Countries · Art. 116(2) GG · StAG §5 and §15

Germany

German descent law divides into two very different bodies of work. The first is restorative: Article 116(2) of the Basic Law restores citizenship to those deprived of it between 1933 and 1945 on political, racial, or religious grounds — and to their descendants. Legislation in 2021 added parallel routes, notably §15 of the Nationality Act, for descendants of persecuted people who fled and lost their citizenship in ways the constitutional text did not quite reach.

The second body is corrective and ordinary: a declaration route under §5 of the Nationality Act, open for a ten-year window ending in 2031, for children — and their descendants — who were excluded from German citizenship by the gender-discriminatory rules of the past, such as birth before 1975 to a German mother and foreign father. Alongside both, the standard rule endures: children of German citizens are German by descent, subject to a registration requirement for some born abroad to parents themselves born abroad after 1999.

The restorative framework

Article 116(2) speaks to a specific historical wrong: denaturalizations under the regime between 1933 and 1945, individual and collective. Descendants apply through the Federal Office of Administration with evidence of the ancestor’s citizenship and its deprivation — naturalization lists, emigration papers, community records. The 2021 legislation, in §15 StAG, extended comparable treatment to descendants of those who escaped the formal deprivation lists because they fled first, gave up citizenship under pressure, or were excluded from earlier remedies.

These files are archival at their core. German municipal, state, and federal records — and the records of the communities persecution destroyed — carry the case, and assembling them is work we approach with particular care.

The §5 declaration

For decades, German descent law preferred fathers: a child born abroad before 1975 to a German mother and foreign father generally did not acquire citizenship. The 2021 reform allows those affected — and their descendants — to acquire citizenship by simple declaration, within a window running to August 2031. It is among the most accessible routes in our practice where the facts fit, and the deadline is real.

Complications we see

The recurring complication is proving the ancestor’s citizenship as it stood at the critical moment — German nationality could be lost by naturalization elsewhere, by marriage, or by decree, and the sequence of dates decides cases. Berlin-era records were scattered by the same history that created these claims, so files sometimes rest on secondary evidence marshalled with care.

Administrative processing has lengthened with demand in recent years. The 2024 acceptance of multiple nationality simplified planning considerably, but as with every jurisdiction on this page, the current legal position should be confirmed when a family is ready to proceed.

Typical overall timeline: restoration and declaration files run through the Federal Office of Administration and have commonly taken one to three years, archival research aside. Passport issuance follows confirmation.

How we help

Our work in Germany follows the shape described across this site: research to establish the family line, documentation and apostille work to prove it, and considered management of the filing itself, with licensed local counsel engaged where representation is required. If your family’s history runs through Germany, the first step is aconfidential conversation.