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Joseph Adolphe Rovan (born Joseph Adolph Rosenthal in Munich, Germany on July 25, 1918, died July 27, 2004), was a French philosopher and politician, and is considered a spiritual father of post-war Europe. Initially born into the Jewish faith, on Whitsunday 1944 he was received into the Catholic Church.
Rovan was active in the French Resistance during World War II and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Médaille de la Résistance for his services. In 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo and survived 10 months in the Dachau concentration camp. It was during this time that he converted to Catholicism. In 1945, after his return to France, he wrote in the magazine Esprit the article "L'Allemagne de nos mérites," where he suggested that the creation of a democratic Germany on the ruins of the Third Reich was the responsibility of the Allies.
Rovan has also been awarded the Legion d'Honneur, the Ordre National du Mérite, the German Order of Merit with Star, and the Bavarian Order of Merit. He died in a swimming accident in France.
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The French Resistance was a collection of French movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy régime during the Second World War. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women who, in addition to their guerrilla warfare activities, were also publishers of underground newspapers, providers of first-hand intelligence information, and maintainers of escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind enemy lines. The Resistance's men and women came from all economic levels and political leanings of French society, including émigrés, academics, students, aristocrats, conservative Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, liberals, anarchists, and communists.
Otto von Habsburg, was the last crown prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in April 1919. He became the pretender to the former thrones, head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, and sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1922, upon the death of his father. He resigned as Sovereign of the Golden Fleece in 2000 and as head of the Imperial House in 2007.
Marcel Marceau was a French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona, "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence" and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years. As a Jewish youth, he lived in hiding and worked with the French Resistance during most of World War II, giving his first major performance to 3,000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. Following the war, he studied dramatic art and mime in Paris.
Bernhard-Viktor Christoph-Carl von Bülow, known as Vicco von Bülow or Loriot, was a German comedian, humorist, cartoonist, film director, actor and writer.
The Milice française, generally called la Milice, was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime to help fight against the French Resistance during World War II. The Milice's formal head was Prime Minister Pierre Laval, although its Chief of operations and de facto leader was Secretary General Joseph Darnand. It participated in summary executions and assassinations, helping to round up Jews and résistants in France for deportation. It was the successor to Darnand's Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) militia. The Milice was the Vichy regime's most extreme manifestation of fascism. Ultimately, Darnand envisaged the Milice as a fascist single party political movement for the French state.
The Croix de Guerre is a military decoration of France. It was first created in 1915 and consists of a square-cross medal on two crossed swords, hanging from a ribbon with various degree pins. The decoration was awarded during World War I, again in World War II, and in other conflicts. The Croix de Guerre was also commonly bestowed on foreign military forces allied to France.
Joseph Darnand was a decorated soldier in the French Army of World War I and early World War II, the organizer and de facto leader of the French Milice (militia)--the collaborationist Vichy government's paramilitary police force--and a Waffen-SS officer. He was tried and executed after the war.
Colonel Maurice James Buckmaster was the leader of the French section of Special Operations Executive and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.
Marie Joseph Pierre François Kœnig was a French general during the Second World War, where he commanded a Free French Brigade at the Battle of Bir Hakeim in North Africa in 1942. He started a political career after the War and was posthumously elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France in 1984.
Hans Speidel was a German general and diplomat, who was one of the major military leaders of West Germany during the early Cold War. The first full General in West Germany, he was a principal founder of the Bundeswehr and a major figure in German rearmament, integration into NATO and international negotiations on European and Western defence cooperation in the 1950s. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the NATO ground forces in Central Europe from 1957 to 1963 and then as President of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs from 1964.
The Order of Liberation is a French Order which was awarded to heroes of the Liberation of France during World War II. It is a very high honour, second only after the Légion d’Honneur. Very few people, military units and communes were ever awarded it; and only for their deeds during World War II. A different order, the Médaille de la Résistance, was created and awarded for lesser but still distinguished deeds by members of the Resistance.
Fabian Ludwig Georg Adolf Kurt von Schlabrendorff was a German jurist, soldier, and member of the German resistance against Adolf Hitler. From 1967 to 1975 he was a judge of the German Federal Constitutional Court.
The Escapees' Medal is a military award bestowed by the government of France to individuals who were prisoners of war and who successfully escaped internment or died as a result of their escape attempt. The "Escapees' Medal" was established by a 1926 law, intended to honour combatants not only of the First World War, but also of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Its statute was later amended to include combatants of the Second World War and later conflicts.
Fort Mont-Valérien is a fortress in Suresnes, a western Paris suburb, built in 1841 as part of the city's ring of modern fortifications. It overlooks the Bois de Boulogne.
Knut Magne Haugland, DSO, MM, was a resistance fighter and noted explorer from Norway, who accompanied Thor Heyerdahl on his famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition.
Georges Henri Journois was a French resistance fighter and Brigadier General who died in a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Wilhelmshaven, Germany.
Georges Loinger was a French soldier during World War II. During his time in the French Resistance, he helped hundreds of Jewish children escape from occupied France to Switzerland.
Gérard Pierre Louis François Armand Lecointe was a French général de corps d'armée. He served in World War II and the Cold War and saw colonial service in French North Africa. He was the last commander of French forces in Algeria, and completed his career as commander-in-chief of the French Forces in Germany.
Wilhelm Christopher Holst was a Norwegian businessman who worked for the French resistance movement Free France during World War II, as a P2 agent and Chef de Reseau Billett (Alexandre) in France. After the German invation of Norway April 9 1940, and the Germans execution of his two sons, 15 & 16 years old, April 15 1940, he mobilized a strong dislike for the nazis and founded the secret circuit Billet, based in Paris and Marseille, on the memorial day in 1941. Prior to this, he worked for MI9 and was related to the operation of the Pat O'Leary Line in Marseille. In spring 1941 he was recruited through the Norwegian Ministry of Defense's intelligence office in London, as one of the first five Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the DF section for France, Clandestine & Communications.