Claiming German citizenship - advice needed

I've just finished a novel about a painting which went missing in WW1; we think of the loss of life in the trenches but French citizens had an appalling time and 1 in 20 were killed.

A lot of property lost in the war was in the Russian zone and after the fall of the Berlin wall a lot of people in the West were able to claim possession of their property. There was a lot of bad feeling as you can imagine and it was a fight to get a house back after so many years.
I am sure you will be helped (pm me if you need help filling in application forms) and I know that a good standard of German is required, but I feel there must be a special case for the children of deported Jews.

You would be well advised to get in touch with a Jewish organisation as there are a lot of Jewish people returning.
I'll see what I can find out.

Viel Gluck!

We have a very common Jewish/German family name.
About 15 years ago we had a phone call from an organisation in Germany asking if our ancestors had ever owned a house in Berlin. I told them not that we knew of, and asked why.
The person said because they were trying to trace the owner of a particular house, owned by someone of our family name before WW2.

I know it’s a stereotype but the Germans are/were very well organised - when I went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin some of the most heartbreaking exhibits were the neatly written lists of page after page of the names of people admitted to the camps.

Rowantree you can just report the post - I did respond to it with a sarcastic comment but wish now I’d reported it - sorry.

Jal it’s my understanding that a lot of work goes into proving ownership of previous property - the most famous examples are paintings because of the increase in value but I once met two Germans who received compensation for family land seized and as the land concerned now was part of an airport they are two very very rich Germans?

Better late than never, I suppose - but how on earth would anyone go about proving ownership after all this time? Records must have been destroyed in all the chaos during and after WW2.

Just read the post mentioning the 'unsavoury Arabs' and was horrified. I don't want that post in my thread tbh. Is there any way of removing it?
If anyone's in any doubt whether that phrase is racist, substitute any other race or faith and see how that feels.
My father is just one victim of such beliefs and it upsets me when I hear views like this. Have you learned nothing, JackyB?

My father's family home is now in Poland, so claiming compensation for the loss of that wouldn't be easy. My grandparents were then forcibly moved around to other shared dwellings until their arrest and deportation. My great aunt had a lovely old inn (another part of Germany) but that has been converted to a house and is not the heavenly place my father remembers from his childhood. I'd love to have that back for my father's sake, even so, but it's not going to happen.

ps I should have said property of survivors or family members of those german Jews who died in the ~Holocaust.

I also read yesterday that Germany is planning a change in the law which allows Holocaust survivors to claim compensation for family property taken over by the Nazis.
This will probably end next year.

OP is entitled to citizenship under article 116 and so won’t be subject to the same rules as British citizens without her sort of history wanting to get German citizenship. She’ll also probably avoid having to queue up with nasty racist British people if she’s lucky.

Unsavoury Arabs !! What a nasty thing to say

I saw an advert today for a company called Passportia which deals with German Citizenship Claims.
Tel: +44 20 7993 8975
I haven't been able to speak to my friend yet.

I can't help with the application, but if you do need to take a citizen test, you may find the following helpful:

www.deutsch-lernen.com/learn-german-online/beginners/uebung1_1.php?check=yes&errors=yes

deutsch.info/en/login

I think you have chosen a busy time for getting German Citzenship. Apart from all the Brits in Germany, there are thousands of refugees keeping the staff busy -even if not with applications for Citizenship- it is the same office staff and they are terribly overworked at the moment.

Perhaps it would help if you got the documents translated and came to Germany yourself to deliver your application.
There are special offices for dealing with those sort of questions and a personal appearance would get things going.

The Embassy represents Germans in Britain.

You are correct that being German comes from the father's side and I think now that other life circumstances apply and the language is very important.

You would not lose your British citizenship but have dual nationality which I have had for 40 years.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

How interesting - there was an article by Kate Figes in last weekend's Guardian magazine about doing the same thing. Good luck, Rowantree, I hope you have found out how to go about it now.

Thank you - read and replied :-)

Rowan have pm’d you.

I tried a number of times but the person I spoke to at the embassy didn’t know and no one came back to me. I contacted the honourary consul for our area but heard today that he can’t help and I should contact the embassy!

Thank you - I will keep trying and the link maryeliza gives looks most relevant. Silverlining48 do you recall who you contacted at the Embassy? I'm even considering going there with my papers and demanding an audience!

I have given a link which covers this

This is of interest to me as well, I eventually got through to the german embassy but heard nothing further.

transferwise.com/gb/blog/dual-citizenship-germany