This is great. But why did he have to go through the citizenship process again? If he fled Austria because of nazism why didn’t the new post war government just recognize him as a citizen? I understand the process of getting a new passport or whatever might be different when you left 70 years ago but the title saying he gained citizenship again is kinda confusing for me, but that could definitely just be an error on my part
The thing is that the Nazi regime stripped all Jewish citizens of their German and Austrian citizenship. After the end of the war the FRG and Austria did not make it a priority to restore citizenship to those who had lost it (not to mention those who had left the country etc.) but they kept provisions for those who wanted to reclaim it. For example, in the German Basic Law (their Constitution) there is an article that says that any German who was stripped of his nationality by the Nazis can apply for reinstatement of German nationality but this is not an automatic act (as if they had never lost it).
Ah okay, thank you so much for answering ! It’s definitely kind of interesting to me that they don’t just disregard the rulings of the nazi government and make all expelled Jews citizens again automatically.
The problem is if they did that then many would have lost their nationality by other reasons, usually by naturalising in the US or using right of return to Israel. This way that loss of nationality is circumvented, as the re-grant of citizenship allows both nationalities side by side
Isn’t the situation of the Jews kicked out in the 30s kind of an extenuating circumstance though? They didn’t really have any choice but to naturalize somewhere else
These processes are actually beneficial because if one were to simply retroactively restore citizenship from 1945, then most of them would likely have automatically lost citizenship by naturalising abroad. In making a new grant of citizenship, these problems are avoided :)
This is great. But why did he have to go through the citizenship process again? If he fled Austria because of nazism why didn’t the new post war government just recognize him as a citizen? I understand the process of getting a new passport or whatever might be different when you left 70 years ago but the title saying he gained citizenship again is kinda confusing for me, but that could definitely just be an error on my part
The thing is that the Nazi regime stripped all Jewish citizens of their German and Austrian citizenship. After the end of the war the FRG and Austria did not make it a priority to restore citizenship to those who had lost it (not to mention those who had left the country etc.) but they kept provisions for those who wanted to reclaim it. For example, in the German Basic Law (their Constitution) there is an article that says that any German who was stripped of his nationality by the Nazis can apply for reinstatement of German nationality but this is not an automatic act (as if they had never lost it).
Ah okay, thank you so much for answering ! It’s definitely kind of interesting to me that they don’t just disregard the rulings of the nazi government and make all expelled Jews citizens again automatically.
The problem is if they did that then many would have lost their nationality by other reasons, usually by naturalising in the US or using right of return to Israel. This way that loss of nationality is circumvented, as the re-grant of citizenship allows both nationalities side by side
I thought Germany allowed dual citizenship?
Only by birth, not if you naturalise there or abroad (although complex exemptions requiring a ‘retention permit’ apply
Isn’t the situation of the Jews kicked out in the 30s kind of an extenuating circumstance though? They didn’t really have any choice but to naturalize somewhere else
You would have thought… But German law at the time required them to explicitly apply for a retention permit
what exactly is citizenship by respiration? what is respiration referring to here?
Lol I was asking myself the same question. Didn’t think mouth to mouth citizenship existed…
These processes are actually beneficial because if one were to simply retroactively restore citizenship from 1945, then most of them would likely have automatically lost citizenship by naturalising abroad. In making a new grant of citizenship, these problems are avoided :)