the french occupation zone identified as the rhineland corresponded to more than one of the pre-1933 states of germany, some of which during the nineteenth century had been administered from berlin as prussian states and one of which had been administered from munich as a semi-detached corner of bavaria. in 1946 the entire territory was relaunched as the single german state of rheinland-pfalz ("rhineland-palatinate"). the french military governor, claude hettier de boislambert, now became "general representative" (""délégué général"") of the new state, though in most sources the title of "governor", which he retained, continued to be the title used at least till 1949. it has traditionally been thought that the territorial amalgamations that led to the creation of rheinland-pfalz resulted from british and american plans formulated before those countries' leaderships had accepted and thought through the need to include france as one of the powers occupying germany. there are indications that more recently it has become apparent from re-evaluations of the records that the principal push for the creation of the unified state of rheinland-pfalz came from within the french government. there were some who thought this might facilitate a future transfer of the entire territory to france, fulfilling a strategic vision dating back to at least as far back as the time of napoleon. it was always apparent that neither the americans nor the british, nor indeed the germans would accept such a development. there were indeed plenty of influential voices within the french political establishment opposed to the unified rheinland-pfalz project. hettier de boislambert himself stated that the differing historical traditions of the former prussian and bavarian provinces involved were so disparate that he could foresee no prospect that such a territorial amalgamation would endure. peter altmeier, who went on to serve for 22 years as minister president (head of the state government) in rheinland-pfalz expressed similar views. nevertheless, with the paris government increasingly uniting on the issue, the creation of the unified state of rheinland-pfalz went ahead.