The day when Saarland entered the great world stage of sport began with a small disaster.
Saarland sent its own Olympic team to the 1952 Summer Games, and the delegations arrived at the Olympic Village in Helsinki on July 14th.
Host Finland organized a welcoming ceremony: the national anthem was to be played and the flag hoisted for each nation that entered the country.
But the blue-white-red Saar flag was missing.
The National Olympic Committee had allegedly been told that it was only necessary later in the process.
In Saarbrücken the public immediately blasphemed: The semi-autonomous Saar state as an independent Olympic nation - was it all a size too big?
The flag anecdote remained a historical marginal note.
The local press reported above all about the enthusiasm that 36 Saar Olympians took part in the championships - including Heinz Ostheimer, born in 1931, today the last athlete still alive.
"We were very happy that we were represented as a small country of our own and that the international community accepted us," says the former gymnast.
“The games showed that it wasn't the size of a country that was important, but that it was an independent country with an independent government.
Just like Germany, we competed as Saarland! «
With a majority on "Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor"
This third German state existed until January 1, 1957.
The political history of the semi-autonomous Saarland ended 65 years ago, which has captivated historians because it drew different consequences from the time of National Socialism than the Federal Republic and the GDR.
Even the prehistory was as changeable as in hardly any other region in Europe.
"After the Treaty of Versailles, Saarland was a political unit for the first time from 1920 and assumed a special role: It was the first internationalized territory that existed in Europe," says Saarbrücken historian Rainer Hudemann.
The Saar area, as it was now called, continued to belong to the German Empire under international law;
but the government was set up by the League of Nations with its seat in Geneva.
As compensation for war, France received, among other things, the sole right to the coveted coal mines and heavy industry.
However, the Versailles Treaty built a safeguard mechanism into the form of government: in 1935, the population was to vote in the "Saar Voting" whether they wanted to continue to live under the mandate of the League of Nations or to belong entirely to France or the German Empire.
The people decided by an overwhelming majority in favor of the country in which Adolf Hitler had ruled as "Führer and Reich Chancellor" since 1933.
Gymnastics clubs "synchronized"
The former Olympic gymnast Ostheimer, who now lives in a senior citizens' home in his hometown Bexbach, was four years old at the time - he did not consciously experience the time.
Critical voices for not stumbling into the arms of Nazi Germany abounded.
But France's politics played into the hands of the National Socialists and prevented, for example, workers from having a say in companies, while in Germany there was a law for this from 1920.
The Saarland gymnastics clubs were integrated with the re-affiliation into the clubs for physical exercise and "brought into line".
"Gymnastics Father" Friedrich Ludwig Jahn provided the Nazis with suitable motifs.
The following sentences come from the Nazi educator Edmund Neuendorff: "Back to Jahn, there is no better way forward!"
There was little sign of the Nazis' megalomania in little Bexbach: “When I was young, we did gymnastics in a stable in Bexbach.
It was so low that you couldn't even do a handstand on the bars because the ceiling wasn't high enough, «says Heinz Ostheimer.
"We helped each other by simply slitting the top of the blanket."
Training on lower equipment such as the pommel horse, on which Ostheimer concentrated, was more successful.
This should later benefit the Olympic team: In the team all-around competition in Helsinki in 1952, the gymnasts landed in 22nd place.
In the individual disciplines only two made it out of the hundred best;
Heinz Ostheimer made his strongest appearance on the pommel horse: 109th place.
Horse jumping inside, war outside
In Saarland, however, following the annexation to Germany in 1935, Nazi propaganda, persecution of Jews, SS excesses followed. The world war uprooted the region. Saarbrücken, Saarlouis and Homburg were in ruins. Meanwhile, Ostheimer's enthusiasm for gymnastics grew. He became really active at the age of 18.
"The mountain on the bike path to the vocational school was so steep that it was difficult for me to get up," recalls the 90-year-old. "Some boys joined the gymnastics club back then." He too wanted to improve his condition. »Before that I felt a bit weak and then noticed how a certain amount of training can achieve a corresponding performance. Certainly, sport made me stronger, basically for my whole life, ”says Ostheimer. "For me, the sport has always been in the foreground, the political was more of the framework around it."
This framework shifted again after the Second World War.
"After 1945, the general opinion in France was absolutely predominant that the Saar would now be annexed by the victorious power of France," explains Rainer Hudemann.
But Charles de Gaulle expressly did not pursue this, as the historian later worked out from French files.
The goal of the head of government: to establish the independence of the area with its own constitution in Europe and at the same time to tie it economically and monetarily to France.
This bond lasted until July 1959.
No gymnastics - too militaristic
Ostheimer's sport played a spicy role after the war.
In their book “The Saar 1945–1955”, the historians Dietmar Hüser and Bernd Reichelt write: “It was more difficult than other sports for gymnastics to establish itself again after the war.
Since German gymnastics was viewed by the French as militaristic and nationalistic, the authorities had banned gymnastics with apparatus. "
Gymnastics was not officially allowed again until 1948, and gymnastics clubs were allowed to be founded, including in Bexbach.
Heinz Ostheimer began to train there.
The Saarland Gymnastics Federation, however, intervened politically, wanted to preserve the legacy of German gymnastics and resisted the politically wanted membership in the international umbrella organization Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique.
Elsewhere, too, doubts about French politics grew, even though it increasingly focused on European goals.
"Although the Saarland is flourishing economically, the French government made the same mistake from 1920 again: It refuses to participate in mining," says Hudemann.
Meanwhile, the government of Prime Minister Johannes Hoffmann pursued a tough control policy; critics accused it of "police-state methods".
The historian Armin Heinen coined the expression "democracy with educational reservations" as a policy of re-education towards democracy, which is often perceived as authoritarian.
And another vote
All of this strengthened the opposition.
Finally, France raised its relationship with the Saar to the diplomatic level: it made the solution of the Saar question a condition for approving the Paris Treaties, which were intended to restore extensive political sovereignty to the Federal Republic.
The Saarlanders should vote again: in the Saar referendum on October 23, 1955 - whether they agree to the European Saar Statute negotiated between France and the Federal Republic of Germany.
67.7 percent were against it.
"In the political struggle that was immediately reinterpreted as a vote for Germany," says Hudemann.
After the polls it was clear: On January 1st, 1957 Saarland would become the tenth federal state of the Federal Republic.
"On the night of the vote, the French Prime Minister called Chancellor Adenauer and said: We accept the result," said the historian.
A sentence that sealed the Franco-German reconciliation.
Much then began to move: In the course of the 1960s, French influences found their way into the Federal Republic via the Saar and shaped the bohemian and bourgeoisie.
German-French companies based on the Saar brokered French cuisine and wines.
French cars like the 2CV became part of everyday life in Germany.
How does Heinz Ostheimer view this "little reunification"?
»I have not regretted that the Saarland was no longer a separate country.
We spoke German and felt like Germans too, so we wanted to be part of it, «says the ex-Olympian.
It was never about the nation, always about sport.
The family recorded the highlights of his sporting life in photo albums.
A photo shows the then 20-year-old at the Bexbach train station after his return from Helsinki.
The mayor shakes his hand, local residents have come to see him.
Ostheimer looks beaming past the photographer, maybe he will recognize his wife in the crowd, whom he met at the gymnastics club.
Of the 36 athletes from the small Saarland, almost all of them dropped out early in Finland, and none of them made it onto the Olympic podium.
Not even Heinz Ostheimer - but he was there, so there was no need for a medal.
Was he proud then?
He waves that it is too big a word: "No, I was just happy."
