Saar at the Olympics
| Saar at the 1952 Summer Olympics |
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|---|---|
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| IOC code | SAA |
| in Helsinki | |
| Competitors | 36 in 9 sports |
| Other related appearances | |
 Germany (1896–1936, 1952, 1992–) United Team of Germany (1956–1964) West Germany (1968-1988) |
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A National Olympic Committee (NOC) of the Saarland was founded in spring of 1950 in the Saar Protectorate which existed from 1947 to 1956 (German state of Saarland since), a region of Western Germany that was (again) occupied in 1945 by France. As a separate team, they only took part in the 1952 Summer Olympics before being allowed to rejoin the German team for the summer games of 1956. Thirty-six competitors, 31 men and five women, took part in 32 events in nine sports.
Just as after World War I Saarland had initially been disallowed from uniting with the Weimar Republic and remained under military occupation for several years after the war, after World War II the Saarland was not allowed to become part of the Federal Republic of Germany which was founded in May 1949. On the other hand, the area's annexation by France was prohibited by the other Allies and the Atlantic Charter's points 2 and 3.
As the local population did not want to join France, separate international organisations were founded, like the Saarland football team, and in 1950 a NOC, in German called Nationales Olympisches Komitee des Saarlandes.
The region, in which the Dollberg at 695 metres is the highest mountain, did not send athletes to Oslo for the 1952 Winter Olympics due to a lack of competitive athletes in winter sports. Having a recorded history of over 500 years of coal mining, the Saarland donated a miner's safety lamp in which the flame of the torch relay of the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki could be carried safely aboard airplanes.
At the opening ceremony, 36 or as reported by the Chefs de Mission on the preceding evening, 41 athletes from the Saarland marched in ahead of the team of Germany, which is called "Saksa" in the Finnish language. The team, which is listed in the official report with a maximum strength of 44 men and 6 women and with 71 competitors, 16 officials, 11 spectators for a total of 98 did not win a medal and was ranked a joint 44th among a total of 69 teams.
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