At the end of World War II France tried to split the Saarland from Germany and wanted to include this region into France. Because the other Allies resisted this plan they agreed to make the Saar region a French protectorate. So in 1947 the Saarland became an autonomous region. It was in a customs and economic union with France.

Because of this also the license plate system was special.

In the beginning white plates with black lettering were introduced. The code SA was used. This letter combination was very much politically incriminated by the German facism. These plate have been in use just for a very short period from June 1945 th the end of 1945.

From the end of 1945 red plates with black lettering were issued. These plates were in the same make as the plates in the German French Occupation Zone .

After the code SA which was still in use in this series they used a two digit code for the county.

The codes were as follows:

01 Homburg 06 Saarlautern / Saarlouis 02 Merzig 07 St. Ingbert 03 Ottweiler 08 St. Wendel 04 Saarbrücken (city) 09 Saarburg (?) 05 Saarbrücken (county)

The code 09 for Saarburg is not verified. The county of Saarburg was not originally part of the Saarland. The French administration added it to the Saarland after separation from Germany in the time from 1946 to 1947. When the Saarland became an autonomous region this county was given back to Rhineland-Palatinate in the French Occupation Zone.

From 1949 on the license plate system changed again. The new series was in French style with the code OE for the Saarland. The code had no specific meaning.

The county code was kept on the whole. Specifics are given in the table at the bottom. In the following two plates from this series which are in my collection.

This plate is from the county of Saarbrücken. The digit 4 stands for the county of Saarbrücken as in the table of the first system. Because a one digit code was not enough for the increasing number of vehicles they added a second digit as 14, 24, 34 etc. This was also made in other counties.

Here another plate from this rare series. This plate is from the Saar capital city of Saarbrücken (Code 15). The hole in the plate was for for the number plate light.

The county codes of the 1949 series in specific:

1, 11, 21 ... Homburg 5, 9, 15, 25 ... Saarbrücken (city) 2, 12, 22 ... Merzig 6, 16, 26 ... Saarlouis 3, 13, 23 ... Ottweiler 7, 17, 27 ... St. Ingbert 4, 10, 14, 24 ... Saarbrücken (county) 8, 18, 28 ... St. Wendel

As per the 1. January 1957 the Saarland became a part of the Federal Republic of Germany. From the 1. January 1959 this license plate series became invalid and all vehicles were registered in the West German system.

Since I still miss plates from the two early series from Saarland anyone who has such plates available would please contact me.

ralf@hegis.de

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