Michelle N. Says:
I was born in the U.S. (1st generation) to two German immigrant parents and my entire lineage is German. I am 59 years of age now, but have never been allowed a German passport because my father became a U.S. citizen the year before I was born.
Will I be entitled to a German passport if Germany lifts its ban this summer?
IL Chief Global Diversification Expert Ted Baumann Says:
Hi Michelle,
This is an interesting question. It’s not one that I have seen discussed in media reports on the proposed changes to the German nationality law. Most of the reporting has focused on people living inside Germany who have been unable to become citizens up till now.
The reason you were not able to get a German passport is that once your father became a naturalized U.S. citizen, German law assumed he had renounced his German citizenship. So technically, he was not a German citizen at the time, which means you aren’t either.
The situation now depends on your mother’s citizenship status at the time of your birth. If she was still a German citizen, there’s a possibility that you can acquire citizenship via her status.
Between 1914 and 1974, German nationality law allowed children of German parents born abroad to acquire German citizenship if the father was German. But between 1964—the year of your birth—and 1974, German law took away the citizenship of women who married foreigners.
Two things might allow you to apply for a German passport successfully:
- Under EU law, the German rules that differentiate between men and women regarding nationality of children are impermissible. I’m not aware of any cases challenging this in Germany. But I know that in Italy, which had similar laws, people seeking citizenship through ancestry have been able to get it through their mothers by approaching the courts, which always rule based on the EU ban on gender discrimination.
- Your mother did not marry a foreigner, since your father was German at the time of their marriage. If your mother retained German citizenship at the time of your birth, you might be able to apply for a passport on that basis.
Of course, there might be a new route available to you under the proposed legislation. I’ll be keeping an eye on that, and will certainly comment on it once the details are clear.
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