File No. 6807/8–10.
The Acting Secretary of State to Ambassador Tower.
Washington , April 14, 1908 .
Sir: The department has received your No. 1296 of February 6 last, inclosing a copy of a note to you from the imperial German ministry for foreign affairs, dated February 4, in reply to your note sent under the instruction of this department, No. 663, of June 14, 1907, requesting that Mr. Charles Stoetzel should be recognized as a citizens of the United States and relieved from military obligations by the German Government.
Mr. Stoetzel was born at Mulhausen, Alsace-Lorraine, and came to the United States with his father, George Stoetzel, when he was 4 years of age. His father was naturalized as a citizen of the United States by the district court of the United States at New York City, October 1, 1901. The imperial German minister for foreign affairs contends that the father is still a German subject and that his son also retains that nationality.
The contention of this Government in cases of this kind is too well known to require repetition, and you are instructed to inform the German Government that this department adheres to the position it has always taken and dissents from the view expressed by the German Government with reference to Mr. Charles Stoetzel.
I am, etc.,