No Easy Occupation

After 1945, France and West Germany were involved in a bitter dispute over the Saar, a small, coal-rich, culturally German territory bordering France's Lorraine region that France had occupied at war's end. French officials and the Saar's political elite attempted to wrest the territory from Germany and make it an independent nation oriented culturally towards France. Although France's occupation officially ended in 1947 with the ratification of a new constitution and elections, the new Saar state was not fully sovereign, as French control persisted until 1955. The Saar's status was an increasing concern for West Germany, partly due to its implications for the division of Germany. After lengthy negotiations, France and West Germany agreed to turn the Saar into a European territory and the seat of European institutions, much as today's Brussels. Saarlanders, however, saw this as a French ploy to maintain control, and in a heated 1955 referendum voted against it, leading to the territory's reunification with West Germany. This is the first study in English dealing with the German research of recent decades and citing original French and German sources. Bronson Long is Associate Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College.