On 30 August 2019, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community issued decrees to facilitate the acquisition of German citizenship for descendants of victims of National Socialist persecution who lost their citizenship rights and are not entitled to restoration of citizenship under Article 116(2) of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz).

The provisions also apply to children of German and former German citizens born prior to 1 January 1975 or 1 July 1993, respectively, who were previously excluded by gender-discriminatory regulations from acquiring German citizenship by descent, and their descendants. The provisions of the decrees have been very positively received by the people affected.

In a second step, these provisions will be transposed into a law which provides the basis for the entitlement to restitution, and comprehensive statutory regulations will be created, some of which will be even more extensive than the decrees. This gives the necessary symbolic weight to restitution law.

The Federal Government explicitly recognises its historical responsibility also to those who, as descendants of German victims of National Socialist persecution, lost their citizenship rights. The Federal Government considers it a sign of great trust that descendants of victims of National Socialist persecution who emigrated under duress now wish to acquire German citizenship.

For this reason, the Act stipulates clearly that the generational cut-off point will not apply in cases where German citizenship is restored in order to redress National Socialist injustice; this means that even in the future, claims to naturalisation under restitution law will not be subject to any time limits.

For descendants whose parent from whom German nationality is derived already acquired German citizenship in the past and who have an ancestor who was persecuted by the National Socialist regime, the generational cut-off point will not apply even if they acquire German nationality at birth abroad. This means that they are not required to file an application for certification of the birth within a year after the birth in order to acquire German citizenship.

For all those who were affected by the former gender-discriminatory regulations on descent because they were born in wedlock as the child of a German mother and a foreign father or out of wedlock as the child of a German father and a foreign mother and were thus excluded from acquiring German citizenship at birth, the Act provides a ten-year period during which they may acquire German citizenship by way of simple declaration.

This entitlement applies to all those who were born who after the Basic Law entered into force on 24 May 1949 and before the date on which the unconstitutional regulations governing the acquisition of German citizenship by descent were amended, and their descendants.

However, in light of the antisemitic incidents in Germany in recent weeks, the Act denies naturalisation to anyone convicted of antisemitic, racist or xenophobic acts, or other acts contemptuous of human dignity, regardless of the severity of the penalty.

In addition, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community will amend its Provisional Guidelines of 1 June 2015 on Applying the Nationality Act: applicants for naturalisation will be expressly informed that antisemitic, racist and xenophobic acts, and other acts contemptuous of human dignity are not compatible with human dignity and equality of all people as guaranteed by the Basic Law and conflict with loyalty to the free democratic order.

Moreover, the Bundestag Committee on Internal Affairs decided by a large majority to place greater emphasis on informing foreigners, in particular foreigners who wish to become German citizens, about Germany’s historic responsibility, because this responsibility is why antisemitism cannot be tolerated, why Israel’s right to exist is part of Germany’s national ethos, and why religious tolerance toward the Jewish religion is expected. For this reason, the Federal Government has been asked to revise the naturalisation test and the curriculum of the orientation courses taken before acquiring German citizenship so that these issues are highlighted even more.

In addition, the Act contains technical amendments based on case law and the practice of the naturalisation authorities.

Applications for naturalisation on grounds of restitution of German citizenship and declarations to acquire German citizenship may be filed after the Act has entered into force. This Act will enter into force on the day after it is published in the Federal Law Gazette. No date of publication can be provided.