International Appeals For Clemency
Hirsch's family and friends launched a campaign to free him, or at least have his sentence commuted to life in prison. The International Red Cross, the Society of Friends, and an international association of lawyers made appeals on his behalf. A human rights organization convinced the government of Norway to offer him asylum if the Germans would release him. An appeal was made to the League of Nations, and the case was brought up in the House of Commons in London.
Among the most promising avenues was the intervention of the United States. Hirsch's father, Siegfried, had lived in the United States for about ten years before his marriage in 1914. He became a naturalized American citizen before returning to Germany. During World War I, Siegfried lived with his wife and two children in the German state of Alsace. At the end of the war, when Alsace became part of France, the family moved to Stuttgart. Through a bureaucratic mix-up, the exact nature of which is unclear, Siegfried Hirsch's American citizenship was rescinded, rendering the entire family "stateless persons". Even though Hirsch was born in Germany and lived in Stuttgart for most of his life, he never held German citizenship.
Hirsch's cousin, George Neuburger, who had moved to New York, enlisted the aid of an American lawyer to petition to have Siegfried's citizenship reinstated. Their appeal was initially rejected, but a month later the decision was reversed. On April 22, 1937, by virtue of his father's newly restored citizenship, Helmut Hirsch was also declared an American citizen, although he had never set foot on American soil.
Read more about this topic: Helmut Hirsch
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