A National Olympic Committee of the Saarland was created in spring of 1950 in the "Saar protectorate", a part of Western Germany that was controlled in 1945 by France. As a separate team, they only took part in the 1952 Summer Olympics. The athletes of Saar joined the German team for the summer games of 1956. 36 people, 31 men and 5 women, took part in 32 events in 9 sports. The Protectorate became the German state of Saarland after 1956.