Source: Domarus, pp. 352-353.
Niederwald Monument near Rüdesheim
German Volksgenossen! My dear Saarlanders!
I have come here first of all to bring you greetings from the province which has maintained unshakable loyalty to Germany in the distant East. A tragic and undeserved fate has struck our East Prussia. Separated from the homeland, two million Germans are loyally standing watch to hold, with their will and their basic convictions, the bridge which has been broken off geographically. Today, an uplifting ceremony took place at the Tannenberg Monument, not only in memory of the great past, but also bearing solemn witness to the fact that there exists a will to preserve what is ours, to preserve the sacred memories, but also to preserve the rights of the present. One of these rights of the present is the return of the Saar territory to the Reich!
Of course-and you who are here, my friends, will perhaps know this best —Germany now is no longer the same as the Germany which evolved in a time when the Saar was temporarily taken from the Reich; rather, it is a Germany of honor, a Germany conscious of its national rights and obligations.
When the Battle of Tannenberg was won, it was a symbol for the tremendous power of a unified nation. When the Saar was lost to the Reich, it was as a consequence of the loss of this inner unity. It is our unshakable will to restore this inner unity of the nation which we lost in the collapse of November 1918. For fifteen years this goal has been all at once our wish, our prayer, and our idea, and today we can say that our prayer has been answered, our wish fulfilled. Our will has made reality of what had to come about in Germany in order to preserve our Volk from final ruin. Today those around us are talking about terror in Germany, about violence. That is neither terror nor violence, it is destiny. The whole of Germany is rising up!
We have liberated Germany from the rape of those who did not want a strong Germany! We have liberated Germany from the rape and the terror of those who consciously rent it apart because they were able to control this Volk only by destroying its unity. What you witness now in Germany is one Volk and one Reich no longer experiencing party rule and party strife.
It is not the German Volk which yearns for former conditions, but a handful of people who were living off the misfortune of the nation and the inner conflicts of the German Volk.
If we have said it once, we have said it a hundred times: we want peace with the rest of the world. We ourselves have experienced the dreadfulness of war. None of us wants it. None of us wants foreign property. None of us wants to annex foreign people. But what God has given to the Volk belongs to the Volk. And if treaties are to be sacred, then not only for us, but also for our opponents. The treaties clearly provide that the Volk of the Saar is entitled to choose its own fate.
I know that, when the hour comes, the voice of the nation will encompass every single individual, and he will go and cast his vote for the German Vaterland.
We are gladly willing to discuss all economic matters with France. We are gladly willing to reach compromises with France. But there is one point upon which there can be no compromise: the Reich can neither abandon you, nor can you abandon Germany.