German nationality law
German nationality law details the conditions by which an individual holds German nationality. The primary law governing these requirements is the Nationality Act, which came into force on 1 January 1914. All German nationals are citizens of the European Union (EU). Any person born to a married German parent is typically a German national at birth, regardless of the place of birth. Children of unmarried couples in which only the father is German must be legitimised for them to acquire German nationality. Individuals born in Germany to two foreign parents may also receive German nationality at birth  if at least one of their parents has lived in the country for eight years and is entitled to live in the country indefinitely (meaning any person with a settlement permit, or citizenship of another EU country or Switzerland). Foreign nationals may naturalise after residing in Germany for at least eight years and demonstrating knowledge in the German language. Although non-EU/Swiss naturalisation candidates are expected to renounce their previous nationalities, the majority are granted permission to retain their old statuses. Terminology. The distinction between the meaning of the terms citizenship and nationality is not always clear in the  English language and differs by country. Generally, nationality refers a person's legal belonging to a country and is the common term used in international treaties when referring to members of a state; citizenship refers to the set of rights and duties a person has in that nation. It can be possible for a non-national to obtain a degree of civil and political rights commonly associated with citizenship (e.g. residence or working rights) while it is also possible for a national to be prohibited from exercising certain rights (e.g. children barred from voting). In German, the term "nationality" () refers  to state membership while "citizenship" () describes a person's participation in national society. History. Decentralised development. Until the early 19th century, German lands constituted the core part of the highly decentralised Holy Roman Empire. Each of the roughly 1,800 individual political entities within the Empire had varying (or non-existent) definitions on who they considered to be members of their polity. "Citizenship" in this context was tied to a person's settlement in a particular municipality and individuals found outside of their ordinary places of residence could be deported to other parts of imperial territory. The modern concept of citizenship , as a formal and legal relationship between an individual and a state that confers privileges to holders and a status that persists beyond continued territorial residence, emerged during the French Revolution. Following the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, this model of citizenship was imported into the German territories that became part of the French-led Confederation of the Rhine, though any applicable legislation from this period was repealed in the 1810s shortly after French defeat in the Napoleonic Wars. Outside of this Confederation, Austria enacted its first codified regulations based on the modern citizenship concept in 1811 . As a result of the Congress of Vienna, the German Confederation was created in 1815 as a permanent replacement for the Holy Roman Empire and included virtually all of the former Empire's territory. This political structure was not a federal state and sovereign power remained with the 38 individual member states. Each state continued to hold jurisdiction over citizenship, but the vast majority of them passed no specific codified laws on the subject until the mid-19th century. Prussia enacted its first citizenship law in 1842. Other than through naturalisation, Prussian citizenship was only passed by descent from a Prussian  father (or mother, if the parents were unmarried). Confederal policy alignment. Any applicable contemporary legislation in the Confederation was inconsistent among the states and generally ineffectual at determining the citizenship of a particular person. State regulations often assumed the existence of some type of citizenship that a child would inherit from their father at the time of their birth. However, any person born in the 18th century who would have been a citizen of an area of the Holy Roman Empire that no longer existed as a political entity would have had an undefined status in state law. Conversely, every  state had concluded by the 1820s at least one treaty with some or all other members of the Confederation that detailed the deportation of undesirable persons without state citizenship and process of "implicit naturalisation". A German who resided in another state for at least 10 years was considered to have been naturalised implicitly in their new place of domicile. An implicitly naturalised father would have automatically passed his changed citizenship status to his entire family. In seven states, this process was extended to any alien who fulfilled the minimum residence requirement. These interstate treaties additionally clarified the position of persons  with unclear status, who were granted the contemporary existing citizenship of their birthplace (if that was uncertain, then the place where they were found). Germans lost their state citizenship if they left state territory with the intent to reside elsewhere permanently, had obtained formal permission to emigrate, or otherwise continuously lived outside of their home state for at least 10 years. Theoretically, the Constitution of the German Confederation created a common German nationality. Article 18 of the document detailed a set of basic rights for every German; any subject of a German state was entitled to freely purchase property in  any part of the Confederation, emigrate to other states willing to admit them, enlist in another state's armed forces or civil service, and were exempt from a tax on emigration. In practice, the member states did not permit Germans from other states to freely immigrate into their territories, rendering these constitutional rights generally moot. The Frankfurt Parliament expanded on this idea of a unified German nationality; any state citizen of the short-lived 1848-1849 German Empire was also a German national, and all German nationals held the same rights as citizens of any German state. Multilateral negotiations among  the states resumed after the German Confederation was reconstituted in 1849. Prussia and 20 other states agreed on the Gotha Treaty in 1851, which lowered the residence requirement for implicit naturalisation to five years and introduced a formal distinction between emigration to other German states and emigration to jurisdictions outside of the Confederation. All German states had acceded to this treaty by 1861. Unification and imperial law. The Confederation was dissolved in 1866 as a consequence of the Austro-Prussian War. Prussia formed a new union, the North German Confederation, consisting of all the German states north of the Main . The remaining southern states (excluding Austria-Hungary) were independent until their accession to the union during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Prussia's 1842 citizenship law served as the basis for federal nationality regulations, which were adopted that same year. The United States negotiated during this time a set of individual Bancroft Treaties with the North German Confederation, Baden, Bavaria, Hesse, and Württemberg for mutual recognition of each other's naturalised citizens. Following North German victory against France, the Confederation was reformed into the German Empire in 1871. International bilateral agreements with the southern German states became superseded by imperial  law. In the annexed region of Alsace–Lorraine, residents were allowed a choice between German and French nationalities. Individuals electing to remain French were required to permanently depart for France by 1 October 1872. State citizenship remained principally important in almost all of Germany; imperial citizenship was held by virtue of holding state citizenship, which continued to be acquired in separate processes per state, and German passports listed a holder's nationality as Prussian, Bavarian, Saxon, or whichever label was applicable. However, because Alsatian-Lorrainers and white residents of German colonies were not domiciled in a federal state, they were  simply "German". Colonial subjects (who held an unclearly defined legal status as ) were never granted German nationality at large and any children of mixed-race heritage had to be officially approved for "European" status, subject to detailed examination of an applicant's heritage, education, professional background, and social standing. The concept of a German nationality based on ethnicity and descent became a core principle in the 1913 Imperial and State Citizenship Act (). While prior regulations had maintained preexisting models of state membership through residency, this law made descent from German heritage the primary qualification for nationality. Before 1913, Germans who  lived abroad for more than 10 years were automatically deprived of their nationality but after this reform, any former national who remained living overseas (as well as any of their descendants) to apply for German nationality with no specific requirements. Individuals who became nationals in this way were granted "direct imperial citizenship" rather than citizenship of any particular state. Germans could still be automatically denaturalised after extended residence overseas, but this could be avoided by registering for continued citizenship at a German consulate. Interwar and Nazi Germany. After its defeat in the First World War, Germany lost control of several  territories. France regained Alsace–Lorraine and all residents who had been French before 1870, as well as their descendants, automatically reacquired French nationality. However, any person descended from a German father or grandfather who was not previously French did not qualify for automatic reacquisition and were required to naturalise. Any person domiciled in Northern Schleswig on 15 June 1920 obtained Danish nationality, but could opt for reversion to German nationality provided that they elected to do so before 1923 and resettled in Germany within 12 months of their decision. Similarly, Germans who remained living in newly independent Poland and the  Free City of Danzig became Polish and Danziger nationals. Systemic exclusion of Jews and undesirables. The 1919 Weimar Constitution reiterated the same basic principles for nationality as in the 1913 law while additionally providing citizens with basic entitlements for protection by the government within and without Germany, and shielding them from extradition to foreign countries. As the country transitioned into a unitary state under Nazi rule in 1933, state citizenship was abolished as a separate concept and became subsumed into German citizenship as a whole. The new regime enacted the 1933 Denaturalisation Act which enabled the selective revocation of nationality  from any person considered "undesirable" who had naturalised between 1918 and 1933. Although the Interior Ministry announced that this measure would first be implemented with the approximately 150,000 Jews from eastern Europe who were living in Germany at that time, the vast majority of these Jews had encountered great difficulty in naturalising under the Weimar government, meaning that they were not actually affected by this change because they remained foreign citizens. This change instead affected political dissidents who fled Germany after Hitler's rise to power, who subsequently had their nationality revoked. In the subsequent years, Jews were progressively excluded  from participation in German society with ever more restrictive regulations prohibiting their activity in core sectors of the economy. This culminated with the enactment of the 1935 Reich Citizenship Act, which created a tiered citizenship hierarchy; members of the Aryan race became Reich citizens (), who held an elevated status over existing state subjects (). Reich citizenship could be acquired by obtaining a certificate of citizenship. Although Reich citizenship technically held no special privileges and non-Aryans remained state citizens who were entitled to state protection in theory, this law provided the legal basis for further depriving civil and political rights from  people who were deemed undesirable. Jews were specifically barred from holding Reich citizenship, and they (along with Romanis) formally lost their right to vote in German elections on 7 March 1936. Further regulations in 1940 automatically removed state citizenship from individuals who became domiciled abroad; Nazi concentration camps were included in the definition of "abroad". All remaining German Jews who were permanently domiciled overseas were denaturalised under the Eleventh Decree to the Reich Citizenship Act on 25 November 1941 and lost their status as state subjects. Territories incorporated into the Reich. Austria was integrated into the German state following "Anschluss