811.111 Colleges 62/35
The German Embassy to the Department of State
Aide-Mémoire
In November, 1925, an agreement was concluded between the Honorable W. W. Husband, Assistant Secretary of Labor, and Dr. Reinhold Schairer of the Wirtschaftshilfe der Deutschen Studentenschaft, e. V. in Dresden (German Students’ Cooperative Association), which had for its purpose the annual exchange between the United States and Germany of one hundred so-called “student laborers”. The students of either country, in order to complete their theoretical studies at home, were, under certain specified conditions, allowed to perform actual and paid labor in the territory of the other contracting party.
Accordingly, each year one hundred German students were granted visas as “temporary visitors” and released from the “contract labor” clause by the United States Government. It was provided also that their permits to remain in the United States might be extended to a period not exceeding two years. The first German student laborers entered the United States during the year April 1, 1926–March 31, 1927. From the German point of view, the arrangement has worked in a most satisfactory manner. It has proved to be a most valuable means of stimulating the exchange of practical knowledge, of creating mutual understanding and thus strengthening the cultural bonds between the two countries.
Due to increasing unemployment in the United States, the Department of Labor, in February, 1930, found it necessary, however, to modify the agreement by reducing the annual number of students from one hundred to thirty-five. Thus, in the year April 1, 1930–March 31, 1931, thirty-five German students were admitted.
On December 3, 1930 the German organization submitted to the Department of Labor an application, requesting that in 1931 (i. e., from April 1, 1931–March 31, 1932), fifty German students might be permitted to enter the United States under the agreement. The Department has so far, however, not been able to make a decision. It is earnestly hoped that it will be in the affirmative, as the suspension of the exchange would entail a dissolution of the German organization and therefore necessarily mean the end of an institution which has worked so satisfactorily in the interest of German-American intercourse.