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GENUINE DELUXE EDITION OF THE HOFFMANN PHOTO BOOK ‘HITLER HOLT DIE SAAR HEIM’

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One of the rarest books in the series of 50 or so Heinrich Hoffmann photo books produced during the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler, this volume is called Hitler holt die Saar Heim (Hitler Returns the Saar to Germany). This is the deluxe 7-1/2 x 10-3/8 inch hardcover edition with gold embossed lettering on the front cover. It is a Second Edition (26 - 35,000 printing) with 64 pages.

The forward dated Christmas 1938 was written by Joseph Bürckel, Gauleiter of Saar und Ostmark. With more than 80 spectacular full-page and half-page photos, Hitler holt die Saar Heim tells the story of the German demand and the Allied return of the Saarland portion of Germany which had been occupied by British and Italian troops since the end of World War I. Naturally, the occupation of the Saar was an extremely unpopular part of the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler and the Nazis who demanded its return.

'Hitler holt die Saar Heim' includes rare photos of British soldiers marching under Nazi swastika flags in the Saarland (above), British officers visitng the area (below) and Italian occupation troops in the Saar (right).

Finally in 1935, Hitler had sufficiently frightened the British and French who opposed him, that they decided to let the residents vote on the issue.  Overwhelmingly, the people of the Saar region decided they were German and that they had a right to be a part of Germany. In one of the strangest twists of history, ten years later the victorious Allies of World War II again removed the Saar from Germany and gave it to France.

With the liberation of the Saar there were celebrations without end. There were eagle and swastika decorations and swastika banners everywhere. The Wehrmacht, the SA and the SS all marched into Saarbrücken as did Hitler himself, and in official ceremonies the province was welcomed back to the German homeland.

Published by Zeitgeschichte-Verlag of Berlin in 1938, this example of Hitler holt die Saar Heim is in very good used condition with the name of the original German owner inside the front cover, accompanied by the date XII/1941. The ivory covers have some staining and the spine is somewhat worn, but the photo pages are in fantastic condition. Our photo of the book cover looks somewhat more yellow than it actually is. Only the lettering is in gold. The book has no odor.

This 85 year old book was brought to the United States at the end of World War II by a veteran of Battery C of the 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, a unit of the 42nd Infantry (Rainbow) Division. The Division was in Bavaria in April of 1945 and liberated around 30,000 inmates from Dachau Concentration Camp on the north side of Munich. By the end of the war, the 42nd Division had established an enviable record. It was first in its corps to enter Germany, first to penetrate the Siegfried Line and first into Munich. Rainbow soldiers seized over 6,000 square miles of Nazi held territory during their march across Europe. A great deal of the history of this notable American Division can be found on the internet.