Obtaining a German passport for Nazi persecution victims and their descendants
In accordance with new regulations of the German Nationality Law, the pool of people eligible for obtaining German citizenship was recently expanded to include those persecuted by the Nazi regime, between the years 1933 and 1945, and their descendants. Israelis who go through the process of obtaining a German European passport, for the multitude of advantages it holds, can hold it in addition to their Israeli passport – they will not be required to give up their Israeli citizenship. In this article we will review the new conditions for obtaining a German passports for Nazi victims in accordance with the 2020 amendment to the German Citizenship Law.
Our immigration law offices in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have many years of experience in everything regarding obtaining passports for people persecuted by the Nazi regime, including conducting genealogical research and locating documents of Jewish families who had to flee Europe from the Nazi terror. Our attorneys can assist you in submitting an application to the German authorities in an efficient and professional manner with the help of comprehensive knowledge and experience in everything related to German law. In addition to that, our office specializes in obtaining Austrian passports for descendants of people persecuted by the Nazi regime in Austria, between the years 1933 and 1955.
Famous personalities from the German Jewish community
Until the Nazis’ rise to power, German Jewry was one of the most prosperous Jewish communities in the world. German Jews were a significant part of the world of science, culture, art and economy of Germany and the whole world. Below are some names of notable Jewish-German personalities:
- Heinrich Heine
Born in Dusseldorf in the Holy Roman Empire (now West Germany) in 1797, Heine was indifferent to the issue of religion, and in 1825 he converted to Christianity in order to be accepted into German society. He studied law, and even received a doctorate in the field, but his real passions were poetry and literature. To this day, Heinrich Heine is considered one of the greatest poets and writers of Germany in the 19th century. Among his most notable works are “Germany: A Winter’s Tale”, “A Journey in the Mountains of the Land” and “The Book of Poems”. Heine’s books were among the most prominent books burned in Nazi Germany’s book-burning campaigns in 1933. Near the monument in the Opera Square, where the most famous book-burning event took place, there is an engraving of the famous quote from his allegorical play “Almansor” from 1821, a quote that is chilling in retrospect, due to its prophetic character: “This was only a preface; wherever books are burned, people will eventually be burned as well.”
- Karl Marx
The “Father of Communism” Karl Marx is one of the most influential figures in modern human history. He was born in 1818 in the city of Trier in Prussia (now West Germany) to a wealthy family. On both sides, Marx was a scion of an illustrious line of rabbis, but was not a Jewish believer himself. Marx’s two famous works, which to this day constitute the conceptual and ideological basis for communism, are “The Communist Manifesto”, from 1848, and “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy”, published in 1867. The influence of Marx’s writing is not limited to economic communism, and Marxist theory is used to examine human society as a whole, and the power relations and inequality in it. For example, many feminist and racial struggles in the world were also influenced by Marx’s teachings.
- Albert Einstein
Considered the greatest scientist of all time, Einstein was born in the city of Ulm in southern Germany in 1879. Einstein grew up as a believing Jew, but already as a teenager he began to develop critical thinking and abandoned religion in favor of physics. Einstein defined himself as a pacifist, which made him renounce his German citizenship in 1896, due to his hatred of the German militaristic mentality. Einstein is the formulator, among other things, of special relativity theory and general relativity theory, which are the cornerstones of modern physics, and he is considered one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Einstein supported the idea of establishing a state for the Jewish people in Israel and the Balfour Declaration. In 1952 he was offered by David Ben-Gurion to be the second president of the State of Israel, but Einstein rejected the offer even though he expressing his excitement about it. Einstein was one of the founding fathers of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, served on the board of trustees and as chairman of the university’s academic council, and in his will bequeathed all his writings and intellectual property to it.
- Hannah Arendt
The publicist and philosopher Hannah Arendt was born in 1906 in the village of Linden-Limmer in the German Empire (today part of the city of Hanover in northern Germany). Following the beginning of the persecution of German Jews, with the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933, she emigrated from Germany to France, and then to the United States. In the United States she worked as a journalist and as a lecturer in the field of political theory. Arendt is best known for her reporting for The New Yorker on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Following the coverage, she wrote her well-known book “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.” In short, according to Arendt’s theory, the Nazis’ anti-Semitism and Race Theory are not enough to explain the horrors of the Holocaust, to explain the acts – including those of Eichmann himself. Instead, one must understand how acts of horror can become banal in a certain time and place, when people are drawn into committing evil acts without any particular ideology.
The Jews under the rule of Nazi Germany
At the time the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, in 1933, there were 530,000 Jews living in the country. Although the majority of German Jews sought to assimilate into German society as equal citizens, and approximately 100,000 of them even fought in World War I, the Nazis labeled the Jews as enemies of the state and in September 1935, passed the race laws enacted in the city of Nuremberg, whose purpose was to deny citizenship to those who did not belong to the Aryan race. The laws were aimed at Jews, and were later expanded to include Gypsies as well. Following the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws, which made racism part of the official law in Germany, Jews began to emigrate from Germany in large numbers. Between the Nazis’ rise to to power and the beginning of World War II, when the gates of Germany were closed to Jewish emigration, about 300,000 Jews emigrated from Germany – mainly to the United States, South American countries, the Land of Israel and Great Britain.
German passports for Nazi persecution victims – the legal situation before and after 2020
The German citizenship regulations state that German citizenship is passed on by blood ties. Until 2020, it was possible to become a citizen in Germany only if the applicant was born to a German mother / father in a married relationship with a German citizen / resident.
In May 2020, a precedential ruling by Germany’s Constitutional Court determined that naturalization in Germany should be granted to an American woman, born in the United States in 1967 to a Jewish father – whose German citizenship was revoked by the Nazis in 1938 – and an American mother; despite the fact that the girl was born out of wedlock, and was therefore considered an “illegitimate child”. The ruling opened a window for descendants of German Jewish ancestors, who were born out of wedlock, to become German citizens.
Who is considered a “Nazi persecution victim” according to the new German Citizenship Law?
Following the above ruling, the German Citizenship Law was amended so as to extend the right to citizenship to the descendants of those persecuted by the Nazi regime – including children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (and in some cases even great-great-grandchildren), even if the persecution victim is no longer alive at the time the application is submitted. Thus, Section 15 of the German Citizenship Law states that anyone whose German citizenship was revoked on the basis of religion, race or politics between the dates January 30, 1933 (the day the Nazi Party came to power) and May 8, 1945 (the day Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies) is eligible to receive citizenship. It is important to emphasize that the persecution victim, or a member of their family, does not need to prove that they were persecuted in practice due to being Jewish, beyond the criteria mentioned above.
What possibilities do German citizenship holders enjoy?
Germany is the most important political and economic power in Europe, and one of the most stable. As part of the lessons of the World War II, the residents of Germany show a sympathetic attitude towards immigrants, and it is not by chance that close to thirty thousand Israelis live in Germany, most of them in Berlin – which is considered one of the most vibrant cities in Europe and in the entire world. Also, a German passport opens up economic possibilities for its holder, as citizens can perform business transactions in general and real estate transactions in particular, as well as having the possibility of obtaining a mortgage from a German bank.
In addition, Germany is a member of the European Union, and is expected to remain so. A European passport allows you to live, work and study (in many places for free, including in Germany itself) in any of the 27 EU member countries. Also, a European passport exempts its holder from obtaining a visa in advance to enter countries such as the United States and Australia, which normally require Israelis to obtain visas.
Why is it important to enlist the services of an attorney specializing in immigration law to obtain a German passport?
Our office specializes in obtaining German passports for Nazi persecution victims and specifically their descendants. Office staff members speak German, and are skilled in working with the authorities in Germany, who are very strict. An important element in obtaining a German passport is dealing with the tangle of governmental bureaucracy; those who are unfamiliar with it may suffer delays in their application, and may even have their application denied. Therefore, it is highly recommended to enlist the assistance of an immigration attorney.
Our attorneys are available to you, to ascertain whether you and your family members are eligible for a German passport, and if so, to guide you through the application process. You can contact us at the phone numbers and email address below and schedule a consultation with an immigration law expert at our offices, in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The article was written in collaboration with attorney Adam Johnson.
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:מאמרים מומלצים