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| Format | Manuscript |
|---|---|
| Title, Manuscript | Scrapbook Pages Documenting the Trial of Paul Knauer |
| Abstract | Paul Knauer was born in Germany, and served in the German army during World War I. He arrived in the United States in 1925 at the age of 30, where he settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and conducted an insurance business. He filed his declaration of intention to become a citizen in 1929 and his petition for naturalization in 1936. He took his oath of allegiance and was admitted to citizenship on April 13, 1937. In 1943 the United States instituted proceedings to cancel his certificate of naturalization on the ground that it had been secured by fraud. In the case of Knauer v. United States, the Supreme Court sustained the denaturalization of Paul Knauer, “a thoroughgoing Nazi and a faithful follower of Adolph Hitler,” according to Justice William Douglas’s condemnation. When Knauer foreswore allegiance to the German Reich, he swore falsely, thus procuring his American citizenship by fraud. Fraud is a proper ground for cancellation of the naturalization. Knauer founded the German American Citizens Alliance in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was a spokesman for the German American Bund, and was a member of Camp Hindenburg in Grafton, Wisconsin. He was stripped of his citizenship in 1944, and deported to Germany after the war. After years of fighting his removal from the country, Knauer was granted status as a “legally admitted alien” in 1957; he died in Milwaukee in 1962. |
| MKI Annotation | Kept originally by the son of Paul Knauer, also named Paul Knauer. Scrapbook pages are loose and the paper is fragile. |
| Donated by | Heiner Giese, 2025. |
| Call Number | MKI P2025-08 (Oversize) |
| MKI Terms | National socialism/ United States/ German American Bund |