Why I’m making my family German (2017)
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Furthermore, if your ancestors left Germany after 1904 and had children in the United States before naturalizing as American citizens, you may be already a German citizen even without knowing it.
A reddit dedicated to these topics and more: https://www.reddit.com/r/GermanCitizenship
From some quick searching I don’t see this mentioned explicitly anywhere. Is the argument that your great grandparent’s (immigrant from Germany in let’s say 1901) children, per the current naturalization rules, were a citizen, and thus your grandparent, thus parent, and thus you? Since the citizenship requirements don’t mention it, is this something that would actually hold up?
Prior to a 1914 change in the nationality law, a German citizen lost citizenship if they lived outside of Germany for more than 10 years and didn't file to retain citizenship. The general case is thus "after 1904."
Other common criteria are that the chain of citizenship is unbroken, that no parent naturalized elsewhere (also a loss of citizenship without permission to retain) prior to the child being born and no voluntary military service (with some exceptions for EU and NATO depending on year).
I knew one of my great grandparents was born in Germany, but after some digging it turns out they emigrated as a toddler well before the cutoff, so no EU passport for me. I was surprised to learn that their family came over in multiple ships in the span of a few years. And also at how many dark patterns genealogy websites use to try to get you to pay!
Pro tip for anybody also interested: there are free sites for genealogy although their SEO is often poor, and they use clunky interfaces from like 15 years ago. Often operated by governments and perfectly capable of describing in words how to manually do a join, but incapable of automatically doing a join.
I found aad.archives.gov useful for Ellis Island records - if you search the manifest id from a record you can see the ship name, source, and year. And you can filter by last name + manifest id if you find what seems like partial data (the person you think is missing may have had their name recorded differently). There is some German emigration data also available but as you might expect it’s pretty patchy - nonetheless I was still able to find my great grandparent in their polity’s emigrant records.
[0] https://freemovement.org.uk/claiming-british-citizenship-thr...
It’s to be expected somewhat, but the way Israel mixes religion and policy creates a ton of complexity. Just look up how marriages work.
That’s consistent with it probably not affecting most people + still allowing for people who do not meet the traditional religious criteria to exercise the Law of Return, but not the same as the treatments being the same.
According to my understanding, if for example my great grandfather was Jewish, but married to a Catholic, and raised their son (my grandfather) as a Catholic, who then was for all intents and purposes a fully practicing Catholic thus raising my parent the same way, I wouldn’t be eligible for the law of return. But if I could show my mother’s mother’s mother’s … mother was Jewish I would be eligible, even if this is more than 2 generations.
For most people raised Jewish I doubt it matters much but it does change things a lot for people of mixed Jewish ancestry whose parents/grandparents were not practicing. Which is a pretty decent number of people in the US and former Soviet Union
Anyway, what does this have to do with Russias invasion of Ukraine again?
See 'Obtaining Austrian Citizenship' here: https://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/austrian-embassy-london/service-f...
I think Citizenship is, whether you like it or not, one of those things that are really important for one's self understanding. Like the author, I feel European first and foremost I think, and Brexit and the way it was carried was cataclysmic for that identity if you live in that country.
https://www.thelocal.de/20230110/i-hope-it-happens-soon-how-...
Why do you say that? Most countries (unless you can claim some descent from native citizens) require you to have a link with the country, to have spent several years there, to speak the language well, and to be financially secure.
Most countries rules select the people that are eligible for passports/citizenship to those that will benefit the nation.
In most cases there are no obligations from the perspective of the citizen, and in return the benefits are many.
After Brexit I felt European and my British passport now feels almost alien to me.
I think a lot of people feel that way going by the number of EU flags I see flying here in Scotland.
They've probably already put the contract for Hadrian's Wall out for tender :)
That struck me as an odd remark. This sudden change wasn't provoked by a visit to (say) Leeds, where people made her feel unwelcome; it was provoked by a plebiscite whose outcome she disagreed with.
I voted Brexit, knowing that there would be economic costs that would last at least ten years. I also knew that european governments would be angry and hostile; and that the Tories would make a dog's dinner of it. But I still voted Brexit, because for various reasons I think the EU is deeply corrupt.
But I still feel like a european, because I am a european. I feel fellowship with other europeans - provided they also feel like europeans.
Everybody should take every opportunity available to them when it comes to this stuff. Don't let others decide for you where you're allowed to make a life for yourself if you can possibly help it.
(2) Former German citizens who, between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945, were deprived of their citizenship on political, racial or religious grounds and their descendants shall, on application, have their citizenship restored. They shall be deemed never to have been deprived of their citizenship if they have established their domicile in Germany after 8 May 1945 and have not expressed a contrary intention.
I think in case she has dual citizenship, she still has to pay into German social security. These payments are mandatory and contributions are accrued over a lifetime.
I think The minimum fee is about 150 Euros per month and family (even as an "inactive" citizen).
Maybe she can refuse to pay ("Hey, I've moved back to the UK / never moved to Germany"), but this also means almost? no pension payments later, and she can expect trouble when paying invoices for any German doctor or hospital.
Of course she can live off her wealth (gained in the UK) as a Pensioner in Germany but I think when she never contributed to German Social Security she cannot expect much. In this respect, Bookkeeping by German authorities is very accurate, over decades, to the penny.
What? Your social security is linked to your health insurance, how? Doesn't make sense.
Obviously, it is more benfitial to gather pension in a high cost and salary country (e.g. Germany) and retire to a low cost country. No idea how UK pensions compare to German ones.
One health insurance benefit German citizenship gives you, is the option to keep German health insurance, also covering health care abroad, as an expat for up to 5 (?, might be ten) for close to nothing. For some funny reason doing so while based in the US is considerably more expensive than the rest of the world...
Edited to add: I am merely a permanent resident of Germany, not a dual citizen.
The fun thing with private insurance so is that you see the invoices and amounts. Always puzzles me when I see those from my Dad...
Private insurance is great if you get it young enough, and without pre existing stuff, and get good conditions concerning premium increases with age.
>Private insurance is great if you get it young enough, and without pre existing stuff, and get good conditions concerning premium increases with age.
What does this mean? Premiums (or premium increases) for life are determined when the health insurance policy is originally issued?
So, rule of thumb is that private health insurance gets more expensive with age and previous health issues (everything from injuries, sports, diseases, cancers...). So it is benefitial to get into privatr insurance early, because insurers price premiums over the expected life time value. As a result, the earlier to start paying into it, the lower the premiums down the road are going to be. E.g. some government jobs have defacto private insurance, and no way into public one, and if people do not start contributing during their active service, once they loose state provided coverage (again different from public insurance), premiums sky rocket upon retirement.
Public insurers (private companies offering the legally defined coverage) have to take everyone (some edge case exceptions apply to e.g. artists and the like), cannot adopt premiums based on anything patient related (thry have some leeway based on internal cost to increase premium for everyone of their members by a limited percentage).
Private insurers can more or less do whatever they want, even excluding pre existing conditions in some cases. Sucks if you had, e.g., cancer early in your life.
Otherwise, I do not understand how the risk pool could possibly work. It seems like much of the healthy and young people would buy "private insurers", and the sick and old would be denied, so they would have to go with "public insurers".
But then that would mean the prices would be sky high for public insurance compared to private insurance?
So that's how they make sure that most of the healthy, young people are in the public insurance system for at least a few years.
And because this was becoming too lopsided, they sacrificed the newest generation of higher income workers by requiring they be in the costlier risk pool for a few years?
EDIT: Regarding public coverage, the only supplemental insurances that are actually really useful are extended pay beyond the legal limit of 6 weeks per diagnosis and additional dental coverage. Other than that, I cannot imagine a worse case than cancer, and I got chief surgeon treatment 2 weeks after the diagnosis while being in under public insurance. So the system works just fine, even in some of the worst imaginable cases.
I think it most cases. I’ve had multiple private insurance companies reject me for minor pre existing conditions (some pills for anxiety/depression, minor surgery on my wrist etc). The brokers said I must have perfect health for 5 years and then reapply.
In my case private insurance would be significantly less than the public insurance I have now
It's the Guardian, that is their schtick. Orwell summed up this attitude well in England Your England[1]:
> In intention, at any rate, the English intelligentsia are Europeanized. They take their cookery from Paris and their opinions from Moscow. In the general patriotism of the country they form a sort of island of dissident thought. England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during ‘God save the King’ than of stealing from a poor box.
Plus ça change.
Yes, but now she got more options.
> I think it's important not to forget history, especially one's family's.
I don't think she did. Or what do you mean?
https://news.sky.com/story/nhs-crisis-how-did-we-get-here-an...
Waiting an hour and a half for an ambulance when you have a stroke or heart attack is the sort of thing that has long term consequences for your recovery, even if you don't die of it immediately.
Reluctantly, and it's not clear the same courtesy would be extended today given the anti-asylum rhetoric. The history of Allied countries accepting Jewish refugees early - before it was too late - is .. patchy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
This is a precise description of what happened in the UK since then.
I shouldn’t have to say that, but she doesn’t owe anything to anybody and she is free to criticise the UK (and being quite spot on), whatever happened to her family 100 years ago.
Factually correct. But so what?
She now retains the right to freely work and travel in the EU, whilst I have now lost that right. Our children will automatically get it though, so thanks Ireland!
Example: https://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-GB/You-want-to-apply/Residence-...
I mean, to be fair, it's not reasonable for me (British citizen) to expect to be able to just have the citizenship of an EU country. I'm just jealous and angry that she (and our hypothetical children) now have a bunch of rights that others took away from me.
I live in Denmark, and here, upon arrival your wife would fill in a 2-ish-page online form [1] and present a job contract (or bank statement with a decent balance, university letter for studies etc -- the standard moving-in-the-EU rules which Britain never bothered to enforce).
You would show her job contract, plus your marriage certificate, and have fingerprints taken.
The process would be similar in other EU countries, but may well involve fewer online forms and more bits of paper.
[1] Which I linked previously
This is incorrect. Refer to Articles 12 and 13 of Directive 2004/38/EC:
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
Someone should probably tell Denmark [1]
> If you have grounds for residence as a family member to a (non-Danish) EU citizen living in Denmark who has independent grounds for residence in Denmark under EU rules, and you no longer meet one or more of the conditions, your grounds for residence will normally be terminated. This would be the case, for example, if you are divorced from the sponsor, if the sponsor has left Denmark or if the sponsor no longer meets the conditions for his or her grounds for residence.
Given the weasel words in the following sections, I assume they do follow the EU rules when it comes to it, but that summary is deceptive.
[1] https://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-GB/You-want-to-apply/Residence-... → "What happens if I no longer am a family member..."
Your children won’t automatically gain these rights unless they are born on the island of Ireland. It’s important at to register their births on the FBR.
[1]FBR = Foreign Births Registry. If you have a right to citizenship, you become a citizen once you are in the registry.
What’s supposed to be changed soon is the normal way, like my South African wife who could get citizenship due to being married to me. Currently, she’d have to give up her SA citizenship to get the German one.
Edit: There are countries in which you cannot loose citizenship, Afghanistan comes to mind as of a couple of years ago.
The issue is that citizenship is stricly a country own prerogative outside of the agreement not to make people stateless. So Germany is free to tell you they won't give you the German nationality if you don't renounce your other ones and is free to strip you of your German nationality if they find you have another one.
Meanwhile, the other country can still consider you a citizen if it wants to. That's its sovereign right and it doesn't have to agree to you asking not to be considered one.
There is apparently a way around it but that may require lawyers
The tricky bit is you need to motivate it & they're looking for something a bit more substantial than "it'll make airports easier".
That's just the beginning.
As much as I like German culture, their insatiable hunger for paperwork is borderline inhuman.
Papier verlangsamt dich bis zur Lähmung
I say this as someone who has exercised my right of return to Austria.
In Germany we didnt talk about India as part of the British empire. My scarce knowledge is based on talks with an Indian friend and Wikipedia. Also there are many many genocides unfortunately.
The average German history curriculum tends to cover topics with a German-specific lens. E.g. comparison of single-party regimes will likely involve the NSDAP and SED, colonialism may feature British India in a sidebar but mostly talk about German colonies in Africa, the Berlin Conference, Herero genocide etc. (German New Guinea and the other Pacific colonies seem to get less attention for some reason.)
Its of course, orthogonal to multi culturalism as a ideology, but all the melting pots without a constant economic flame, imploded into civil war (libannon, jugoslavia) or turned into brutal centralist empires (russia, etc.).
"Halfway peacefully" is a bit of a starry-eyed spin on a cataclysmic event that led to the deaths of anywhere from 200,000 to 2 million people.
In general they do because history is human history, not just some country's history, and it would pretty appalling to gloss over genocides of that magnitude.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/documentin...
If I had to point out what’s understated or lost by many, the author is not comparing this to the holocaust (obviously Brexit is nowhere on the same level). They’re drawing comparison to one of the central narratives of the Jewish Diaspora where Jews periodically have to relocate to get away from declining or unfavorable regimes. But they also recognize that since they were secular and seemingly fully assimilated as a Brit, it’s a little different (which is also a common facet of the Diaspora especially in secular Western countries)
Some historical background: In 2002, the then coalition of Social Democrates (SPD) and the Green Party, at the special insistence of the latter, attempted to pass a new immigration law. The law passed the parliament (Bundestag), but also required the approval of the German states represented by the Bundesrat. At the meeting of 22 March 2002, the state of Brandenburg, which had 4 (deciding) votes, voted in such a way that it was unclear whether the criterion that a state's votes must be cast uniformly was met.[1] The German Constitutional Court ruled on 18. December 2002 that the votes were not cast uniformly (two judges opposed that decision) and none of it should be counted as a Yes, thus the law did not pass.[2]
In subsequent years, all attempts to generally[3] ease dual citizenship were blocked by the Conservatives (CDU/CSU). However, the 26 September 2021 elections have resulted in a colation without the Conservatives at the federal level and the situation in the states is so diverse that chances are high that a law that extents dual citizenship might be passed this time.
[1] For the relevant passages of the voting protocol see: https://www.bundesrat.de/SharedDocs/pm/2002/062-2002.html (in German)
[2] For the ruling see: https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Pressemit... (in German)
[3] There have been reforms that made dual citizenship easier for citizens of EU countries and Switzerland, though.
Also if I were in Europe, I would be looking at contingency plans that involved alternative continents. The combined actions of the US and Russia have probably turned Ukraine into the next Afghanistan. I'm not sure what the implications of that will be for the rest of the EU, but that level of destruction, the rearmament of Poland and the concerning energy situation overall (the last decade more than the last year) are inauspicious.
For a comparison of what happens when a country does this and doesn't have nuclear weapons - see the First Gulf War.
It seems the energy situation has gone better than expected so far, but if the war drags on it could be hard to sustain that.
I don't think anyone disagrees with you that the Russians are the bad guys here.
It doesn't limit it, it makes it risky. How big of a risk is questionable and depends on wether you think Russia will risk MAD over Ukraine which personally I think is ridiculous. I don't think the Russian leadership have deluded themselves into thinking that they are in the right - they are doing this because they think they can.
If the west had the balls to send actual support from day one then Russia might have pulled out quite soon. Instead it seems NATO wants to use Ukraine to wear down Russia. Good for NATO perhaps but I'm not entirely convinced this drip feed of weapons is actually helping Ukrainians - their losses aren't publicised but they are definitely not small.
The length of the list defeated me. That being said, I think there are other ways that this war could end. At this point it seems unlikely that the Russians will leave.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_2003%E2%80%93pre...
You are right, it's the US, EU and Russia. I guess sometimes it takes 3 to tango. It's rather disingenuous to say it's all russia.
I'm sorry, what? How can anyone write such absolute nonsense?
Russia attacked Ukraine. Ukraine wasn't going to join NATO, it was explicitly stated and agreed upon years ago. Finland and Norway weren't going to join NATO, because they had zero interest in doing so. But Russia attacked Ukraine, so they applied into NATO, it's a direct consequence of Russia's actions. That's not Russia "pushing back".
IIRC in the 90s/00s they were talking about Russia joining NATO, too. After 9/11 Putin offered their well-meant help. NATO and Russia were meeting regularly in the past three decades and guess what, Russia left this meeting. Plus, NATO was always very careful arming NATO states near Russia in order to not provoke them. You cannot put this on NATO's card.
Edit: Even after annexation of Crimea, the EU (esp. Germany) tried to calm down Putin by negotiating a piece treaty between Ukraine and Russia and buying even more (cheap) Russian gas.
I'm sorry, what? How can anyone write such absolute nonsense?
Norway has been in NATO literally from day one in 1949. NATO membership is the main plank of its defence policy.
Well because clearly I'm an idiot and was meant to write Sweden and Finland not Sweden and Norway.
The Russian army seems laughably weak and I highly doubt it will (conventionally) ever be remotely dangerous to the rest of Europe. That's why they're putting so many efforts into hybrid warfare and disinformation for so many years.
When I was in high school I used to be worried about the Russians invading the UK, until my neighbour got a Lada. The damn thing was never off my driveway, with various combinations of burnt contact breaker points, cracked distributor cap, burst hoses, sticky choke or throttle, broken valve springs (they were fun, you can do them without taking the head off with a big screwdriver and a bit of rope), and all sorts of other bollocks.
Skip forwards 30-odd years, and the Russians are invading their neighbour in trucks and tanks that can barely go 100km without rotten tyres splitting, track guides failing and throwing the track, gearboxes failing, engines failing, or just plain running out of (poor quality, dirty and watery) diesel.
Folk in the UK opposed to nuclear disarmament are saying "Oh you're doing Putin's job for him, hope you're going to like speaking Russian".
Yeah, now how exactly do you see that happening? Putin's going to ship over a load of emaciated barefooted teenagers with 120-year-old rifles to beg for a drum of diesel and a loan of my tractor? I doubt it...
PS: That said, I hate how the "western world" sometimes turns out to be quite dissembling too.
First of all - it's actions of Russia and Russia alone.
Second, I think this comment shows zero understanding of the war in Afganistan, because otherwise this comparison would never be made. Tldr: Agfanistan took so long and had such abysmal results because most Afgans didn't actually care about the Taliban, or western democracy, or even Afganistan as a country at all. The presence of western militaries was tolerated at best, despised at worst. Also there are only a handful of cases in modern history where fighting against militia on their own territory has been successful - so in a way what happened in Afganistan isn't surprising(hindsight, eh?).
Ukraine is listerally nothing like this. Ukraine and Ukrainians are fighting a foreign aggressor who is trying to take its land and kill its people by military force - and they have every right to defend themselves.
With the way the war is going, it's (I hope) likely that Russia will be pushed back and out of Ukraine. If that happens, the West will help them rebuild and they will be admitted to EU and maybe even NATO(I'm not so sure about that last one, but we'll see). There is literally no possibility of Afganistan scenario here.
Lumping the actions of the US and Russia together (the US up front) is more than a little bit strange, it is the actions of Russia that have caused this war and that continue to prolong it, without the US the Russian army would by now have overrun a substantial part of Ukraine, possibly all of it.
Of course not. But comparing the Balkan to Norway doesn't really help you a lot, because they're very different. "Ukraine will become the next Afghanistan" is nonsense. Who are the warring tribes that will wage a civil war in Ukraine? What ethnic groups will vie for control of the country? Who are the Taliban? Which neighbor that isn't involved in the invasion will afterwards stoke the flames and support their ethnic group with training and weapons?
That assertion was simply nonsense. When Russia stops the invasion, Ukraine will not sink into civil war because they're not like Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a majority minority country that never really had a modern-ish republic and only knows oppression of other ethnic groups. The largest ethnic group are the Pashtuns ("Not all Pashtuns are Taliban but all Taliban are Pashtun", I know, I know, they now have fighters from some other Muslim countries, but it's still generally true), but they don't even make up 50% of the population. Compare that with Ukraine where Ukrainians make up almost 80% with a single sizable minority: Russians. And the Russians have mostly not been traditionally living in Ukraine, but have been settled there in the last century to increase Russia's control during the previous Russian imperial project, the Soviet Union.
The two countries are not alike. "But they were both invaded by the Russians" isn't enough to be comparable beyond the immediate invasion: they're both supported by the US in response, they're both paying dearly for Russian imperial aggression.
But that's where the similarities end, we will be seeing neither civil war nor a theocracy in Ukraine. And to suggest otherwise is silly at best and Russian propaganda at worst.
You mean a conflict where the imperial power is bogged down by endless partisan warfare until it retreats?
No, this level of war is not something that Russia can sustain for a long time. We're probably going to see it implode, again. The last implosion pushed the boundary of "free Europe" from the Berlin Wall up to the Baltic states and the Balkans, leaving it somewhere ambiguous in the Caucasus. I guess it will end up going further east eventually.
We're already past both those points - estimates are tricky but it seems likely that over 100,000 have already been killed and the Ukranians are already excavating mass graves in retaken areas. I don't think there's much headroom to increase sanctions? What's left unsanctioned?
(by comparison, I see figures for the US lost about 60,000 KIA in Vietnam and 7,000 in Iraq, across the whole duration of those wars)
If the war escalates to that point, then being on a different continent isn't going to help.
> turned Ukraine into the next Afghanistan
Ukraine is Ukraine, and is vastly different from Afghanistan. I can see some slight parallels in the Red army's invasion, but that's about it. There is nothing covert about the fight back, and we are not finding extra government militias to arm.
Yes, the energy situation is a pain in the arse. But it means that finally we are moving away from being held to ransom by Putin try to be a Tzar.
The EU finally has a common enemy at the gates. It can no longer ignore the war monger next door, gradually creeping into its back garden. Russia has basically played it's card, and is a bit stuck now.
Don't get me wrong, its horrific whats going on, putin doing the traditional thing of throwing an entire generation of men at the problem is frankly abhorrent. But there in lies the problem, Russia was already fucked, and it can't sustain that level of population loss.
Excuse me. The are the actions of Russia, not the USA. The USA, and other Western nations, are providing support to a country that wants to defend itself from an aggressor.
In 1939 when Germany invaded Poland, the UK and France did nothing to help. Let's not make the same mistake again.
Now I'm not defending anything Russia is doing, but if this was a US invasion all energy and communications infrastructure would have been destroyed by air strikes and missiles before the 24th of february.
Russia is a lot worse of course, where war crimes are a matter of course and not singular occurrences but I just wanted to give some perspective to the people with no memories. I'd still rather be in the siege of Fallujah than the second siege of Grozny.
The war started because Russia started it and continues because Russia continues it. Russia could stop it tomorrow if they wanted it. Ukraine doesnt have that option.
https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=byameliahill
Edit - Censored [flagged] because we are apparently not allowed to criticise. Pathetic.
Could it be that your presumptions about the author ("attention-seeking") is what misled you?
Oh I stand by that comment. It is my opinion, did it offend you? I'm curious why you even felt the need to comment. Not every Briton has the power to do what she did. So the article is essentially just about her. She told all her friends what she was doing beforehand. Now what type of behaviour would you describe this as?
> Deeply unhappy at the EU referendum result last June, Amelia Hill applied for dual nationality for her and her children – returning to the German roots that her grandparents fled from during the 1930s
Last paragraph:
> We are no longer prisoners of a country whose politicians do not and will not, likely for a generation or more, reflect me in any shape or form. We have options.
I guess having options is the same as returning to your roots.