GERMANY IN SONG

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 299, 14 September 1937, Page 18

GERMANY IN SONG

Herr Hitler’s Address

Herr Hitler recently attended the festival of German singing at Breslau, at which 60,000 members of German choirs from all over the country sang to about 500,000 hearers. . It was the twelfth annual festival, and nearly 400 special trains took the visitors, including 26,000 Germans from abroad, to Breslau, while <0 field kitchens were busy cooking meals for them. , , ... Breslau’s streets were crowded with traditional dresses of many colours; gallons of dark beer kept both singers and hearers in good humour, and about 30 tons of meat were consumed each ' The rally was held near the borders of German Upper Silesia, which was freed from supervision by the League through the expiry of the convention which regulated the relations between the German and Polish sections of Silesia for 15 years from 1922. In a speech Herr Hitler said: Mulions of Germans to-day are still living outside our frontiers. Two things unite us especially. First the German language, which is spoken not only by the 68,000.000 Germans in the Reich but by 95.000.000 Germans, and second the German songs which accompany us all from childhood to old age, and are a source of strength to us all. “Just as the bird whose eyes have been put out expresses his feelings through his song, so it may be that the German who has suffered so much on this earth has learned thereby to sing. “In the same way now. in these restless times the whole German people, including those outside our frontiers, is looking back to its home and seeking to maintain connection, if in no other way, at least through the medium of the national songs.” “Deutschland Über Alles” was the most sacred song of all to them, Herr Hitler continued. “It was not understood by many people, especially in foreign countries, where people seek to see something imperialistic about it, though it is far from resembling their own sort of imperialism.” “Just as in all sad times the German song has been a source of power, so it is to-day,” he went on. "Deutschland Über'Alles” is an avowal which fills many with great strength. “The Reich is once more proud aud strong; so strong that every German can now say with joy, ‘I am a German and proud of it.’ ”