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84-511: Alternatively, if Rhineland is seen as the territory of the former Prussian Rhine Province (1815/1816–1945), there are 5 dialect areas: One can't speak of a Rhenish dialect area. Its northern areas are also covered by the more modern term of Meuse-Rhenish , which exclusively refers to the Low Franconian varieties mentioned above. The eastern areas in the North are also said to speak Bergish ,

168-641: A city agglomeration on the French border, surrounding the capital of Saarbrücken. See also List of places in Saarland . Saarland is divided into six districts ( German : Landkreise ): The following table shows the ten largest cities of Saarland: Saarland is the most religious state in Germany. The adherents of the Catholic Church comprise 56.8% of the population, organised in the two dioceses of Trier (comprising

252-476: A confiscation of ration cards. German is now the third official language of Belgium, along with French and Dutch (see German-Speaking Community of Belgium ). After the enlargement of the French occupation zone by the American withdrawal from the occupation (1919–1930) , the French encouraged the establishment of an independent Rhenish Republic by banking on traditional anti-Prussian resentments, especially in

336-586: A crossing of the river the day before the much anticipated Rhine crossings by the 21st Army Group ( First Canadian Army and the British Second Army ) under Field Marshal Montgomery in the third week of March 1945. Operation Varsity was a massive airborne operation in conjunction with Operation Plunder , the amphibious crossings. By early April, the Rhine had been crossed by all the Allied armies operating west of

420-559: A direct successor of the Rhine Province administration. There is no equivalent successor in Rhineland-Palatinate or Saarland. Saarland Saarland ( German: [ˈzaːʁ̞lant] , Luxembourgish: [ˈzaːlɑnt] ; French : Sarre [saʁ] ) is a state of Germany in the southwest of the country. With an area of 2,570 km (990 sq mi) and population of 990,509 in 2018, it

504-621: A plebiscite in 1935, when the region was returned to Germany. In fact, the last Allied troops left Germany five years early, in 1930, as a result of an agreement reached between Germany and the Allies in parallel with the Young Plan on German war reparations . Sections of the Rhineland, which had once belonged to the Habsburg Netherlands ' Duchy of Limburg , were annexed by Belgium according to

588-453: A quarter by agriculture. There was the University of Bonn , and elementary education was especially successful. For purposes of administration, the province was divided into the five districts ( Regierungsbezirke ) of Koblenz , Düsseldorf , Cologne , Aachen and Trier . Koblenz was the official capital, though Cologne was the largest and most important city. Being a frontier province,

672-425: A result, anti-Nazi groups agitated for the Saarland to remain under French administration. However, with most of the population being ethnically German, such views were considered suspect or even treasonous, and therefore found little support. When the original 15-year term was over, a plebiscite was held in the territory on 13 January 1935 in which 90.8 percent of those voting favoured rejoining Germany. Following

756-553: A space of about 30,000 acres (120 km ), about half of which was in the valley of the Mosel , a third in that of the Rhine itself, and the rest mainly on the Nahe and the Ahr . In the hilly districts more than half the surface was sometimes occupied by forests, and large plantations of oak are formed for the use of the bark in tanning. Considerable herds of cattle were reared on the rich pastures of

840-683: A term which has its roots in political history and regional pride rather than linguistic similarities. Likewise, the Eifel inhabitants say, they were speaking Eifelplatt , while linguists rather refer to the Ripuarian varieties of the North, and the Moselle-Franconian ones of the South of the Eifel. All these local languages and local language groups existed long before Standard German, and developed in parallel since

924-535: A trio of men enjoying a beer, flanked by baby carriages, the slogan reading "Mutter schafft" (meaning "Mum's at work" in Saarlandish, but plays on the High German word Mutterschaft 'motherhood'); another depicts a trio of men at a bar, with one realizing his beer has been drunk by one of the others, the slogan reading "Kenner war's" (meaning "It was no one" [ Keiner war es ] in Saarlandish, but playing on

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1008-449: A wide range of independence, threatened, however, by the French kings , who sought from the 17th century onwards to incorporate all the territories on the western side of the river Rhine . They invaded the area in 1635, 1676, 1679, and 1734, extending their realm to the river Saar and establishing the city and stronghold of Saarlouis in 1680. It was not the king of France but the armies of

1092-688: Is a regiolect. Rhine Province The Rhine Province ( German : Rheinprovinz ), also known as Rhenish Prussia ( Rheinpreußen ) or synonymous with the Rhineland ( Rheinland ), was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia , within the German Reich , from 1822 to 1946. It was created from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg . Its capital

1176-534: Is able to speak French, and it is compulsory at many schools. Saarbrücken is also home to a bilingual "Deutsch-Französisches Gymnasium " (German-French high school). In January 2014 the Saarland state government announced its aim of making the region fully bilingual in German and French by 2043. The Saar competed in the qualifying section of the 1954 FIFA World Cup , but failed after coming second to West Germany but ahead of Norway . It also competed as Saar in

1260-509: Is by far the smallest of the Flächenländer ("area-states"). It is less than one sixth the size of Schleswig-Holstein , the next smallest German state. One third of the land area of the Saarland is covered by forest, one of the highest percentages in Germany. The state is generally hilly; the highest mountain is the Dollberg with a height of 695.4 m (2,281 ft). Most inhabitants live in

1344-653: Is home to the Saarland University and the administrative headquarters of the Franco-German University . People in the Saarland speak Rhine Franconian (in the southeast, very similar to that dialect spoken in the western part of the Palatinate) and Moselle Franconian (in the northwest, very similar to that dialect spoken along the river Moselle and the cities of Trier or even in Luxembourg). Outside of

1428-518: Is normally composed with the words dääd (High German täte = "would do") or gänge ("would go") as auxiliary verbs: Isch dääd saan, dass... ("I would say that...") instead of the High German Ich würde sagen, dass... . Declension is rather different: Diphthongs are less common than in Standard German. This is because the Standard German diphthongs ei and au are each

1512-599: Is the remains of a fortress of refuge at Otzenhausen in the north of the Saarland. In the 1st century BC, the Roman Empire made the region part of its province of Belgica , and the Celtic population mixed with the Roman conquerors. The region became wealthy, which can still be seen in the remains of Roman villas and villages. Roman rule ended in the 5th century, when the Franks conquered

1596-537: Is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin , Bremen , and Hamburg , and the smallest in population apart from Bremen. Saarbrücken is the state capital and largest city; other cities include Neunkirchen and Saarlouis . Saarland is mainly surrounded by the department of Moselle ( Grand Est ) in France to the west and south and the neighboring state of Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany to

1680-631: The Armistice of 1918 , Allied forces occupied the Rhineland as far east as the river with some small bridgeheads on the east bank at places like Cologne . Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 the occupation was continued and the Inter-Allied Rhineland High Commission was set up to supervise affairs. The treaty specified three occupation zones, which were due to be evacuated by Allied troops five, ten and finally 15 years after

1764-668: The European Coal and Steel Community , which led to the termination of the International Authority for the Ruhr (whose purpose was to regulate Ruhr coal and steel production and distribution). However, the Treaty sidestepped the issue of the Saar protectorate: an attached protocol stated Germany and France agreed the Treaty would have no bearing on their views of the status of the Saar. In 1948,

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1848-723: The First United States Army fought a costly battle to capture the Hürtgen Forest . The heavily forested and ravined terrain of the Hürtgen negated Allied combined arms advantages (close air support, armor, artillery) and favoured German defenders. The U.S. Army lost 24,000 troops. The military necessity of their sacrifice has been debated by military historians. In early 1945, after a long winter stalemate, military operations by most Allied armies in Northwest Europe resumed with

1932-631: The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 were fired on the heights of Spichern during the Battle of Spicheren , south of Saarbrücken . The Saar region became part of the German Empire which came into existence on 18 January 1871, during the course of the war. In 1921, the Saargebiet was occupied by Britain and France under the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles . The occupied area included portions of

2016-669: The French Revolution who terminated the independence of the states in the region of the Saarland. After 1792 they conquered the region and made it part of the French Republic . While a strip in the west belonged to the Moselle department , the centre in 1798 became part of the Sarre department , and the east became part of the Mont-Tonnerre department . After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815,

2100-543: The Palatinate . In the end, the separatists failed to gain any decisive support among the population since they were viewed as puppets of the French. The Treaty of Versailles also specified the demilitarization of the entire area to provide a buffer between Germany on one side and France, Belgium and Luxembourg (and, to a lesser extent, the Netherlands) on the other side, which meant that no German forces were allowed there after

2184-630: The People's State of Hesse , was transferred to Hesse-Nassau. In the last free German federal election in March 1933 , two of the four parliamentary districts of the Rhine Province (Cologne-Aachen and Koblenz-Trier) were the only districts in Germany in which the Nazi Party did not win the plurality of votes. In violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the spirit of the Locarno Pact , Nazi Germany remilitarized

2268-626: The Saar Protectorate on 17 December 1947. After the 1955 Saar Statute referendum , it joined the Federal Republic of Germany as a state on 1 January 1957. Saarland used its own currency, the Saar franc , and postage stamps issued specially for the territory until 1959. The region of the Saarland was settled by the Celtic tribes of Treveri and Mediomatrici . The most impressive relic of their time

2352-458: The Treaty of Versailles . The cantons of Eupen , Malmedy and Sankt Vith though (with the exception of Malmedy) German in culture and language, became the East Cantons of Belgium. Although a plebiscite was held in early 1920, it was not conducted as a secret ballot but required only those opposed to Belgian annexation to register their formal protest. Only a few did so because of the threat of

2436-441: The post-alveolar fricative as in frisch 'fresh', causing High German minimal pairs such as Kirche 'church' and Kirsche 'cherry' to be pronounced in the same way. French has had a considerable influence on the vocabulary, although the pronunciation of imported French words is usually quite different from their originals. Popular examples include Trottwaa (from trottoir ), Fissääl (from ficelle ), and

2520-405: The Allied forces had withdrawn. Furthermore, quite unbearably from the German perspective, the treaty entitled the Allies to reoccupy the Rhineland at their will if the Allies unilaterally found the German side responsible for any violation of the treaty. In 1932, Wetzlar ( Landkreis Wetzlar  [ de ] ), formerly an exclave of the Rhine Province situated between Hesse-Nassau and

2604-504: The British and the French but did not demand war over the issue. The remilitarization of the Rhineland was supported by most of the local population because of a resurgence of German nationalism and the bitterness that had been harboured over the Allied occupation of the Rhineland until 1930 and Saarland until 1935. A side effect of the French occupations was the offspring of French soldiers and German women. Those children, who were seen as

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2688-449: The French government established Saarland University under the auspices of the University of Nancy . It is the principal university in the state, the other being Saarland University of Applied Sciences  [ de ] (HTW Saar). The Saarland was headed by a military governor from 30 August 1945: Gilbert Yves Edmond Grandval (1904–1981), who remained, on 1 January 1948, as High Commissioner , and from January 1952 – June 1955 as

2772-399: The High German word Kenner 'connoisseur', translating to "It was a connoisseur"); a third shows an empty beer crate in outer space, the text reading "All" (meaning "empty" in Saarlandish, but playing on the same High German word meaning "outer space"). The French language has a special standing in Saarland due to its geographical proximity to France. Today, a part of the population

2856-659: The Prussian Rhine Province and the Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate . In practice the region was administered by France. In 1920, this was formalized by a 15-year mandate by the League of Nations . In 1933, a considerable number of communists and other political opponents of Nazism fled to the Saar, as it was the only part of Germany that remained outside national administration following the First World War. As

2940-495: The Rhine Province furnished its most substantial claim to the title of the "richest jewel in the crown of Prussia". Besides parts of the carboniferous measures of the Saar and the Ruhr, it also contains important deposits of coal near Aachen . Iron ore was found in abundance near Koblenz, the Bleiberg in the Eifel possessed an apparently inexhaustible supply of lead, and zinc was found near Cologne and Aachen. The mineral products of

3024-535: The Rhine Province was split between the French and British Occupation Zones . The Rhine Province was abolished in August 1946 when the northern part of the province, under British administration, was merged with the former province of Westphalia to form North Rhine-Westphalia and most of the southern portion, under French administration, was merged with the Palatinate (previously an exclave of Bavaria ) and other territories to form Rhineland-Palatinate . These areas of

3108-579: The Rhine river. The supporting operation by the US Ninth Army, Operation Grenade , was planned to coincide from the River Roer , in the south. This was delayed for two weeks, however, by German flooding of the Roer valley. On March 7, 1945, a company of armoured infantry of the U.S. 9th Armored Division captured the last intact bridge over the Rhine at Remagen . General George Patton 's Third US Army also made

3192-409: The Rhineland on Saturday, March 7, 1936. The occupation was done with very little military force, the troops entered on tractors and no effort was made to stop it . Even though France had an overwhelming force nearby it did not act because of its political instability, and since the remilitarization occurred during a weekend, the British government could not find out or discuss actions to be taken until

3276-569: The Rhineland was strongly garrisoned, and the Rhine was guarded by the three strong fortresses of Cologne with Deutz , Koblenz with Ehrenbreitstein , and Wesel . The province sent 35 members to the German Reichstag and 62 to the Prussian House of Representatives . Of the total area of the Rhine Province, about 45% was occupied by arable land, 16% by meadows and pastures, and 31% by forests. Little except oats and potatoes could be raised on

3360-543: The Saarland in a half-hearted offensive, occupying some villages and meeting little resistance, before withdrawing. After 8 April 1940 Bürckel's title was changed again to Reichskommissar für die Saarpfalz (Reich Commissioner for the Saar Palatinate); finally, after 11 March 1941, Bürckel was made Reichsstatthalter in der Westmark (Reich Governor of the Western Borderland). He died on 28 September 1944 and

3444-599: The Saarland, either alone or in coalition , since the accession of the state to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1957. After the 2022 state elections the previous Grand Coalition between the CDU and SPD, the two largest parties in the Landtag, was replaced by an SPD majority government, the only single-party majority government of any German state, led by minister-president Anke Rehlinger . The gross domestic product (GDP) of

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3528-759: The Saarland, specifically the Rhine-Franconian variant spoken in the state capital Saarbrücken is generally considered to be the Saarland dialect. The two dialect regions are mainly separated by the das / dat isogloss; in the northwestern portion of the state, including cities such as Saarlouis, standard German das is pronounced with a final [t] instead of an [s] . In general, both dialects are an integral part of Saarland identity. Both dialects, particularly in their respective Saarland flavour, share many characteristic features, some of which will be explained below. Women and girls are often referred to using

3612-418: The U.S. position on detaching the Saar from Germany: "The United States does not feel that it can deny to France, which has been invaded three times by Germany in 70 years, its claim to the Saar territory". The Saar and Ruhr areas were historically a central location for coal mining. This attracted the steel industry, which is essential for the production of munitions. The Treaty of Paris (1951) established

3696-493: The continuing French pollution of German culture, were shunned by the broader German society and were known as Rhineland Bastards . Children fathered by French colonial or American troops of African ancestry were especially despised and became targets of Nazi sterilisation programmes in the 1930s. The American poet Charles Bukowski was born in 1920 in Andernach as the son of a German mother and an American soldier, who served in

3780-411: The district also included lignite, copper, manganese, vitriol, lime, gypsum, volcanic stones (used for millstones) and slates. By far the most important item was coal. Of the numerous mineral springs, the best known were those of Aachen and Kreuznach. The mineral resources of the Rhine Province, coupled with its favourable situation and the facilities of transit afforded by its great waterway, made it

3864-436: The district, while the principal exports are coal, fruit, wine, dyes, cloth, silk and other manufactured articles of various descriptions. In the 1815 Congress of Vienna , Prussia gained control of the duchies of Cleves, Berg, Gelderland and Jülich, the ecclesiastical principalities of Trier and Cologne, the free cities of Aachen and Cologne, and nearly one hundred small lordships and abbeys which would all be amalgamated into

3948-429: The eastern border of the province from Bingen to Koblenz , and then flows in a north-northwesterly direction inside the province, approximately following its eastern border. It is now part of North Rhine-Westphalia , Rhineland-Palatinate , Saarland , and Hesse . The population of the Rhine Province in 1905 was 6,435,778, including 4,472,058 Roman Catholics , 1,877,582 Protestants and 55,408 Jews . The left bank

4032-407: The first of two French ambassadors, his successor being Éric de Carbonnel (1910–1965) until 1956. Saarland, however, was allowed a regional administration very early, consecutively headed by: In 1954, France and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) developed a detailed plan called the Saarstatut (Saar Statute) to establish an independent Saarland. It was signed as an agreement between

4116-512: The following Monday. As a result, the governments were inclined to see the remilitarization as a fait accompli . Adolf Hitler took a risk when he sent his troops to the Rhineland. He told them to "turn back and not to resist" if they were stopped by the French Army. The French, however, did not try to stop them because they were about to hold legislative elections ; further, President Albert Lebrun did not want to start an unpopular war against Germany and French intelligence greatly overestimated

4200-417: The formal ratification of the treaty, which took place in 1920, thus the occupation was intended to last until 1935. Initially, 5 zones of Occupation of the Rhineland were established, but the American Forces handed over their zone in 1923, since they had not ratified the Treaty of Versailles, to the French. The treaty also separated the Saar from the Province and administered by the League of Nations until

4284-504: The former province were incorporated as states into the new Federal Republic of Germany when it was established in May 1949. The French organised the Saarland as a separate protectorate on 16 February 1946 and it eventually joined the Federal Republic as a separate state in 1957. Within North Rhine-Westphalia, the Landschaftsverband Rheinland  [ de ] (LVR), which was established in 1953 as regional council, still holds considerable administrative power and can be regarded as

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4368-473: The formerly Prussian part of Saarland) and Speyer (for the smaller eastern formerly Palatine part). 17.5% of the Saarlandic population adhere to the Protestant Church in Germany (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, EKD), organised in the two Landeskirchen named Evangelical Church in the Rhineland and Evangelical Church of the Palatinate , both following the same former territorial partition. 25.7% are not affiliated with one of these churches. Saarland has

4452-407: The goal of reaching the Rhine. From their winter positions in The Netherlands, the First Canadian Army under General Henry Crerar reinforced by elements of the British Second Army under General Miles Dempsey , drove through the Rhineland beginning in the first week of February 1945. Operation Veritable lasted several weeks, resulting in the clearance of all German forces from the west side of

4536-412: The grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt , on the southeast by the Palatinate (a district of the Kingdom of Bavaria ), on the south and southwest by Lorraine , and on the west by Luxembourg , Belgium and the Netherlands. The small exclave district of Wetzlar , wedged between the grand duchy states Hesse-Nassau and Hesse-Darmstadt was also part of the Rhine Province. The principality of Birkenfeld , on

4620-424: The heavy industrialization that grew as a result. Saarland was first established as a distinct political entity in 1920 after World War I as the Territory of the Saar Basin , which was occupied and governed by France under a League of Nations mandate . Saarland was returned to Nazi Germany in the 1935 Saar status referendum . Following World War II in Europe , the territory was occupied by France then became

4704-529: The high-lying plateaus in the south of the province, but the river-valleys and the northern lowlands were extremely fertile. The great bulk of the soil was in the hands of small proprietors, and this is alleged to have had the effect of somewhat retarding the progress of scientific agriculture. The usual cereal crops were, however, all grown with success, and tobacco, hops, flax, hemp and beetroot (for sugar) were cultivated for commercial purposes. Large quantities of fruit were also produced. The vine-culture occupied

4788-408: The highest concentration of Roman Catholics of any German state, and is the only state in which Catholics form an absolute majority (over 50%). Except for the periods between 1985 and 1999, as well as since 2022 – when the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has held a majority of seats in the Landtag (state diet) – the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has governed

4872-430: The imperative or greeting aalleh! (from allez! ). The English sentence "My house is green" is pronounced almost the same in the Rhine Franconian variant: Mei Haus is grien . The main difference lies in the pronunciation of the ⟨r⟩ sound. Regional beer brewer Karlsberg has taken advantage of the Saarlandish dialect to create clever advertising for its staple product, UrPils. Examples include

4956-414: The industrial region of the Ruhr housed recent Polish migrants from the eastern provinces of the Empire . The Rhine Province was the most densely populated part of Prussia, the general average being 617 persons per km . The province contains a greater number of large towns than any other province in Prussia. Upwards of half, the population were supported by industrial and commercial pursuits, and barely

5040-548: The latter came into existence. Also the Regiolect of the Rhineland , geographically roughly coinciding with the former Prussian Rhine Province , is being called Rhinelandic. It is of comparatively recent origin, and derives from Standard German but takes up some lexical and grammatical and phonetic features of the local languages, that Standard German normally does not have. Most of those features are not used in other German regiolects, and are often hardly or not understood in other regiolect areas. Rhenish ( Rheinisch )

5124-409: The lower Rhine, but the number of sheep in the province was comparatively small, not greatly in excess of that of the goats. The wooded hills were well stocked with deer, and a stray wolf occasionally found its way from the forests of the Ardennes into those of the Hunsrück . The salmon fishery of the Rhine was very productive, and trout abound in the mountain streams. The great mineral wealth of

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5208-522: The most important manufacturing district in Germany. The industry was mainly concentrated around two chief centres, Aachen and Düsseldorf (with the valley of the Wupper ), while there were naturally few manufacturers in the hilly districts of the south or the marshy flats of the north. The largest iron and steel works were at Essen , Oberhausen , Duisburg , Düsseldorf and Cologne, while cutlery and other small metallic wares were extensively made at Solingen, Remscheid and Aachen. The cloth of Aachen and

5292-438: The neuter pronoun es , with the pronunciation being something like Ähs : Ähs hat mir's gesaat ( ' it told me so', instead of ' she told me so'; vs. High German: Sie hat es mir gesagt ). This stems from the word Mädchen (girl) being neuter ( es is correct when referring to words like Mädchen but would not be used by itself in reference to a woman). The subjunctive in Rhine Franconian

5376-425: The new Prussian Rhine Province. In 1822 Prussia established the Rhine Province by joining the provinces of Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg . Its capital was Koblenz ; it had 8.0 million inhabitants by 1939. Popes Pius VIII (in 1830) and Gregory XVI (in 1833) raised concerns regarding the pastoral care of Catholics in the Upper Rhineland, both writing letters of concern to the local bishops. Following

5460-401: The north and east; it also shares a small border about 8 kilometres (5 miles) long with the canton of Remich in Luxembourg to the northwest. Having long been a relatively small part of the long-contested territories along the Franco-German linguistic border, Saarland first gained specific economic and strategic importance in the nineteenth century due to the wealth of its coal deposits and

5544-434: The north and the east. It is named after the river Saar , a tributary of the Moselle (itself a tributary of the Rhine ), which runs through the state from the south to the northwest. Saarland is about the same size as neighboring Luxembourg with Luxembourg being 2,586sq km (998 sq mi) and Saarland at 2,570sq km (990sq mi. Within Germany, it is slightly larger than the combined area of the three city-states , But Saarland

5628-428: The number of German troops. The British government did not oppose the remilitarization in principle, and Lord Lothian famously stated that "the Germans are after all only going into their own back garden". However, the British government rejected the Nazi manner of accomplishing the act, which they had been willing to concede by negotiations with Germany. Winston Churchill advocated military action by co-operation by

5712-402: The occupation troops. Two different military campaigns were fought in the Rhineland. The first operation of the campaign was the Allied Operation Market Garden that sought to allow the Second British Army to advance past the northern flank of the Siegfried Line and enter the Ruhr industrial area. After the failure of that operation for five months, from September 1944 until February 1945,

5796-418: The other hand, was an enclave of the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg , a separate state of the German Empire . In 1911, the extent of the province was 10,423 km (4,024 sq mi); its extreme length, from north to south, was nearly 200 km (120 mi), and its greatest breadth was just under 90 km (56 mi). It included about 200 km (120 mi) of the course of the Rhine, which formed

5880-404: The past, coal mining was an important branch of industry. However, the last coal mine in Saarland closed in 2012, ending 250 years of coal mining history in the region. The decision to close the mines was motivated by safety concerns about earthquakes in the region. The unemployment rate stood at 5.8% in October 2018 and was higher than the national average but below the EU28 average. Saarland

5964-430: The referendum Josef Bürckel was appointed on 1 March 1935 as the German Reich 's commissioner for reintegration ( Reichskommissar für die Rückgliederung des Saarlandes ). Once the reincorporation was accomplished, on 17 June 1936 his title was changed to Reichskommissar für das Saarland (Reich Commissioner for the Saarland). In September 1939, in response to the German invasion of Poland , French forces invaded

6048-643: The region was divided again. Most of it became part of the Prussian Rhine Province . Another part in the east, corresponding to the present Saarpfalz district, was allocated to the Kingdom of Bavaria . A small part in the northeast was ruled by the Duke of Oldenburg . On 31 July 1870, the French Emperor Napoleon III ordered an invasion across the River Saar to seize Saarbrücken. The first shots of

6132-487: The result of a merger of two Middle High German vowels – however, these mergers did not take place in the Saarland, and only one of the two merged vowels is pronounced as a diphthong. The front rounded vowels ö , ü , and eu are replaced by e , i , and ei respectively. Both the Rhine Franconian and Moselle Franconian dialects (and Luxembourgish ) have merged the palatal fricative sound as in ich with

6216-524: The river, and the battles for the Rhineland were over. In the official histories of the British and Canadian armies, the term Rhineland refers only to fighting west of the river in February and March 1945, with subsequent operations on the river and to the east known as "Rhine Crossing". Both terms are official Battle Honours in the Commonwealth forces. Following the unconditional surrender of Germany in 1945,

6300-452: The silk of Krefeld formed important articles of export. The chief industries of Elberfeld - Barmen and the valley of the Wupper was cotton-weaving, calico-printing and the manufacture of turkey red and other dyes. Linen was largely made at Mönchengladbach , leather at Malmedy , glass in the Saar district and beetroot sugar near Cologne. Though the Rhineland was par excellence the country of

6384-601: The state was €35.4 billion in 2018, accounting for 1.1% of German economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €32,800 or 109% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 93% of the EU average. The GDP per capita was the second lowest of all states in West Germany. Important income sources are the automobile industry, steel industry, ceramic industry and computer science and information systems industry. In

6468-645: The territory. For the next 1,300 years the region shared the history of the Kingdom of the Franks , the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire . The region of the Saarland was divided into several small territories, some of which were ruled by sovereigns of adjoining regions. Most important of the local rulers were the counts of Nassau-Saarbrücken . Within the Holy Roman Empire these territories gained

6552-586: The two countries on 23 October 1954 as one of the Paris Pacts , but a plebiscite held on 23 October 1955 rejected it by 67.7%. On 27 October 1956, the Saar Treaty declared that Saarland should be allowed to join West Germany, which it did on 1 January 1957. This was the last significant international border change in Europe until the fall of Communism over 30 years later. The Saarland's unification with West Germany

6636-413: The vine, beer was produced in quantities, distilleries were also numerous, and large quantities of sparkling Mosel wine were made at Koblenz, chiefly for exportation to Britain. Commerce was greatly aided by the navigable rivers, a very extensive network of railways, and the excellent roads constructed during the French régime. The imports consist mainly of raw material for working up in the factories of

6720-642: Was Koblenz and in 1939 it had 8 million inhabitants. The Province of Hohenzollern was militarily associated with the Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province. Also, for a short period of time, the Province of Hohenzollern was indirectly and de facto controlled by the Rhine Province. The Rhine Province was bounded on the north by the Netherlands , on the east by the Prussian provinces of Westphalia and Hesse-Nassau , and

6804-455: Was predominantly Catholic, while on the right bank about half the population was Protestant. The great bulk of the population was ethnically German, although some villages and towns in the northern part ( Province of Jülich-Cleves-Berg ) were more oriented toward the Netherlands. On the western and southern frontiers (especially in the Saarland ) resided smaller French-speaking communities, while

6888-571: Was sometimes referred to as the Kleine Wiedervereinigung ('little reunification', in contrast with the post-Cold War reunification with the GDR ). After unification, the Saar franc remained as the territory's currency until West Germany's Deutsche Mark replaced it on 7 July 1959. The Saar Treaty established that French, not English as in the rest of West Germany, should remain the first foreign language taught in Saarland schools; this provision

6972-422: Was still largely followed after it was no longer binding. Since 1971, Saarland has been a member of SaarLorLux , a euroregion created from Saarland, Lorraine , Luxembourg , Rhineland Palatinate , and Wallonia . The state borders France (department of Moselle , which forms part of the region of Grand Est ) to the south and west, Luxembourg ( Grevenmacher District ) to the west and Rhineland-Palatinate to

7056-631: Was succeeded by Willi Stöhr , who remained in office until the region fell to advancing American forces in March 1945. After World War II , the Saarland came under French occupation again and became the Saar Protectorate . France did not annex the Saar or expel the local German population, in contrast to the fate of the territories which were merged by Poland and the USSR. In his speech " Restatement of Policy on Germany ", made in Stuttgart on 6 September 1946, United States Secretary of State James F. Byrnes stated

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