851.014/5–2047
The French Ambassador (Bonnet) to the Secretary of State
No. 184
The Ambassador of France in the United States presents his compliments to His Excellency the Secretary of State and has the honor to inform him as follows:
At the Moscow Conference it was indicated to the Chief of the American Delegation that the French Government intended to send a commission to the Saar to study, in the light of the experience gained in the course of recent months, the readjustment of the frontier. This Commission has now completed its work and the Ambassador of France is charged with informing His Excellency the Secretary of State of the new delimitation which the French Government proposes to establish. In setting up the latter, it has paid particular attention to the opinions which were presented, in the course of the Moscow discussions, by the American authorities. The changes envisaged concern both the western and the eastern part of the territory.
In the changes made in 1946 in the boundaries of the Saar as they had been fixed in 1919, the French authorities had taken pains to assure the junction of the Saar and Luxembourg and had decided upon the union of the Saarburg district* and certain cantons of the Trêves district. It was hoped that a favorable decision would be made without delay concerning the claims of Luxembourg to a part of the Saarburg district: the extension which had been made to the benefit of the Saar was to be decreased to the same extent. As a matter of fact, no decision was made on this subject at the Moscow Conference and the French Government considers that the resulting uncertainty for the Saar frontier cannot be prolonged without disadvantage. The American experts had been informed at Moscow that the retrocession of certain communes of the Trêves district to the north of Saarburg was envisaged. Pursuing this idea, the Commission decided to give up the Saar-Luxembourg railway connection through Konz and to retain the connection between the two territories only by the highway from Merzig to Remich. It deemed possible, under these conditions, to propose the abandonment of the greater part of the Saarburg district situated to the north of this artery and to join to the Saar only twenty [Page 1074] communes with a total of ten thousand inhabitants. On the west, the new frontier would start at the Moselle at the boundary of the two communes of Nennig and Kreuzweiler and would include the communes of Nennig, Sinz, Münzingen, Faha and Weiten; having joined the course of the Saar, it would then follow the administrative boundary between the Saarburg district, on one side, and the district of Merzig Wadern on the other; it would join the frontier of the territory at the junction of these two districts with the Trêves district. Thus a territory representing 62 communes, with a population of 37,000 inhabitants and an area of 394 square kilometers would be abandoned.
So far as the Wadern and Birkenfeld districts are concerned, the work of the Commission has shown the complete justification, from the economic point of view, of the additions made in 1946, which made it possible, in particular, to reestablish the administrative unity of the Merzig Wadern district as it existed before 1919. It then appeared to the Commission that it was necessary, in order to complete this work, to effect a slight addition affecting the valley of the Ostertal, which is bounded on the east by the foothills of Hunsrück and the natural outlet of which is toward the Saar. The two railways which to the north and south connect the Ostertal with the Saar network each carry three workingmen’s trains in each direction daily. Before 1919, this valley belonged for the most part to the Saint Wandel district. More than a thousand Saar miners are established there and their number is increasing rapidly. Thirteen communes would be thus joined, all situated within close reach of the railway, the list of which includes particularly, from south to north, Saal, Niederkirchen, Bulach, Hoof, Osterbrücken, Schwarzerden, Oberkirchen, Freisen, Wolfersweiler and Nohfelden.
The proposals of the Commission were accepted by the French Government. By the adoption of these new boundaries, the additions made in 1946 would be decreased by 323 square kilometers, or by one third of the area and by 27,500 inhabitants, or 30% of the population. Thus an important concession would be made to the objections based on principle presented by the American authorities. The enlargement of the Saar territory would be strictly limited to the framework indicated in the note of February 18, 1946,42 that is to say to the inclusion, within the boundaries of the Saar, of communications lines and industrial cities which have spread out since 1919 to the neighboring districts and which are closely connected with the economic unit of the coal basin.
[Page 1075]A map of the new boundaries assigned to the territory will be transmitted at once to the Department of State.43
Mr. Henri Bonnet is happy to avail himself [etc.]
- Note: The French word is cercle, which may be a translation of the German Kreis—TC [Footnote in source text—translation].↩
- The substance of the note under reference is set forth in the memorandum of February 28, 1946, from Matthews to the Secretary of State, Foreign Relations, 1946, vol. v, p. 507.↩
- The map of the new boundaries of the Saar was transmitted under cover of note AB/CN No. 189, May 22, 1947, from the French Embassy to the Department of State, not printed (851.014/5–2247).↩