Weinmann

Country of origin:  Germany
Most recent immigrant:  Andreas Paul Weinmann, 1924

My most recent Weinmann ancestor to immigrate to the United States is my maternal great-grandfather, Andreas Paul Weinmann.  All of his ancestors were from the eastern part of Germany and German areas of Czechoslovakia.  Family surnames on my Weinmann side include Weinmann, Boettcher, Vogel, and Schoenherr.

In 1905 Andreas Weinmann, Sr. was sent to Brazil to serve at the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Rio de Janero.  The family was recalled in 1914 and returned just before the outbreak of World War I.  The senior Weinmann served in the Austro-Hungarian army as a captain.  In 1916, his son Andreas Paul Weinmann was drafted into the German army, serving in Italy.

Andreas Paul Weinmann emigrated to the United States in 1924 to join his brother Max in Detroit. With his ability to learn languages (he knew not only German, but also Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian), Andreas soon mastered English.  He worked as an electrician and soon prospered, so his fiancee Bertha Marie Louise Boettcher followed him to America in 1927.  They were married on board the ship in New York, because the U.S. government did not allow single female aliens into the country.  She was then allowed to enter the U.S.

My grandmother was born in 1929 and was taken back to Germany by her mother for a visit in 1930.  Bertha was thirty years old when she arrived in the U.S. and was never happy or comfortable living here.  She also never learned to speak English.  For these reasons Bertha decided, during their visit, to remain in Germany.  She eventually divorced Andreas and married again.

Ruth lived in Germany all through World War II and on into the the occupation of East Germany by the forces of the Soviet Union (but she was regarded by German and Russian authorities as an American citizen).  In 1947, she left Germany and came back to the U.S. to join her father.  She knew no English when she arrived.