By request, I am crossposting my post on becoming a German citizen for discussion here.
Hello fellow Mottizans, I have emerged from my lurker cave to share good news with you all: I have become a German citizen! But not through naturalization or birth; I used an uncommon route with a new and somewhat strange process: a StAG section (§) 5 declaration. While going through this, I had learned a lot about that citizenship laws of Germany and some comparisons with other countries, as well as spending (too much) time browsing various expat and citizenship forums and subreddits. I’d like to subject you to share with you what I’ve learned in this weird journey, through intergenerational citizenship and questions of national identity.
Background
With so many immigrants out there, why should you listen to me, an American moving between western countries? Well, I, personally, value it more when people put in effort for something with less assured payoff; few want to split lottery tickets, everyone wants to split the winnings. Similarly, I moved to Germany as someone with only German heritage, as a normal immigrant, and then more than a year after that a new law offered me a privileged path to citizenship through legal magic. In short, I committed to Germany and then received the winning lottery ticket.
A bit more about my path: I moved to Germany in 2020 with the EU Blue Card for highly qualified immigrants. I chose Germany because part of my family was from Germany, and in the typical American style I considered myself German-American. I had visited Germany and liked it, although I knew visiting and living somewhere are two very different things. But what I would really like to stress is that visiting Germany felt like visiting a home, a place that felt natural. I’ve visited plenty of other countries, and everywhere else it was clear that they were foreign, “alien” countries. It was obvious when I was in Japan that no matter how much I might like visiting castles or eating ramen, Japan would remain a foreign country. When it was unclear whether I would be still working in Germany, a friend suggested that I work with them in the Netherlands, and a big hangup was that the Netherlands was a foreign country, this despite the fact that they speak more English and I would be around more English-speaking expats. Germany was the ancestral homeland, and no other country could ever replace that.
German citizenship is based primarily on jus sanguinis, citizenship by blood: someone is a German citizen at birth because their parents were citizens. But this was, in the past, primarily patrilineal. In fact, the German citizenship in my family was cut off when my German grandmother married a foreigner: she automatically lost her German citizenship, rendering her stateless and all her children non-Germans, including my father, and all of her grandchildren were not German either, including me.
In August 2021 Germany passed an amendment to the Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG), or nationality law. The new StAG § 5 allows those who, to quote the federal authority, “were previously excluded by gender-discriminatory regulations from acquiring German citizenship at birth may now acquire it by way of declaration. Briefly, the post-war German Basic Law (a constitution) forbids gender discrimination, and so those who were excluded from acquiring citizenship due to this gender discrimination could claim it back; for example, until 1975, German women would not pass down citizenship by default. The process is new enough that the relevant authority here in Germany, in a major city, did not know about it. But I collected all of our old documents, submitted my application, and now (as of the time of writing) the certificate is in the mail in hand!
I did it, I became a German citizen! I did not naturalize, I gained citizenship through declaration (queue up, “I didn’t say citizenship, I declared it!”). I did not have to reside in Germany for 6-8 years, I did not have to speak German, pass any test, pay any money or do anything at all but submit a few documents and citizenship was handed down in a puff of magical legal smoke by a bureaucrat I’ve never met before. If I suffered some brain damage I could commit terrorism or racially motivated crimes, things that would have excluded me before, and still keep the citizenship (I don’t think I’ll test that though). And my children will also be German citizens from birth, and their children, and so on forever, just as it had been passed down to me from forever ago (well, at least since 1871).
But importantly, I haven’t been saying that I became German. I don’t speak German, I didn’t grow up in Germany, and neither did my parents. By the Basic Law, I am a German because I hold German citizenship, but I try to look past the purely legal standing. I don’t think the idea of who is German has a really clear and universal answer; different people and different Germans give different answers. Perhaps we can talk about the traits of Germans, but until we have access to the pure and perfect German Form, arguments are really all we can get. I will reference that concept of being a German plenty though, and the legal vs. cultural German.
That gives my background and stake in the matter, and it will make for a nice dinner party story but isn’t that important. In fact, nothing really changes legally for me anyway, my permit covered it all before. I think it’s much more interesting to talk about what I’ve learned along the way, as it might actually be interesting and useful for everyone else. So here it goes!
The Strangeness of Descent Laws
German citizenship by descent is a mess, but it’s interesting to take a little dip into the law. Before I only said that German citizenship is based on descent, which glosses over many of the complications that arise in tracing that path. A nice guide on the process can be found here. The US (and most countries in the Americas) use primarily jus soli or birthright citizenship, i.e. you are a citizen of a country if you are born in that country, but also has citizenship by descent. But it’s much more restrictive; in particular, while German citizenship by descent is basically limitless, US citizenship by descent requires that if e.g. the child has two citizen parents, at least one resided in the US at any point, or if only one parent is a US citizen they must have resided in the US for at least five years. I call this a “sunset clause” in citizenship, something that terminates citizenship automatically without a connection to the home country.
Without a solid sunset clause in the German citizenship by descent, you get some (in my personal view) strange lines of descent. Someone whose great-great-great-grandfather left Germany in the late 1800s can be a German citizen directly if it happens to pass only through the male line in key years. Compare this to someone whose German mother married a foreigner and they were born in 1948; their path to citizenship would be under StAG §14, and they have to establish a close connection to Germany, such as speaking German and having close family members in Germany. Here we see that you can only be a legal German if you establish that you are already a cultural German. Add on to this complications such as if your parents naturalized before or after you were born, if you served in a foreign military, if you every voluntarily gained citizenship of another country, and it gets complicated. To note, Germany has added a sunset clause: if a German citizen is born abroad after 1999, any of their children born abroad only retain German citizenship if the authorities are notified before the child’s first birthday. No more surprise citizenships by descent a hundred years down the line.
All of this has led to a lot of people sorting through old paperwork to find out if they are secretly German citizens or can become one. I like to point to the growth of /r/GermanCitizenship as part of it, but the perhaps better known example is for Italy, where it is popular enough to have consular wait times in years and a CNN article about it. I’ll just voice my personal opinion that all of this is a little strange to me; when one out of sixteen or thirty-two of your ancestors at a particular level came from a particular country, it’s hard for me to see where exactly your connection comes in. The legal case may be perfectly fine, but the cultural part falls through. I normally see it chalked up to “honoring ancestors” or “keeping their memory alive,” which turns into an excuse to have a nice passport and travel the EU visa-free as far as I’ve seen.
And I should mention that Germany, in principle, discourages dual citizenship. If you naturalize, you normally must give up other citizenships, if it is possible and doesn’t cause undue hardship. Notably, the fees to renounce US citizenship are high enough that the authorities may permit you to keep US citizenship if you make less per month than the fees, $2,350. It also permits dual citizenship if other citizenships were gained automatically, i.e. from birthright. There are many exceptions nowadays, but the principle still exists, and causes problems sometimes when e.g. people are forced to choose a nationality.
Finally, I will point out that StAG §5 vs. §14 (post- vs. pre- Basic Law) seems weird to me. A German woman could lose her citizenship by marrying a foreigner in e.g. 1947, have a child in 1948 then one in 1950; the first would have to prove their ties to Germany, while the second would get in without any restrictions, but in both cases the relevant legal situation that caused the loss of citizenship is the same and only stopped in 1950(ish). For the second child, the claim would be that because the Basic Law forbids gender discrimination, they were unfairly discriminated because they should have been able to obtain citizenship from a female parent. I’m not a jurist but the legal idea seems fraught: how could laws prohibiting an action in the future justify retroactive corrections? But §5 covers much more than that, affecting people born as late as 1993.
But the biggest takeaway from all of this is that I have the impression that citizenship laws oftentimes are capricious and arbitrary, relying on old documents that some may or may not have and offering various paths or restrictions that change over time. Countries try to both preserve a legal basis for citizenship while trying to reasonably restrict it, while working under changing social views and massive changes in the way the world works.
I think a look at the citizenship laws is helpful mostly to find out that they don’t really answer anything but a legal question, which is important but not what I’m after. I hope no one thinks that someone born to a German mother and a foreign father in 1974 is definitely not a citizen while a sibling born in 1976 definitely is, even if the legal situation is clear.
The Reddit Expatriation Community
That’s enough about citizenship laws then. I was fascinated by (potential) immigrants, especially on Reddit, that I came across in my browsing. As an American, I grew up with the idea that America was the land of immigration and that immigration only really flowed one-way. I think the statistics bears this out, with the US having one of the lowest shares of its population living abroad. Why would someone leave the freest and richest country?
I feel like this is changing, slowly. As other countries become richer, it becomes less clear that America is the automatic best option, and it is probably easier; I can do things like videocall my parents every week and translate written text on my phone, things that make it vastly easier to emigrate. And let’s be clear, the advantage of being a natural Anglophone is huge. On Reddit, which I think is primarily dominated by Americans and Anglophones in general, some of the migration-focused subreddits have seen a lot of growth: Amerexit, iwantout,and expats. Those are my three favorite (or at least most entertaining) subreddits, and they run the gamut from “America sucks, I want to leave!” to “How can I leave my current country (serious answers only)?” to “Living in a foreign country sucks in so many ways.” Pick your favorite, I guess. And like in everything else, politics is the mind-poison in immigration. But there are many common themes; I’ll reference posts without linking to avoid inter-subreddit drama.
I think most of these immigrants, and probably most immigrants in general, are what I would call “materialist immigrants.” Most people are looking to improve their economic situation or living standards. How they rate these things is up to them; someone may value high salaries directly, while others value more consistent healthcare coverage or walkable neighborhoods. If they’re from a western country they may consider themselves (and others like them) an expat instead of an immigrant, but it all amounts to the same thing. Even that German citizenship guide I linked before explains the benefits of becoming a German citizen in almost purely economic terms: live and work in the EU! Travel visa-free in so many places with a German passport! Go to university for free! If you’re destitute, Germany will take care of you! Drawbacks: none, you don’t have to learn German or pay any taxes or do anything at all for anyone else.
And the discussions reflect this living-standard/economic focus, and an entirely Ameri-centric view. Currently in /r/AmerExit, someone is hating on the US because… (checks subreddit) they can find cheap mineral water while on vacation in Italy. No, I’m not joking, it’s the first point in a top post at the time of writing. Someone may fear American politics enough to instead move to Turkey, a country that literally went through an attempted military coup in 2016 and has a nice book review regarding Erdogan-as-dictator on ACX. Or a contemporary favorite, overlooking the fact that many countries have more strict abortion laws than some US states.
When looking for somewhere to go, I see so often that people think of moving to completely different countries, treating them all the same as if “western European” covered everything they need. One person might say Germany and… Wales? How about the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Germany, France or the UK? Another might want to move to Ireland or Scandinavia, but they speak fluent Spanish. Countries are interchangeable, as long as they have some greenery, good weather and everyone there aligns with their values. Everyone is “willing to learn the language,” a completely costless declaration that I always translate to, “I may learn to swim if you throw me in the middle of the ocean.” Even at the end of the natural process, I can see someone declare that they are finally an “EU citizen” after eight years as if their citizenship was granted by Brussels and not their home country.
Beyond the standard internet/Reddit stupidity, these feel like they cover an individualist- and money-focused worldview. And it naturally feeds materialist immigration that disregards the people who actually live in these places, which causes critical problems in adjusting to a life in a foreign country. Remember what I said about /r/expats? It’s the opposite version of /r/AmerExit, where people have gone to a foreign country and found that, yeah, it’s not America. This is what happens in the culture-clash. The day-to-day reality of living in a country that sees the sun for a few hours a day in the winter sets in. Of dealing with people who will always treat you like a foreigner. Of being far away from family and former friends. It’s tough to live somewhere far away from home, and it’s tough to know that before you actually make the move.
But… why is it tough? I haven’t seen many expats complaining about their jobs, most complain about the people around them and their social life. And the world seems very thoroughly Americanized: I visit American-style department stores, see advertisements in English, I can almost always ask to speak English with people, it all sounds very convenient to and for me. They have the healthcare and sparkling water they so desperately desired. What’s missing? Why can’t they assimilate?
Part 2 follows.
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Notes -
The dictionary definition of expat is just "someone living in a foreign country," so of course all migrants are expats too! But the usage is separate. It's really a motte-and-bailey situation. The more neutral version of expat vs immigrant used is like you say, whether they intend to return home or not. Wikipedia though gives the note that expat is more commonly used for "educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists." That's the class divide rearing up: if you're a poor unskilled worker you get to be a low-status immigrant, but if you're a high-flying professional you're an expat. Oftentimes this directly translates into racism: if you're from a developed country (and white!) you're an expat, while if you're from Africa or Asia you're an immigrant no matter your profession. It's all status games, and it's interesting to see how it plays out.
The expat bubble is real! I would generalize it to more than English too, although as a lingua franca it might be the most common.
If you're a poor unskilled worker you're not going home again. You're staying. You left home in the first place because your home country sucks and there's no work there.
Expats don't stay. Eww, gross. They're in Shanghai this year, Dubai the next, then back home in London, then a couple years in New York. They're assigned around by their companies and don't have much of a choice about it.
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