved in all battles and, during the conflict, it lost 127 crew members.
The Moselle counted ten Companions of the Liberation. From Édouard Przybylski, from Freyming-Merlebach, via Marie Hackin (one of the six women of the Order), from Rombas, to the most famous Pierre Messmer, even if the former mayor of Sarrebourg was born in Vincennes.
The Companions will therefore subsist to maintain this great idea that the fate of the fatherland can be greater than all sacrifices. Its mission will be to transmit and teach the youngest to be free and not to systematically follow the dominant thought.
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