First a little commentar : The term "Gauleiter" is a rank and is translated, according to my dictionnary, by Gauleiter... I cannot tell to what it could correspond exactly. I am not sure if I did right to put "Syndicalists" for people of a trade-union... Could somebody tell me if this is right or not please? The Referendum battle 1934/35 Home to the Empire Until Hitler took the power, nearly all people of Saarland had the same opinion : in the Referendum scheduled in the treaty of Versailles, they were going to vote for going back to the "hereditary Fatherland". Only when the National Socialists took the power this common decision broke down. On one side there were those who were openly anti-fascist. They wanted to keep the actual state of things, the "Status quo" until the fall of the NS regime in the Empire. Only then would be decided the future of the belonging of the Saar area. To reach this objective, social-democrats and communists formed in the summer of 1934 a "Unity front". Catholics under Johannes Hoffmann joined them also. All groups hoped to be able to "beat Hitler on the Saar". On the other side were those who still were for the return. Some did it in spite of Hitler. They were supported by the church who described the love for the Fatherland as a moral duty. The others did it because of Hitler. Many among them didn't want to stay beside the "Dawning of the new Germany". As a seemingly mass movement over the parties for the return, the Nazis steered the "German Front". With massive propaganda means and with opinion terror the people of the Saarland were sweared in to the idea of the "national community". Those who stayed outside were labelled traitors. The Referendum on 13th January 1935 took place through a referendum commission of the Society of Nations and under the protection of an international troop. 90.7 % of the people of the Saarland decided the return. Hitler had won his first success in extern politics. The "Third Reich" took over the governing power on the Saar on 1st March 1935. Immediately after the announce of the results many of the Status-Quo-Movement had emigrated. The Saar in the third Reich - Home? The political unity "Saar area" created in Versailles was not dissolved after the return. The National Socialists put the new "Saarland" under the Gauleiter of the Palatinate Josef Bürckel. As "Commissar of the Empire for the return of the Saarland" (from June 1936 "Commissar of the Empire for the Saarland") he brought many people of the Palatinate with him to the Saar. After the 13th January 1935 about 8000 people from Saarland emigrated. Many of them fell later in the hands of the Nazis, mostly after the occupation of France. People from the Saarland fought in Spain for the Republic and organised from Forbach the Resistance in the Saar - mostly Syndicalists, Social-democrats and Communists. On the Christian side there was also Resistance against the National-socialism - mostly against the removal of crucifixes from the school classes and the abolition of the denominational school. When after the return the salaries diminished and the prices and taxes climbed, there were strikes in the industries and at the beginning 1937 there was an open conflict between border passers from Saarland and the national-socialist State because of the rules resented as negative on the change of money. Thousands of people from the Saarland fell in the hands of the Gestapo. Hundreds of them went in a concentration camp. Many did never come back. In February 1937 were executed the first death sentences against anti-fascists from Saarland. The planned persecution of the Jews began later in the Saarland as in the Rest of the Empire. Many could leave without problems until the beginning of 1936 because of international guaranties. In the "Night of Crystal of the Empire" from the 9th and 10th November 1938, National Socialists put also fire in the Synagogues of the Saar, deported Jews in concentration camp and looted their homes.