Agreement between the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the Saar Statute

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The agreement between the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on the Saar Statute between the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France of October 23, 1954 is one of the agreements in the treaty known as the Paris Treaties . It provided for the Saarland to be given a European statute within the framework of the Western European Union, subject to a future peace treaty , if a referendum would approve it. This agreement was intended to lead to the solution of the so-called Saar question , which had been a point of contention between Germany and France in the interwar period and which had burdened the first decade of Franco-German relations after 1945. However, the statute was rejected in the referendum on October 23, 1955 and thus lapsed. This rejection by the Saar population opened the way to a bilateral agreement between France and Germany on the integration of the Saarland into the Federal Republic of Germany.

League of Nations mandate Saar area

On January 10, 1920 the Peace Treaty of Versailles came into force, which regulated in Articles 45 to 50 and Annex the separation of the Saar area from the German Reich to repair the French war damage and its administration as a mandate area of the League of Nations . Sometimes these provisions are referred to as the "first Saar Statute".

It granted France the property rights to the Saar coal mines and the railways west of the Saar, the Saar Basin area , for 15 years . During this time, a government commission of the Saar area set up by the League of Nations administered the area. In 1922, the so-called Landesrat created political co-determination for the Saarlanders - a democratically elected parliamentary representation with almost no authority.

The relocation of the customs borders was supposed to lead to a reorientation of the Saarland economy from the German to the French market and brought with it major conversion problems. Because of the introduction of the French franc as currency on June 1, 1923, the Saarland population was spared the final phase of hyperinflation in the German Reich and its devastating social effects.

The political, economic and cultural influence of France, the military occupation and the new political frontier were a constant provocation for the majority of the Saarlanders, and only a tiny fraction openly sympathized with France, especially since there was in fact no democratic order.

Due to the result of the referendum of January 13, 1935, in which 90.3 percent had spoken out in favor of reintegration into the German Reich, the Saar area returned to the German customs territory on March 1, 1935. Again there were major problems with the adjustment - this time the other way around.

European Saar Statute

Journalists' talk on November 3, 1953 about the Saar question with members of the Bundestag Hermann Trittelvitz (SPD) (3rd from left) and Eugen Gerstenmaier (CDU) (4th from left) and four journalists
Ballot from the referendum on October 23, 1955

The European (or "second") Saar Statute was negotiated as part of the Paris Treaties of 1954 between the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France and the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and signed on 23 October as part of this and essentially envisaged a Europeanization of the Saarland, which, however, failed due to a negative referendum by the Saarlanders.

The prehistory of this regulation consisted mainly of the French occupation of the Saarland after the Second World War : France wanted - after the Saar area belonged to the French occupation zone after the American occupation was replaced on July 10, 1945 - to bind the industrial area on the Saar more closely, so like after the First World War . Because of the resistance of the Allies , this project, which would have run counter to the joint Berlin declaration of the victorious powers , was abandoned in favor of a currency , economic and defense union with an otherwise granted autonomy of the Saarland.

An administrative commission was formed on October 8, 1946, and on December 22, 1946, France closed the Saarland border to the rest of Germany, thus driving development in the French sense - for example by introducing the French franc as a currency on November 20, 1947 and through the adoption of its own constitution on December 15, 1947. An annexation was discussed in the French public, but there is no evidence that the French government specifically aimed at it in 1945.

From 1950, the unresolved status of the Saar began to hinder Western European and Atlantic cooperation. In 1952, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman had brought about a Europeanization of the Saar in order to initiate the Franco-German understanding , which was suffering from the bone of contention in the Saarland .

However, the real pioneer of Europeanization was Johannes Hoffmann , Saarland's Prime Minister at the time. The Saarland should become a non-state territory and location of various European institutions.

The Saar Statute , negotiated between Pierre Mendès-France and Konrad Adenauer in 1954 and signed on October 23, accordingly provided for the Saarland to be subordinate to a commissioner of the Western European Union until a peace treaty with Germany was concluded. This should represent the country externally. However, the Saarland government should continue to be responsible for internal affairs and the economic connection to France should be maintained. However, closer economic networking with the Federal Republic was also planned. In German domestic politics, Adenauer was sharply attacked because of the Saar Statute. The SPD in particular saw this as a de facto cession of the Saarland to France.

The Saar Statute provided for a referendum before it finally came into force. Before this there was a violent election campaign. Since the Saar Statute provided for the restoration of the rights of opinion and assembly, the pro-German parties of the Saarland were able to form the German Home Federation in the summer of 1955 . Since the CDU was among them, the paradoxical situation arose that the Saar CDU called for the rejection of the statute, while CDU Chancellor Adenauer propagated approval. During the election campaign there were serious conflicts with German nationalist tones as well as attacks on Prime Minister Hoffmann (“The fat man must go!”) And his government, supported by former emigrants, on the other hand, naysayers risked defamation and reprisals. In addition, France's rejection of the European Defense Community had shaken confidence in the course of European unification, and France's economy was lagging behind German economic growth. (For the role of the Catholic Church in the election campaign, see the article on Michael Schulien , the then Pontifical Apostolic Visitor of the Saar area.)

In the referendum on October 23, 1955, 67.7 percent of the citizens of Saarland who voted - with a participation of 96.6 percent (620,000 participants) - voted against the Saar Statute. This vote was seen as an expression of the will to join the Federal Republic of Germany.

Since the Franco-German treaty of 1954 contained no provisions for the case of a rejection of the Saar Statute, it had to be renegotiated. These negotiations led to the Luxembourg Treaty of October 27, 1956, in which France agreed to the reintegration of the Saarland under German sovereignty on January 1, 1957. On December 14, 1956, the Saarland state parliament declared formal accession to the scope of the German Basic Law . The Saarland was incorporated into the Federal Republic of Germany on January 1, 1957 through the law on the incorporation of the Saarland . This accession in 1990 became the model for the constitutional design of German reunification .

The date for the economic integration of the Saarland into the Federal Republic and the introduction of the D-Mark on the Saar was kept secret from the population for a long time and was hopefully expected as “Day X”. It was not until the economic connection on July 6, 1959 that the “small reunification” was complete, and so after 14 years the second Saarland special route ended.

literature

For the period from 1920 to 1935
On the referendum in 1955
  • The Saar vote of October 23, 1955 . In: Saarpfalz-Kreis (Hrsg.): Saarpfalz (=  sheets for history and folklore: special issue ). 2006, ISSN  0930-1011 .
  • Herbert Elzer: Konrad Adenauer, Jakob Kaiser and the "little reunification": The federal ministries in the foreign policy struggle for the Saar 1949 to 1955 (=  history, politics and society: series of the Saarland Democracy Foundation . Volume 9 ). Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2008, ISBN 978-3-86110-445-2 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  • Wilfried Busemann (Ed.) : Saar votes in 1935 and 1955. Documentation of a series of lectures. Series of publications by the cooperation center for science and the world of work at Saarland University . Universaar, Saarbrücken 2016 (full text)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rainer Hudemann : The Saar between France and Germany 1945-1947. In: the same and Raymond Poidevin : The Saar 1945–1955 / La Sarre 1945–1955. A problem of European history / Unproblemème de l'histoire européenne . 2nd edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 1995, ISBN 978-3-486-82956-3 , pp. 23-30 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
  2. ↑ Cf. Bruno Thoß, The Accession of the Federal Republic of Germany to WEU and NATO in the field of tension between bloc formation and relaxation , in: Hans Ehlert / Christian Greiner / Georg Meyer u. a. (Ed.): The NATO option. Beginnings of West German Security Policy , Volume 3. Published by the Military History Research Office, Munich 1993, p. 59.
  3. ↑ Cf. Bruno Thoß, The Accession of the Federal Republic of Germany to WEU and NATO in the field of tension between bloc formation and relaxation , in: Ehlert / Greiner / Meyer u. a. (Ed.): The NATO option. Beginnings of West German Security Policy , Vol. 3, Munich 1993, p. 60.
  4. ↑ Saar referendum 1955: Professor Dr. Wolfgang Kermer remembers . In: Neunkircher Stadtnachrichten, No. 44, November 2, 2005.
  5. ^ Law on the integration of the Saarland of December 23, 1956

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