(Jewish Group) Jewish descendants of refugees from Nazi period denied German citizenship
Article 116 of the German constitution declares that anyone whose citizenship was revoked between 1933 and 1945 for "political, racist or religious reasons" is entitled to German citizenship now. That, the constitution says, is similarly true for descendants of the Jews from Germany.
But some descendants of Jews who fled the Nazi era have had their applications for a German passport rejected. A number of reasons exist for this. For George*, a British-born Jew with a German mother, the fact that he was born too early to a non-German father meant he was not eligible for German citizenship.
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Being born in 1948, when German citizenship still came through the father, he is not entitled to German citizenship. "If I had been born in 1953, when the law changed, that would have been a completely different situation," George told DW. George's father was British Jewish, had he been German, George would have received German citizenship under the law of the time.
The German Federal Office of Administration (the Bundesverwaltungsamt) confirmed to DW that 1953 was the cut-off date for maternal-line descendants eligible for German repatriation.
"Children born before 1953 whose mother had already been expatriated from Germany, do not have any claim to German repatriation," the office wrote.
"I am appalled," George continued. "As a Jew, there has always been a thing about keeping a bag packed. The fact that I am not allowed to get German citizenship because of such arbitrariness is bizarre."
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