Folkish Observer, 16th January, 1935
Overwhelming Decision For Adolf Hitler

Germans!

A fifteen year old injustice is about to end! The suffering caused in these years to so many hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens in the Saar Basin was the suffering of the German Nation. The gladness of their return is the gladness of the whole German Reich. Fate willed that their sad and senseless plight should not be ended by superior reason but by the word of a treaty, a treaty that promised peace to the world, yet brought in its train naught save woe and continuous discord.

All the greater is our pride that, on the 13th of January, 1935, after fifteen years of oppression, the voice of blood has made its mightiest profession of faith!

All of us know, dear fellow citizens of the Saar Basin, that when, a few hours' hence, the bells will peal throughout the whole German Reich, outwardly to proclaim our glad pride, we have to thank you, Germans in the Saar Basin, for your unshakeable faithfulness, your self sacrificing patience and steadfastness no less than for your valour. Neither force nor temptation availed to shake your belief that you are Germans, as you always have been, as all of us are and forever shall remain. Thus, as Leader Of The German Nation And Chancellor Of The Reich, in the name of all Germans on whose behalf I am speaking, I give you the Nation's thanks and assure you of the happiness we all feel in this hour that you will again be with us as sons of our folk and citizens of the new German Reich.

It is a proud emotion to be destined by Providence to represent a Nation. In these days and during the coming weeks, you, my Germans of the Saar Basin, represent the German Folk and the German Reich. You, I know, will not forget, in the coming weeks of triumphant gladness, no more than you forgot in the past, most trying, circumstances, that not a few ardently desire still to put a stain on your return to the great Homeland.

Therefore, even now, keep strictest discipline!

To you the German Folk will be the more grateful since, thanks to your steadfastness, one of the severest and least bearable of European tensions will have been removed; for all of us wish to turn this act of the 13th January into the first, decisive step towards the gradual reconciliation of those whom, twenty years ago, an evil fate and human frailty sent staggering into the most terrific and sterile struggle of all time. Your decision, fellow Germans of the Saar Basin, makes it possible for me today to declare as our sacrificial contribution to the sorely needed appeasement of Europe that, after your return to the German Reich, we shall make no more territorial claims on France! Thus, I believe, we express our appreciation to the Powers which, together with France and ourselves, loyally arranged this election and enabled it to be carried through.

All of us wish that this German ending to so sad an injustice may help to bring about a fuller appeasement of European mankind.

For, although great and unconditional as our resolve is to reach and to secure equality for Germany, in no lesser degree are we minded not to shirk those tasks which the establishment of a true solidarity of the Nations amid present needs and present dangers requires to be discharged. You, my fellow Germans of the Saar Basin, have helped essentially to deepen knowledge of the indissoluble community of our Folk and, with it, knowledge of the inner and outer worth of the German Nation and the present Reich.

 

For this Germany thanks you from millions of overflowing hearts!

 

Welcome to our dear common Homeland, to our united German Reich!