The offspring of German Jews who left for Palestine in the 1930s are entitled to German citizenship, a Berlin court has ruled.
The court issued the ruling after several Jews sued the government for refusing their request to be issued German passports.
Berlin authorities had argued that the plaintiffs did not qualify for automatic German citizenship, saying their parents had left Germany of their own volition and had voluntarily applied for citizenship of the British Mandate in Palestine.
The authorities had argued that the Nazi order to strip the German citizenship of Jews had not occurred until 1941.
But the Berlin appeals court ruled that the citizenship of the British Mandate of Palestine could not be equated with citizenship of a “normal” state. Therefore Jews who became citizens of the British Mandate are still to be considered as German nationals, the court said.
The German Constitution says that any German national who has been deprived of citizenship can reclaim it and that this applies, too, to offspring of individuals who were expatriated.
Many Jews throughout the world have used this constitutional guarantee to become German citizens again without having to renounce other citizenships they have acquired since they or their parents left Germany.
The Berlin court decision means that the authorities will have to issue German passports to the plaintiffs, most of whom live in Berlin.
The ruling could come into play in the cases of former Soviet Jews who have applied to live in Germany as “Volksdeutch,” or ethnic Germans.
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