marking the 1952 Olympics 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 end of the war. After World War II, the Saarland was not allowed to become part of the
Federal Republic of Germany after its founding in May 1949. The annexation of Saar by France, however, was prohibited by the other Allies and Points 2 and 3 of the
Atlantic Charter. As the local population did not want to join France, separate international organizations were founded, including the
Saarland football team, and in 1950 a
NOC, in German called
Nationales Olympisches Komitee des Saarlandes. Saar was first eligible to send athletes to the
1952 Winter Olympics, but did not do so due to a lack of competitive athletes in winter sports. Having a recorded history of over 500 years of
coal mining, the Saarland did donate 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 of the
1952 Summer Olympics, 41 athletes from the Saarland marched. The team was listed in the official report with a total of 44 men and 6 women athletes and with 71 competitors, 16 officials, 11 spectators for a total of 98. The team won no medals and was ranked a joint 44th among a total of 69 teams. Following a referendum in October 1955 that overwhelmingly rejected the
Saar statute proposing Saar independence as a "European territory", the people of Saar indirectly resulted in favor of accession to the Federal Republic of Germany. The subsequent
Saar Treaty of October 1956 allowed the Saarland to rejoin Germany effective as of 1 January 1957. No separate Saarland teams were sent to the 1956 Olympic Games, as a
United Team of Germany comprising athletes of all three German states took part for the first and only time. The
Olympic Committee of the Saarland formally dissolved in February 1957 as its members, like other separate institutions of the Saarland, became part of their German counterparts.
Notable competitors Therese Zenz (born 15 October 1932 in
Merzig), a local champion, finished 9th in the
canoe race at the 1952 Olympics, held on the open
Baltic Sea, a new experience for the 19-year-old athlete from a
landlocked country. She became
world champion in
1954 in the K-1 500 m event. Competing for Germany in 1956, Zenz won a silver medal and won an additional two silvers in 1960. Zenz went on to coach gold medalists
Roswitha Esser and
Annemarie Zimmermann at the 1964 Olympics. == Medal tables ==