AEMI

PAUL-HEINZ PAUSEBACK
107
Fig 8 Johannes Marius Jappen (1864-1943), a
shopkeeper in Brooklyn before in 1891 he returned
to Föhr.
Source:Volkert F. Faltings, ed., Ein Föhrer blickt
zurück, Bredstedt 1988.
the prerequisite to get back the German
citizenship. So in August 1891, at the
age of twenty seven he became a subject
of Wilhelm II, Prussian King and
German Kaiser. Up to then he had lived
in New York for eleven years. There he
had married a girl from his home island
and both had run a little shop in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn’s Dutchtown.
They came back to Föhr with a capital
of 15,000 Mark, not an unusual case in
those days.
The limitation to a period of two
years for a visit home, as specified by
the Bancroft treaty, was regarded as
discriminating by the German-Americans.
Even more the rigorous practice
of controlling and ordering out of visitors
after 1885/86 caused bad feelings
on both sides of the Atlantic. On Föhr
for example together with the exodus of
many potential remigrants not the least
a noticeable decline of capital for future
investments and innovation was feared.
The governmental edict in question
from the year 1885 did not exclude exceptions
and a petition for clemency to
the King and Kaiser was always possible.
But a harsh practice, typical of autocratic
authorities caused not only on the
Frisian Islands considerable individual
hardships. Johann Lützen from Husum
had left his home town in 1880 without
a passport to go to New York. In August
1885 he became an American citizen
and in November he was back home,
just when the new regulations became
valid. In March 1886 he was expelled
and the police-authorities of the city
were instructed to control strictly that
he didn’t hide in the house of his parents.
This instruction seemed to be necessary
in a double sense. At least in the
region the author examined it was the
lower and local authorities that tended
to be more generous. The documents
show that official records were delayed
for some weeks, that interrogations
were put off for some time or that the
visitors were simply neglected as long
as possible. This practice caused much
annoyance on the side of the chief authority
of district, the very conservative
Landrat Friedrich Werner Nasse (Pauseback,
Aufbruch, 73). He wrote in his
remarks regarding the planned deportation
of Karl Frerksen from Husum that
he was of the opinion that Karl Frerksen
came back home not to recuperate