811.111 Colleges 62/32

The German Embassy to the Department of State

[Translation]

St. D. E. 4/31

The German Embassy has the honor to acknowledge, with profound gratitude, the receipt of the esteemed note—811.111 Colleges 62/30[31]—of January 5 of this year.59 It gathers therefrom that there is no prospect of a decision, before April 1, in the matter of the admission of German work-students during the year 1931.

On giving full consideration to this decision, the Embassy believes that it cannot, in consideration of the important interests of cultural policy (kulturpolitischen Interessen) involved in this question, fail to call attention to the viewpoint that delay in the decision is, in its effect upon the continuance of the entire arrangement for an exchange of work-students between the United States and Germany, in the highest degree undesirable.

The selection of a qualified personnel for the exchange in question cannot be made until it has been decided whether, when, and to what extent the exchange will, as a matter of fact, be made. It will of course require considerable time, while a hasty decision, which appears unavoidable under the present arrangement, might easily lead to a selection made without the necessary care. And the students themselves, who would be connected with the exchange, might, in the event that they were unable to devote considerable time to their plans of travel, in most cases be placed in a most difficult situation; for the majority of them would hardly have the economic liberty to-day to decide matters having an important bearing upon their personal future, connected with the trip to America, without extended preparation. The financing of the eventual transportation of the work students also requires thorough preparation.

For all these reasons the Embassy, which, as has repeatedly been pointed out, sees in this very exchange of work-students one of the most cultural ties between the United States and Germany, would strongly [Page 330] urge, if at all feasible, that a final decision in this matter be made as soon as possible, without waiting until April 1 of this year.