SAARLAND, the smallest German state without the excuse of being just a city, is a thumbnail caricature of Germany. It was here, among the woods and hills, that Goethe in 1770 claimed to discover that “passion for reflection on economic and technical matters” that occupied much of his life. For decades the thick coal seams underneath it made Saarland a pawn in the power-games of Germany and France. And because of that history, the sort of industry that Germany is known for—cars, steel and machines—looms even larger in its economy than in the rest of the country.
After 2000 that was a blessing. Orders poured in, and Saarland—though once a bit of a joke to Germans in the Reich, the locals’ rueful name for the rest of the country—outpaced Germany’s growth. Though the coal was becoming too costly to mine, Saarland upgraded old industries like steel and ventured into new fields, such as information technology. But when the global financial crisis broke, hitting Germany’s export-dependent economy harder than most, the self-described “rising state” tumbled even further. Like the rest of Germany, Saarland is now praying that the recovery will be sufficiently swift and strong to stave off mass unemployment.
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