Both my parents had their naturalization hearings in the fall of 1943, and my mother received her citizenship a few weeks later. My father was asked by the hearing officer to provide proof that he had been honorably discharged from the German army after World War I, which seemed a strange request in 1943, when the United States was at war with Germany. It had never occurred to my father when he left Germany that he would need his discharge papers in the United States. He was required to produce a statement under oath, and finally received his U.S. citizenship over a year later.
In the meantime I had turned eighteen. Under the regulations at the time children were automatically naturalized if they were under eighteen. But I could not apply for citizenship until I was of age at twentyone. I immediately applied for citizenship in Chicago on my twentyfirst birthday in December 1947, and a few weeks later I was summoned to a hearing. The other applicants were mostly older persons who had been in the country for many years. All were asked whether they hadever been arrested—two had been—and then asked simple questions about American history and government. I was the only one who was not asked whether he had ever been arrested. Instead the hearing officer engaged me in a discussion of Montesquieu and the division of powers, and then began to quiz me on my political affiliations. I stated that I was a member of Labor Rights, a student organization on the University of Chicago campus that was formed in the summer of 1944 in support of the Montgomery Ward strike. (Incidentally the one organization that came out in opposition to Labor Rights was the campus Communist group, which opposed all strikes during the war.)
One of the two witnesses who spoke in my support noted that Labor Rights was a moderately left of center student organization, but definitely was not Communist. The hearing officer then informed me that no organization left of center could be anti-Communist. Then he asked whether I was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party, and I said I had not. He then asked whether I was a member of the American Students for Democracy, the Communist student organization, which I denied. He then asked whether I had ever attended any meetings of the American Students for Democracy, which again I could honestly deny He then said that I should not make self serving statements. I protested that I had testified under oath, and that he had no right to question my veracity. That was the end of the interrogation. About a month later I read in the newspaper that the others had received their citizenship. I inquired several times about the status of my application and was told each time that my case was still under investigation.
Wilmas status in this country became increasingly precarious. After we were married in December 1948, I turned to Senator Paul Douglas for assistance. Douglas, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, in the summer of 1948 had agreed to be on my dissertation committee, but then withdrew after he very unexpectedly was elected to the U. S. Senate in November 1948, when Harry S. Truman defeated Thomas Dewey for President. I trusted Douglas as a liberal and a New Dealer, but was not aware of his passionate anti-Communism. He referred me to his representative in the Chicago office, an old unionist, who secured an extension of Wilma’s visa but apparently did nothing about my stalled citizenship application. In the meantime we had moved to Akron, and my files had been transferred to Cleveland. I received the same answer whenever I called the naturalization office, namely that my case was still under investigation.
Douglas’ representative asked me to come to Chicago to meet with a member of the Public Workers of America. Unbeknownst to me, the Public Workers of America, for which I had recruited workers at the Hutchinson Commons at the University of Chicago, was suspected of including Communists or Communist sympathizers on the national level. I was questioned at length by the union member, and I managed to convince him that I had no Communist affiliations. Things then began to move forward. I was told by the Cleveland office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), that I would have to be inter- viewed by their official in Akron. When I finally did meet him, he told me that he could not conduct the interview because his secretary, who was supposed to take the minutes, was not available, and would not be available for some time. He turned down my offer to hire a stenographer. When I appealed to the Cleveland office, I was told that I could be interviewed by the INS in Chicago. There, I was again questioned about my political views and affiliations and was asked to make a list of all organizations to which I had ever belonged. All this seemed very humiliating, but given Wilma’s immigration status I had no choice. A few weeks later I was again called to Chicago, and in November 1949 sworn in as a citizen. A short time later Wilma was admitted as an immigrant.
Source: Wilma and Georg Iggers, Two Lives in Uncertain Times, New York: Berghahn Books, 2006, p. 68f