Saar Protectorate

The Saar Protectorate (German: Saarprotektorat [ˈzaːɐ̯pʁotɛktoˌʁaːt]; French: Protectorat de la Sarre) officially Saarland (French: Sarre) was a French protectorate partitioned from Germany after its defeat in World War II. It was administered by the French Fourth Republic. On rejoining the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) in 1957, it became the smallest "federal state" (Bundesland), the Saarland, not counting the "city states" (Stadtstaaten) of Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen. It is named after the Saar River.

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (May 2020) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,129 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Saarland 1947 bis 1956]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|de|Saarland 1947 bis 1956}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Saarland Saarland  (German) Sarre  (French)
1946–1956
Flag Coat of arms
Anthem: Saarlandlied[1]
Saar Protectorate   French occupation zone in Germany   Rest of Allied-occupied Germany
Status	Protectorate of France[lower-alpha 1]
Capital and largest city	Saarbrücken 49°14′N 7°0′E
Common languages	German Rhine Franconian Moselle Franconian
Religion	Secular state
Demonym(s)	Saar
Government	Unitary parliamentary republic
French Representative
• 1945–1955	Gilbert Grandval[lower-alpha 2]
• 1955–1956	Charles de Carbonnel[lower-alpha 3]
Minister-President
• 1947–1955	Johannes Hoffmann
• 1955–1956	Heinrich Welsch
• 1956–1957	Hubert Ney
Legislature	Landtag
Historical era	Cold War
• Establishment	16 February 1946
• Constitution	15 December 1947
• Saar statute	23 October 1954
• Referendum	23 October 1955
• Saar Treaty	27 October 1956
• Joined West Germany	1 January 1957
Currency	Reichsmark (1946–47) Saar mark (1947) French franc (1947–54) Saar franc[lower-alpha 4] (1954–59)
Preceded by Succeeded by Allied-occupied Germany West Germany Saarland
Today part of	Germany

The region around the Saar River and its tributary valleys is a geographically folded, mineral-rich, ethnically German, economically important, heavily industrialized area. It has well-developed transportation infrastructure, and was one of the centers of the Industrial Revolution in Germany. Around 1900, the region formed the third-largest area of coal, iron, and steel industry in Germany (after the Ruhr Area and the Upper Silesian Coal Basin). From 1920 to 1935, as a result of World War I, the region was under the control of the League of Nations as the Territory of the Saar Basin.

Geographically, the post-World War II protectorate corresponded to the current German state of Saarland (established after its incorporation into West Germany on 1 January 1957). A policy of industrial disarmament and dispersal of industrial workers was officially pursued by the Allies after the war until 1951 and the region was made a protectorate under French control in 1946. Cold War pressures for a stronger Germany allowed renewed industrialization, and the French returned control of the region to the government of West Germany.