Handwritten letter

Letter enclosing a handwritten Abschrift of the American Consulate's visa refusal, Stuttgart 15 July 1940

17.07.1940from München (Munich) and Stuttgart, Germanybetween Julius Oppenheimer, Elsa Oppenheimer, Otto Oppenheimer, Josef Oppenheimer, Mina Weiler

Original — Deutsch

[Vermerke oben links, kleinere/andere Schrift, möglicherweise später zugefügt:]
N[o?] 4[?]      3[3?]6[?] – 27[9?]0
[oben rechts, Archivstempel, nicht Teil des Briefes:] 20

[typed] — Auf dieser Seite ist KEIN maschinengeschriebener Text vorhanden. Das gesamte Blatt, einschließlich des Konsulatsschreibens, ist handschriftlich. Das Konsulatsschreiben erscheint hier nur als handschriftliche „Abschrift", die der Briefschreiber selbst angefertigt hat.

[handwritten] — Teil 1: Brief von Julius und Else Oppenheimer, München

München den 17. Juli 4[0]

Liebe Mina! Soeben bekommen wir vom Konsulat
folgenden ablehnenden Bescheid welcher Dir die Abschrift
untenstehend gebe. Du kannst Dir denken, wie uns
zu Mute ist u. weiss auch augenblicklich nicht was zu
tun ist. Nun war meine ganze Arbeit für nichts. Vielleicht
weisst Du Rat. Es tut mir leid Dir neuerdings
wieder unangenehme Arbeit zu machen. Empfange
herzl. Grüsse + Küsse auch l. Fritz.            Julius

Liebe Mina, auch Du u. Fritz wird enttäuscht sein, über diesen
Bescheid. Vielleicht gibt es doch noch einen Weg. Das hätten wir nie
gedacht, u. kann [ich?] mir auch gar nicht erklären, ob Deine lb. Mutter
ihren Bescheid, wissen wir noch nicht. Hoffentlich seid Ihr gesund.
Alles Gute u. herzliche Grüsse u. Küsse Eure Else.

[handwritten] — Teil 2: handschriftliche Abschrift des Konsulatsschreibens (kein Original, kein Typoskript)

Abschrift:                              American Consulate
File[?] 811.11. [?]C[?]/TS[?]           Stuttgart 15. Juli 1940

Herrn u. Frau Julius Oppenheimer
        Alfonsstra[ss]e 11[?]
                München

Unter Bezugnahme auf Ihren am 3 Juli 1940 hier gestellten
Antrag auf ein Einwanderungsvisum bedauert das
Konsulat Ihnen mitteilen zu müssen, dass nach
sorgfältiger Prüfung aller Umstände sowie der beigebrachten
Schriftstücke, es sich als unmöglich herausgestellt hat,
Ihnen ein Visum zu erteilen.
     Von den betreffenden Dokumenten wurde je
eine Ausfertigung als Unterlage zu Ihren Akten gelegt
worin sie bestimmungsgemäss verbleiben müssen.
Die Verweigerung Ihres Visums erfolgte auf Grund
des Einwanderungsgesetzes vom Jahre 1924 welches
die amerikanischen Konsulate hierzu ermächtigt.
                    Hochachtungsvoll
                    für den Generalkonsul
                    gez. J[?] C. Jensen
                      Julius[?] C. Jensen
                        amerikanisch. Vice Konsul

Translation — English

[Notations upper left, smaller/different hand, possibly added later:]
N[o?] 4[?]      3[3?]6[?] – 27[9?]0
[upper right, archival stamp, not part of the letter:] 20

[typed] — There is NO typewritten text on this page. The entire sheet, including the consulate letter, is handwritten. The consulate letter appears here only as a handwritten "Abschrift" (copy) made by the letter-writer himself.

[handwritten] — Part 1: letter from Julius and Else Oppenheimer, Munich

Munich, 17 July 4[0]

Dear Mina! We have just now received from the Consulate
the following refusal, of which I give you the copy
below. You can imagine how we
feel, and at the moment I also do not know what is to
be done. Now all my work was for nothing. Perhaps
you know some way. I am sorry to be giving you
unpleasant work again. Receive
warm greetings and kisses, also dear Fritz.            Julius

Dear Mina, you and Fritz too will be disappointed at this
decision. Perhaps there is still a way after all. We would never have
thought this, and I cannot explain it to myself at all; whether your dear mother
her decision, we do not yet know. We hope you are well.
All the best and warm greetings and kisses, yours Else.

[handwritten] — Part 2: handwritten copy of the consulate letter (not an original, not a typescript)

Copy:                                   American Consulate
File[?] 811.11. [?]C[?]/TS[?]           Stuttgart, 15 July 1940

Mr. and Mrs. Julius Oppenheimer
        Alfonsstra[ss]e 11[?]
                Munich

With reference to your application for an immigration visa
filed here on 3 July 1940, the Consulate regrets
to have to inform you that after
careful examination of all circumstances as well as of the documents
submitted, it has proved impossible
to grant you a visa.
     One copy of each of the documents concerned
has been placed in your file as supporting material,
where they must remain as prescribed.
The refusal of your visa was made on the basis
of the Immigration Act of the year 1924, which
authorises the American consulates to do so.
                    Respectfully,
                    for the Consul General
                    signed J[?] C. Jensen
                      Julius[?] C. Jensen
                        American Vice Consul

Historical context

This is a letter of 17 July 1940 from Julius Oppenheimer in Munich to Mina Kaufmann in the United States, reporting that the American Consulate in Stuttgart had refused the immigration visa for him and his wife. Beneath his own few lines Julius copied out by hand the consulate's German-language refusal of 15 July 1940, which cites the Immigration Act of 1924 and states that the documents submitted — evidently the affidavits Mina had worked to obtain, which Julius calls "meine ganze Arbeit" — would remain in the consular file. His wife adds a postscript, and both ask whether Mina knows of any other way; the reference to "Deine lb. Mutter" and her still-unknown decision suggests a parallel application by one of Mina's relatives was pending at the same consulate. Julius Oppenheimer (b. 1882 Gemmingen) and his wife appear not to have got out: both are recorded as having died in the Piaski ghetto near Lublin in April 1942, which makes this refusal appear to be the decisive turning point in the family's emigration effort.

On this transcription

Machine transcription (claude-opus-5) — not yet checked against the original scan. 9 passages marked doubtful in the text.

Re-read from the original scan on 2026-07-28. Legibility: fair. [?] marks are deliberate gaps, not transcription errors. MOST IMPORTANT CORRECTION: the assignment describes a "typed American Consulate element". There is none. The whole page is in one hand; the consulate letter is a handwritten Abschrift — the word "Abschrift:" is written and underlined at its head. The only non-handwritten mark on the sheet is the heavy archival page number "20" at the upper right, which sits on top of the writer's year digits. Nothing on this page is typed, so nothing on it can be read "with high accuracy" as typescript. SECOND CORRECTION: there are NO quota numbers and NO waiting-list numbers on this page. The only genuine reference data are: the consular file citation "File 811.11" (the digits 811.11 are clear, and 811.11 is the standard US State Department decimal-file class for visa matters); the application date "3 Juli 1940"; the refusal date "15. Juli 1940"; and the statute year "1924". Those four readings are confident digit by digit. Uncertain items, most important first: 1. The initials group after "811.11." — three glyphs plus "/TS". The third glyph is the same 6-shaped form the writer uses for the C of "American Consulate" and of "C. Jensen", so it is a C; the first glyph (a tall loop, A or H) and the second (a short e/c) I cannot resolve. Rendered "[?]C[?]/TS[?]". A human checker should look here first. 2. The word before it, read as "File" — four letters ending in -e, with an i-dot. Plausible for a US consular file citation but not certain. 3. The upper-left figures, read as "N[o] 4" followed by "336 – 2790". Digits 2 and 3 of the first group and digit 3 of the second are genuinely ambiguous ("336" vs "370"; "2790" vs "2720"). Sister pages carry the same convention (0007 has "N 26", 0010 has "N 36 1288– 8394/3"), so these are the writer's own letter-numbering plus a second, probably later registry figure. They are NOT consular numbers and must not be read as quota data. 4. Date of the letter: "München den 17. Juli 4[0]". The day reads 17; the year's second digit is buried under the archival "20", but 1940 is certain from the enclosed consulate letter. 5. "Alfonsstra[ss]e 11[?]" — one or two strokes follow the ss-ligature; "11" is my reading, "1" is possible. 6. The vice consul: the surname "Jensen" is clear in both the "gez." line and the name line beneath it; the forename reads "Julius" but is faint. Note the coincidence with the letter-writer's own forename — a reason for caution, not confidence. 7. German letter line 11 has a small superscript insertion above "mir", read as "[ich?]". 8. German letter lines 11–12, "ob Deine lb. Mutter / ihren Bescheid, wissen wir noch nicht" — the sentence as written is elliptical, a verb such as "bekommen hat" is missing. This is the writer's own construction, not a gap in the scan; left as written rather than repaired. 9. Line 2, "folgenden ablehnenden Bescheid welcher Dir die Abschrift untenstehend gebe" — "welcher" is what the strokes give, though "wovon ich" is the expected German. Transcribed as seen. 10. Elsa/Else: she signs "Else", not "Elsa" as in the supplied metadata. Transcribed as signed. 11. "Fritz" appears twice and is not on the brief's name list, but he also appears at the head of page 0010 ("Liebe Mina + l. Fritz"), so he is a genuine recurrent correspondent, evidently Mina's husband or a close relative in America. Revised readings: I first took the "American Consulate / Stuttgart" block to be a typed insert, as the assignment stated. Magnified, its letterforms are identical to the surrounding German hand — the C of "Consulate" is the same 6-shaped glyph that recurs in "C. Jensen" — and the block is headed "Abschrift:". It is a hand copy, and I revised the whole reading of the page accordingly. I also first read the file-reference initials as "AJ6" and then rejected the "6", since that glyph is this writer's C. The "20" at the upper right first looked like part of the handwritten year "40"; it is a separate, much heavier archival number lying over it. Finally, the page's reputation for illegibility is not borne out. The ink is pale and the sheet is creased and torn along the right edge, but at full scan resolution nearly every word resolves. A previous pass reporting 66 illegible spots on this page appears to have been working from a downsampled image rather than encountering genuinely unreadable text.