In the late morning of Saturday, November 23, during the day-long commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Strasbourg, the blue-white-red flag was hoisted atop the spire of the Alsatian capital's cathedral. This was the re-enactment of a perilous ascent made by Spahi Maurice Lebrun in the early afternoon of November 23, 1944. As the battle raged, the soldier from the Second Armored Division (2nd DB), engaged in the capture of Strasbourg, climbed the 142-meter spire to attach the standard to the top. The feat was not without its danger, as the bullets were still flying around the streets below him. Lebrun died in 2009 but the flag raised that day is still there, on display in a showcase at Strasbourg's city history museum.
The three-piece hand-sewn standard measures 2.70 meters: The blue is a little faded, the white central area features a Lorraine cross and details of the Spahi regiment written in black letters. The red, with its irregular lower edge, came from a hastily cut Nazi flag. It was nicknamed the "Lorentz flag," because it was a local butcher, Emilienne Lorentz, who sewed this makeshift standard, encouraged by the Spahis of the 1st Moroccan Spahi regiment. Jean-Paul Michel, president of the division's alumni group, the Association de la Maison des Anciens de la 2nd DB, was delighted to see this legendary artifact again during his visit to Strasbourg. He was also pleased to see underneath it the black pennant of the "Sahariana di Cufra" company, which served in Libya in 1941. The two items, which had long been kept by his association, became part of Strasbourg's museum heritage in 2006.
General Leclerc, one of the key figures in the liberation of Alsace, was also the man who, at the head of a few hundred men, captured the Koufra oasis in Libya from the Italian army in March 1941. In a sworn "oath" of the same name, Leclerc declared − according to the best-known version, the only written record of which dates back several years: "We are on the march, and we will not stop until the French flag flies over Strasbourg cathedral."
"In donating these objects, we wanted the story to be told from the beginning so that the memory could be preserved," said Michel, for whom the pennant clearly represents a seminal act by the Second Armored Division and the men's adherence to this oath, a veritable obsession for some. "This first victory for the Free French Army established De Gaulle's credibility," he said, expressing the hope that the pennant and flag would remain on permanent display. It's unlikely, according to Sylviane Hatterer, the museum's collections curator, citing their fragile state. Indeed, the blue part is quite faded, and the piece of Lorentz's apron dyed with methylene blue has not withstood the passage of time well, "although this flag provides historical witness to the liberation of Strasbourg."
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