October 25, 1931

I wish to thank the Mayor of Pribor-Freiberg, the organizers of the celebration and all those taking part in it, for the honor they are doing me by distinguishing the house of my birth with this memorial plaque created by the hand of an artist. And this, moreover, during my lifetime and while the contemporary world is not yet agreed on the value of my achievement.

I left Freiberg at the age of three, revisited it as a sixteen-year-old schoolboy on vacation as a guest of the family Fluss,1 and have never been here since. Many things have happened to me since that time: I have had many difficulties, experienced considerable sorrow as well as happiness and some success, as things are wont to blend in human life. It is not easy for the now seventy-five-year-old