The first up-to-date study in English of the Saar dispute, an important
stage in French-German postwar relations and thus significant for
European integration.
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.
