When resplendent Louis XIV deigned to found the city of Saarlouis, endowing it richly with his august name and commanding that it be fortified by his great Engineer Vauban, nothing would have seemed more preposterous to the Sun King than any question of whether the Saar is German or French. Having said "L'etat c'est moi," His Majesty would certainly have troubled no more about Saar nationality than to say "The Saar is mine!" Last week a lumpy lot of Teuton farmers and workmen from various parts of the U. S. enjoyed free passage on German ships as they were rushed Saarward to vote in the plebiscite of Jan. 13, 1935.
"Deutsch ist die Saar! The Saar is German!" roared uniformed Germans marching with brass bands up & down Manhattan docks as the voters prepared to sail. "We really won't vote when we get there!" giggled one young woman born in the Saar. "We are just taking the free trip—or at least I am!"
This remark was overheard by a beefy quartermaster of the S. S. Deutschland. "Let them say what they like," he grunted. "They will vote all right when they get there! Heil Hitler!"
"This is an American expedition! We are not chiselers!" excitedly shouted the leader of one group, Farmer Hans Dietz, a brisk little peasant with acres 60 miles south of Chicago. "Mr. Hitler is no more important than any American politician! We are Americans, first and last, and would go back to the Saar to vote even if the Kaiser was on his throne. There is nothing un-American about this!"
As reporters continued to question Leader Dietz, an excited mechanic from Pittsburgh finally became so upset that he seized a newshawk by the lapel, shook him vigorously and shouted: "So you are worried about whether it is un-American to vote for Hitler? Well, let me tell you this! A vote for Hitler—well it's all in one bag—Hitler and Germany!"
Bland amid Teuton bedlam was petite Miss Margot Vagi. She let other people explain that, although Japanese, she was a child of six living in the Saar in 1919 when the Treaty of Versailles took the Saar provisionally from Germany, handed it over to the League of Nations as trustee until 1935. Though Miss Yagi scarcely remembers the Saar and now lives in New York, her plebiscite qualifications are impeccable. Anyone who was a Saarlander in 1919 may vote. Disenfranchised are Saarlanders of later vintage, even though they may have lived in the Saar uninterruptedly since 1920, may have heavy investments there.
Christ or Hitler? Germany obtained the Saar in 1815, proceeded with a ruthless Prussianization which lasted over 100 years and enables Adolf Hitler to shout with substantial truth "Deutsch ist die Saar!"
That is to say, Saarlanders of today are racially and linguistically almost pure Germans. In Saarlouis they call their umbrellas Parplischirm, a bastard word, half French (parapluie), half German (Regenschirm), but not since the Paris Peace Conference have many intelligent neutrals believed that there were any great number of Frenchmen in the Saar in 1919.