Figure 1.--This press portrait shows children in the Saarland during 1934 playing together around a boundary marker which is marked something like R3. It was taken in Saarbuecken The press caption read, "French and German Children Play Together, Unmindful of Impending History To Be Made: These French and German are apparently unmindful of the impending plebiscite and its importance to France and Germany and the world's history of the future. They are palying around the stone which marks the border between the two countries, near Saarbruuecken scenes such as these are typical in all border villages." The border in question here is the between France and the Saar. Saarbuecken is on the French border. We are unsure how much interaction there was between the French and largely German Saar children. Ine boy is wearing a school smock. Two boys are weatin berets, but Herman children also ore berets. Notice that the border is larely open. Ironically this would be the vlocation of a amssively militaized borther--the french Maginit Line and the German West (Siegfried) Line.

The League of Nations set up the Saargebiet as provided for under the terms of the Versailles Treaty. The area was administed by a Commission Government under the direction of a series of Chairmen: Victor Rault (France, 1920-26), George Washington Stephens (Canada, 1926), Ernest Colville Collins Wilton (UK, 1927-32), and Geoffrey George Knox (UK, 1932-35). The administration, however, was largely in the hands of the French. The French exploited the coal mines in the region. Surprisigly while the French goal was to detach the Saarland from Germany, there was no real effort made to win over the largely German population. We note references to the Saar being largely etnically and culurally German. We have found no actual numbers, but as far as we can tell there was no substantial ethnically French population. And few Saarlanders were interested in becoming a German minority in France. And given French policies toward the German minority in Alsace-Loraine, there was good reason for their retisence. There French authorities actively supressed German language and culture. [Evans, p. 623.] There is no indication that the French authorities made any such effort to either supress the German language and culture or win over the Saarlanders during the 15 years they controlled the territory. One historian describes them as 'tactless and explotive'. It seems strange that the French would go to the trouble of setting up an autonimous mandate for 15 years in an effort to separate the Saarland from Germany if they did not make an effort to win over the Saarlanders, but this is just what occurred. Presumably they believed that the superiority of France and French culture were self evident. The French werre mostly seen essentially as explotive foreign occupier by the local population. Just as the plebecite date approached, the NAZIs seized power in Geramny (1933). And as a result of the repressive policies adopted by the NAZIs, some communists and other political opponents fled to the French-administered Saarland.

Sources

Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power (Penguin: New York, 2005), 941p.

Created: 2:43 AM 4/16/2019
Last updated: 2:43 AM 4/16/2019