862.4016/1710
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Germany (Wilson)
Sir: The Department acknowledges the receipt of your dispatch No. 87 of April 12, 1938 and its enclosures, regarding the question of the issuance of passports to non-Aryan (Jewish) German nationals.
It has been noted that German passports valid for return to Germany may be issued by German consular officers to German [Page 371] nationals who are considered to have emigrated from Germany, provided such persons have not lost German nationality. It further appears that the German authorities may consider a person to have lost German nationality although such person may have acquired no other nationality. It would therefore appear to be necessary to ascertain officially, if possible, the conditions under which the German authorities are likely to consider a person to have lost German nationality without acquiring any other nationality.
It has been further noted that consistent failure to register with a German consular officer may result in the loss of German nationality, and that the Ministers of Interior and Foreign Affairs have authority under a decree of July 14, 1933 arbitrarily to expatriate German nationals who have committed offenses against the National Socialist State.
International comity requires nations to make known the general conditions under which their nationals may be divested of nationality while they are sojourning in foreign countries. Particularly, the temporary admission into the United States of a German national in possession of a valid German passport is predicated upon the fair assumption that such an alien may be permitted to return to Germany upon the conclusion of his visit. Aliens who are sojourning in the United States as non-immigrant temporary visitors are not eligible to become naturalized American citizens. If they are nevertheless likely to be deprived of German nationality and precluded from returning to Germany the Government of the United States would like to be apprised of the conditions under which such expatriation may occur.
You are requested to bring the substance of this instruction to the attention of the Foreign Office and to request further information regarding the conditions under which German nationals visiting in the United States may be deprived of their nationality and precluded from returning to Germany.
You are further requested to make inquiry of the Foreign Office as to whether there is any way by which a German national who entered the United States temporarily in good faith, and who has not acquired any other nationality through naturalization, may be returned to Germany notwithstanding the loss of German nationality.31
Very truly yours,
- In a note of August 6, enclosed with despatch No. 318, August 27 (neither printed), the German Government referred to criteria for depriving German nationals of citizenship contained in laws of July 14, 1933, and February 3, 1938, and an executive decree of July 28, 1933. The note stated there was no obligation for Germany to accept stateless persons who were formerly German nationals just as a corresponding obligation was not recognized by the United States.↩