A page of history turned, this Tuesday at the beginning of the afternoon, when Hubert Germain, 101, breathed his last in his room at the Invalides military hospital in Paris. This man of a thousand lives was the last survivor of the Order of the Liberation founded by General de Gaulle during the war. The last of the 1038 Companions, those early rebels who refused defeat against Germany in June 1940. Hubert Germain was then 19 years old. In full test of the entrance examination to the Naval Academy, he had got up, and had turned on his heels, returning a blank copy to the examiner: "I'm going, I'm going to war!" »London, Bir-Hakeim, the battle which gave hope to Free France in 1942, then the Italian campaign,and the liberation of France… This colossus of 1.90m has been part of the epic alongside the hero of Free France, who decorated it with his own hands in May 1944.
Having become honorary chancellor of the Liberation after the death of Daniel Cordier (ex-secretary of Jean Moulin) last November, Hubert Germain, leaving, left a huge void within the Order. “Everyone is upset,” blows Vladimir Trouplin, curator of the museum. Present since 1994, the historian has seen 250 companions leave. “It is the end of an embodied history, that of the last great heroes of our contemporary history. We were preparing for it, because his strength was declining. But we had known him for so long, and he had such a strong personality. We're all stunned. "
General Christian Baptiste, who visited him every day lately, also confides in the Parisian being "upset" by the disappearance of the last Companion.
“He had been tired for some time, but retained all of his mental faculties.
It went out peacefully, like a candle whose flame was declining, ”confides the chancellor of this Order - the 2nd in France after that of the Legion of Honor.
“He told me a few months ago that he felt
secure at the start line.
Until the end, he thought of France, he delivered his instructions so that the
burning embers of the Order
, as he said, do not go out.
He left reassured, knowing that the torch was passed on to the President of the Republic.
It was his last mission and he accomplished it, ”adds General Baptiste.
"The Nation loses one of its most illustrious servants whose honor and courage oblige us", reacted the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Thierry Burkhard, who had visited him at Les Invalides on the day. taking office as No. 1 in the Army in July 2019. The two men had one thing in common: being from the 13th Armored Division of the Foreign Legion (13th DBLE), which had distinguished itself in particular in Bir-Hakeim.
Macron called him in August for his 101st birthday
With Emmanuel Macron too, close personal ties had been forged since his arrival at the Elysee Palace in 2017. The two men saw each other eight times, including twice for long face to face.
According to our information, he called him for about twenty minutes on August 6 for his 101st birthday, while he was on vacation at Fort Brégançon.
Hubert Germain, the last of the 1038 Companions of the Liberation, is dead.
Mont Valérien will welcome the body of this resistance from the first hour, hero of Bir Hakeim and the Landing of Provence, who reconquered our freedom and rebuilt our homeland.
https://t.co/gEbpcr3VOk
- Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) October 12, 2021
The Head of State, who greeted a man who "embodied a century of freedom", and who will preside over a tribute to the Invalides within a few days, admired this "hero" with an unusual fate.
"He is authentically French in that he is an eternal lover of freedom and rebellion against injustice", Emmanuel Macron told us in June, a few days before the ceremony of June 18 at Mont Valérien in Suresnes (Hauts-de -Seine).
It is in this symbolic place, where the Nazis executed the resistance fighters, that Hubert Germain will rest from November 11.
That day, he will join vault number 9 in the crypt of the Memorial to France as a combatant.
The last of the 17 graves still empty.
When the monument was inaugurated in 1960, General de Gaulle, then President of the Republic, wanted the ultimate companion to be buried there.
Germain had accepted it, unlike other heroes of Free France who preferred a last more "family", less solemn rest.
Fate did it right.
On November 11, the remains of the former officer of Free France, and former PTT minister under Pompidou, will leave the Invalides, salute the statue of the general on the avenue des Champs-Élysées.
He will rest for a few hours under the Arc de Triomphe next to the Unknown Soldier, then return to his last home at Mont-Valérien.
