Although the Saar issue was not a priority for German or French politics, both sides saw it as so important that the solution sparked years of arm wrestling. It was only with American and British mediation that concrete proposals were elaborated, which first took shape in Van der Goes van Naters` Council of Europe plan and eventually led to tangible results in the 1954 Paris Agreement. It was agreed on a “European statute” for the Saar, which placed the region under the newly created Western European Union and also protected French economic interests by maintaining the Saar-French monetary union. After the ratification of the Saar Agreement by the French National Assembly and the German Bundestag, it was enough to approve the Saar population, who asked for a decision by referendum on 23 October 1955. From the point of view of international diplomacy, the vote seemed to be a mere formality. But what became clear later through many subsequent votes was already clear in this first “European” referendum: questions of nationality are very emotional fundamental questions of political identity, which always involve the incalculable risk of violent conflicts in domestic politics. In 1953, the Council of Europe resumes talks on the resolution of the Saar question and, in the Assembly, the Dutch delegate Marinus van der Goes van Naters proposes that the Saar be given the status of European territory. [1] Growing international pressure forced France to compromise and, on October 23, 1954, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and France signed the Paris Accords, which ended the occupation of West Germany and set the conditions for resolving the Saar question. It was agreed to grant the region the status of European territory within the enlarged framework of Western European Union (WEU).
[1] However, the agreement still had to be ratified by the inhabitants of the Saar, who were not yet satisfied with the French presence. The Saar Statute is a German-French agreement signed in 1954 that was born from long diplomatic negotiations between France and West Germany. It helped pave the way for a more modern Europe after geopolitical tensions and disputes after World War II. The integration of the Saar ended on 1 January 1957. Although from 1945 to 1947 the Saarland`s international policy was mainly the result of agreements and compromises between the Allies, the West German state created in 1949 became so politically important surprisingly quickly that it could hardly be ignored in the solution of the Saar question. The new Federal Republic claimed to be a political and ideal central state for the whole of Germany and therefore could not accept a final solution to the Saar question, which was not linked to a subsequent peace treaty. France, on the other hand, wanted to place the provisional status of the Saar state on a constitutionally binding basis and at least ensure its own political and economic influence over the Saar for the future. The spatial planning and structural programme, which was also based on the idea of a common Central European region, has been more successful.
As early as 1969, the Saarland had the first motorway connection to France, and with the electrification of the Frankfurt-Saarbrücken line, a rail connection was created relatively early. Increasing integration raises a number of legal and policy issues that require new legal and administrative frameworks. The action was initiated by the German-French Summit of 1969, at which it was decided to set up a bilateral government commission for cross-border issues in saarland, Lorraine and Rhineland-Palatinate, which Luxembourg would soon join. Soon after, a regional commission was set up for Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg and Rhineland-Palatinate, which became the model for all subsequent SaarLorLux institutions. Belonged in the High Middle Ages to the French Interregnum Lotharingia (Lorraine). But a coherent political structure never developed: in the Middle Ages and early modern period, the region belonged in part to Lorraine, the Electorate of Trier, the Palatinate-Zweibrücken, and it had many different temporal and spiritual masters in a confined space. also acquired a dominant position in other sectors of the economy, such as banking, the steel and electricity industry, a development that was institutionally consolidated with the creation of a Saar-French monetary and customs union in 1923. International influence was evident in many aspects of daily life, in French banknotes and bilingual decrees, in French directors of mines and steel factories and the International Supreme Court, French factory schools, bookstores, clothing stores and food. A past that people had not yet accepted was projected onto the election campaign and the real issue to be decided in the referendum was increasingly relegated to the background. On closer inspection, the two sides were not so far apart with their political convictions. Indeed, supporters and opponents of the Statute left no doubt that they were essentially in favour of a united Europe, although the “No“s did not want to become autonomous Saarlanders, but a German member of Europe as a whole.
In deciding on this option, the majority of Saarland have not only determined the course of Saarland`s history; they also set standards for future European integration. In the system advocated for the future at the Council of Europe before 1955, Europe was seen as an alternative to the old nations. After 1955, alternatives to a “Europe of Nations” were hardly seriously considered. It is therefore not enough to say that little Saarland has a European history. Quite the contrary: in the referendum of 1955, a chapter in the history of Europe as a whole was written “on the Saar”. of the international community. The referendum, documented by a large number of international observers, ended with a landslide vote (90.7%) for Germany and was the first foreign policy victory for the Third Reich. While Hitler was greeted by a cheering crowd in Saarbrücken on 1 March 1935, thousands of his opponents went into exile across the French and Luxembourg borders. No other region of Germany experienced such an exodus as the Saar after the National Socialists seized power.
The local population reconciled with the new rulers, but did not believe in the legitimacy of the Government of the League of Nations; sometimes they felt threatened by foreign soldiers and increasingly distanced themselves from French employers. They saw themselves as the victims of an illegally dictated peace, clung all the more strongly to the German language and German cultural traditions, and expressed their desire for reunification with the German Reich as soon as possible in countless collective pledges of allegiance at school and club meetings, churches, and political meetings. The earthquake of January 30, 1933, when Hitler took power in Berlin and dismantled the constitutional state of Weimar, also shook the political landscape of the Saar region. Thousands of emigrants, mainly Jews, Communists and Social Democrats, fled to the Saar. .