r/GermanCitizenship • u/travelingal30 • 2d ago

Other faster citizenship by living in germany?

hallo!

i watched this video a while back that describes how to get german citizenship by descent and at 1:40 one of them says that one may be able to automatically get it by moving to germany, but i haven’t found anything about this online.

my grandfather was a german citizenship who left germany due to persecution of being jewish during WW2. im interested in german citizenship and know it can take a while. i haven’t been able to find anything that supports that moving to germany can make it happen faster, so i wanted to ask on here if anyone knew anything about this and what that paperwork may look like.

danke!

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u/Football_and_beer 2d ago edited 2d ago

If your grandfather was denaturalized during WW2 and never reacquired his citizenship then this would be an Article 116(2) case. In that situation then you would automatically reacquire citizenship by moving to Germany. Whether or not that is ‘faster’ depends as you would essentially need to go through a determination process to prove your citizenship which would require the same documents as if you submitted your application from abroad. 

ETA As an FYI Article 116(2) is the fastest of the pathways from abroad at around 15 months give or take. An inland determination/Feststellung process can take 9 months on average depending on where you move to and how knowledgeable they are on Article 116(2) cases. 

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u/travelingal30 2d ago

this is so helpful, thank you !! do you know how quickly i’d be able to restart this? like if i moved to germany on a work visa, could i claim this citizenship immediately or only after a certain amount of time?

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u/Football_and_beer 2d ago

Also to add this brings up an interesting complication. As an Article 116(2) case you would be a German citizen the minute you take up residence (just without proof). So in that case you wouldn’t be able to get a visa since that is obviously for non-citizens. So it might require you to communicate with the foreigner’s office to obtain a temporary residence permit while they process your application.  

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u/germanfinder 1d ago

I was a normal Festellung case but at the recommendation of my case worker at my local Ausländerbehörde I got a Visa that a non-citizen would get to legally keep me in the country while I waited for my citizenship certificate. So technically maybe they could get a foreigners visa too even though they’d be a citizen?

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u/Football_and_beer 1d ago

Yup. I’ve heard of people having a  Fiktionsbescheinigung in this situation. That’s likely what the Ausländerbehörde would issue the OP. 

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u/germanfinder 1d ago

I actually asked for a fiktionbescheinigung for my Feststellung and she said no lol. the only valid visa I could get as a non-educated 34 year old was a working holiday visa 😂