Linguofreak
Well-known member
I recently looked over https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_nationality_law , in particular, the "Descent from a German Parent" section, and have come to the ridiculous conclusion that I may, on a technicality, actually carry German citizenship:
My great^2 grandfather emigrated to the US in the mid 1890s, and brought his family with him, including my great-grandfather, who was 10 at the time. Those two were both German citizens. When my great-grandfather married, his wife lost her US citizenship because he was a German citizen, and US law at the time was that a woman lost her citizenship if she married a foreigner. They were both eventually naturalized (renaturalized in her case) as US citizens, but I don't know when. My grandfather was born in 1911, fairly early in their marriage, my dad was born in '49, and I was born in '86.
If I understand the Wikipedia article correctly:
1) As long as my grandfather was born before my great-grandfather was nationalized as a US citizen, he would have inherited German citizenship.
2) As long as all citizenships involved were acquired at birth, there does not seem to be any impediment in German law to multiple citizenship, so my grandfather's US citizenship (by virtue of being born in the US) would not affect his German citizenship. This is probably the weakest part, because I know that attitudes towards dual citizenship used to be much more negative across the West, so there may be old laws, that I have not yet found reference to, in either Germany or the US that would interfere with the transmission of both citizenships together by birth. On the other hand, dual citizenship by birth has generally been where restrictions on dual citizenship have historically been weakest at any given point in time.
3) There is currently a provision in German law (as there has been in US law going back further) that disallows inheriting citizenship from a citizen parent born outside of Germany, but it only applies if the parent was born after the turn of the millennium. Therefore, my father would have inherited citizenship from my grandfather, I would have inherited it from him, and any children I should have will inherit from me, but they will not pass German citizenship to my grandchildren (unless my children are born in Germany).
4) Children born in Germany to non-German parents can get German citizenship from their place of birth, but have to apply to retain in by the age of 23. This, however, does not apply to people who inherit German citizenship from their parents.
5) Military service in another country is an almost universal grounds for revocation of citizenship across the world, but nobody from my great-grandfather down to me has served in the military in the interim.
So, as long as my grandfather was born before my great-grandfather became a citizen, and as long as there was no bar to dual citizenship inherited by birth in either country in the past, I would appear to be a German citizen. I find the conclusion rather surreal: because of our history, American national identity is based much more on shared culture than shared blood, and so the possibility of having inherited a citizenship in a country that I wasn't born in, and have spent only about a year in, by a chain so long that the people at the beginning of the chain were dead before I was born (not to mention the two shooting wars between the two countries in the interim), is rather bizarre to me.
Are any Germans on the forum aware of anything that would bear on this?
My great^2 grandfather emigrated to the US in the mid 1890s, and brought his family with him, including my great-grandfather, who was 10 at the time. Those two were both German citizens. When my great-grandfather married, his wife lost her US citizenship because he was a German citizen, and US law at the time was that a woman lost her citizenship if she married a foreigner. They were both eventually naturalized (renaturalized in her case) as US citizens, but I don't know when. My grandfather was born in 1911, fairly early in their marriage, my dad was born in '49, and I was born in '86.
If I understand the Wikipedia article correctly:
1) As long as my grandfather was born before my great-grandfather was nationalized as a US citizen, he would have inherited German citizenship.
2) As long as all citizenships involved were acquired at birth, there does not seem to be any impediment in German law to multiple citizenship, so my grandfather's US citizenship (by virtue of being born in the US) would not affect his German citizenship. This is probably the weakest part, because I know that attitudes towards dual citizenship used to be much more negative across the West, so there may be old laws, that I have not yet found reference to, in either Germany or the US that would interfere with the transmission of both citizenships together by birth. On the other hand, dual citizenship by birth has generally been where restrictions on dual citizenship have historically been weakest at any given point in time.
3) There is currently a provision in German law (as there has been in US law going back further) that disallows inheriting citizenship from a citizen parent born outside of Germany, but it only applies if the parent was born after the turn of the millennium. Therefore, my father would have inherited citizenship from my grandfather, I would have inherited it from him, and any children I should have will inherit from me, but they will not pass German citizenship to my grandchildren (unless my children are born in Germany).
4) Children born in Germany to non-German parents can get German citizenship from their place of birth, but have to apply to retain in by the age of 23. This, however, does not apply to people who inherit German citizenship from their parents.
5) Military service in another country is an almost universal grounds for revocation of citizenship across the world, but nobody from my great-grandfather down to me has served in the military in the interim.
So, as long as my grandfather was born before my great-grandfather became a citizen, and as long as there was no bar to dual citizenship inherited by birth in either country in the past, I would appear to be a German citizen. I find the conclusion rather surreal: because of our history, American national identity is based much more on shared culture than shared blood, and so the possibility of having inherited a citizenship in a country that I wasn't born in, and have spent only about a year in, by a chain so long that the people at the beginning of the chain were dead before I was born (not to mention the two shooting wars between the two countries in the interim), is rather bizarre to me.
Are any Germans on the forum aware of anything that would bear on this?