What does German citizenship mean? | DW Documentary

[Music] living in safety and freedom exploring your identity or reconnecting with family history what does German citizenship mean for people with different backgrounds today this is part of living in Germany I can have a say although it was about the passport it was also about having to choose an identity it felt like a uh something positive had come out of sort of terrible history [Music] Melissa kakou feels at home in Berlin born in Germany to Turkish parents she grew up with two languages and two [Music] cultures but when it came to citizenship as a teenager she was faced with a choice my mom came to me and asked so what do you want to be German or Turkish and then it took a little while to figure out what to do as a child Melissa had Turkish citizenship later she chose to apply for a German passport instead rules at the time meant she could only have one or the [Music] other having to choose between two identities cultures we’re just talking about a passport but it was more than that of course it’s not a nice feeling but for me it was clear quite quickly if you were German or if you were seen as German it was an advantage it was like the more you fit in the better you are today that’s changed Melissa says she’s part of a generation now embracing their mixed identities and creating space for that in German Society she runs a design agency focused on issues around diversity its name rank means color in Turkish and she publishes a magazine exploring German Turkish culture I created this image for myself where I’m not sitting between two chairs but on a bench I can slide around and I think that mindset is something that’s missing also in campaigns on websites in so many things so the business really came out of a need in Germany today almost a third of the population have what’s known as a migration background meaning they or at least one of their parents was born without German citizenship the arrival of guest workers in the mid1 1950s marked the beginnings of a more diverse Society the majority were from Turkey who came under a scheme for temporary workers to help ease labor shortages most returned but many stayed and brought their families to join them now people with Turkish Roots make up Germany’s largest minority group many could benefit from a recent overhaul of the law easing the path to German citizenship the change will also make dual citizenship possible for many more people previously it was an exception like for those from the EU people like Melissa who once had to choose between two nationalities will now be able to have both it’s big news for her community and she wants to share it with rank’s followers we’re preparing a social media post for our Instagram page we want to let people know about this new law and then the post is also about identity and what a passport can mean to people the new law allowing dual citizenship is long overdue Melissa says the mindset used to be okay you have to make a decision so that you can integrate better and choose to be one thing over the other I think that was absolutely the wrong strategy it can only ever be an advantage to have another aspect another culture another passport or another language that’s the reality in Melissa’s Berlin neighborhood she says we should come into the supermarket this blend of cultures is what she hopes for Germany’s future I really want this to be something we can take for granted that we live alongside each other many different cultures we’re living here together that that’s a good thing that that’s not seen as a struggle or a conflict but as an asset an asset for German society as well as its economy the country needs more immigration and is desperately trying to attract skilled labor from abroad and more and more people are making Germany their long-term home in 2022 the number of people granted German citizenship hit a 20-year High more than a quarter of them were syrians many arrived here in 2015 after civil war broke out in their [Music] Homeland one of them Muna katab almost 10 years after arriving in Germany as a refugee he’s now a German [Music] citizen I’ve worked so hard to do everything you can do in Germany and getting the German passport at the end of it it feels like I finally made it here mza fled war in Syria age 21 along with his older brother he’s built a life here in Berlin learned German and started playing piano but he hasn’t seen the rest of his family for 10 years [Music] they can’t come to Europe I couldn’t travel anywhere else either you just couldn’t do it but now my German passport makes it possible to now I just didn’t have the option so that’s why it’s really important to have it a full-time product designer Muna is also firmly embedded in Berlin’s startup scene he launched his first startup just a year after coming to Germany an app to help other refugees navigate the country’s notorious bureaucracy now that’s part of his current Venture a platform supporting fellow migrant entrepreneurs I really believe that newcomers in Germany have a different and unique perspective on the country and its structures they can look at Germany with fresh eyes and say this or that’s not working we can improve on this but it’s also the job and the responsibility of the German side to accept that to allow people migrants to try out their ideas making Society better that’s important to munah and his new citizenship also means he now has the right to vote back in Syria munza felt politics had nothing to offer him here he wants to make his voice count it’s part of living and working in Germany I can take part I can have a say he’s already had his first opportunity in a local election at this city Hall I’m looking forward to the next one the federal election next year I’ll actually be able to read the campaign posters the parties put up around the city and they’ll have a new meaning for me I can read them knowing it’s also relevant to me I’m part of it m says he’ll always have his Syrian identity but German citizenship means a sense of belonging here too in a democracy like Germany citizenship means rights Freedom protection as well as responsibilities those who become naturalized citizens here have to declare an oath saying they’ll respect and uphold Germany’s basic law or Constitution this year marks 75 years since it was adopted in what was then West Germany in May 1949 it’s still the basis for unified Germany today after the second world war the basic law was designed to prevent the atrocities of the Nazi period from ever happening again the Nazis stripped Jews and other minorities of their right to full citizenship during the Holocaust they and their collaborators murdered 6 million Jews the effort to remember this dark past still shapes life in Germany today Memorial like this one are a reminder of those who lost their lives Pippa gold Schmid’s Jewish grandfather escaped that fate he fled Nazi Germany and found safety in England where Pippa grew up decades later she has reclaimed German citizenship as the descendant of someone persecuted by the Nazis that’s her right under Germany’s basic law now she lives here in Berlin so the citizenship for me is at first it’s very practical measure so it is about the sort of present day it’s about me being German and being me being able to sort of come and go sort of where I like in Germany it’s also about sort of Reckoning with the past it’s about the citizenship was offered to me by the German Constitution so for me that’s why it’s such a sort of important symbol to have been able to have to reclaim my German citizenship that I should have always had pipper a writer is soon to publish a book about her story today her translator and publisher is visiting her at home in Berlin I’ve got a couple things here which I thought we might be interested in um partly because they appear in the book yeah so this is his German passport that he used to get into England pippa’s grandfather an goldmit was stripped of his German citizenship by the Nazis for me becoming German has been part of learning about my grandfather’s life and as in as much detail as I can so that uh his memory gets carried forward he died in 1963 um so I never knew him he could never have envisaged that uh that I would become German but it feels like I’ve made that sort of uh yeah sort of family connection with with with him and the only way that I I can make a connection with him after his death as well as her research and writing pipper says the culture of remembrance in Germany has helped her bridge the gap between then and now I there is always a tension there and like I said the fact that German people by and large know their history really helps me overcome that tension they are they’re trying to understand trying to um not forget what happened and maybe try and learn from the past learning from the past and forging New Beginnings German citizenship passports and politics but more than that people and a place to call home and with almost 85 million citizens there’s no one way to be German [Music]

Germany celebrates 75 years of the Basic Law. What does a German passport mean to people coming from different backgrounds?

When the Federal Republic of Germany signed the Basic Law on May 23, 1949, a new path of liberal and democratic values was forged. But, at the same time, the second German state emerged, the socialist GDR. Since the reunification in 1990, a united Germany has become a key player of the international community. For many people, it has even become safe haven to move to. Increased immigration is the reason why Germany is growing, even though more people are dying than are being born. In June, a new law comes into force that regulates citizenship. What does the new regulation look like and what does it mean to have German citizenship today? DW reporter Loveday Wright investigated this question and met three people who have a very different relationship to Germany.

00:00 Introduction
00:48 Born to Turkish parents – Melisa Karakus
02:43 Looking back: Turkish “guest workers”
03:09 The new citizenship law
04:50 Immigration destination Germany
05:25 Munzer Khatab – A Syrian in Germany
08:40 75 years of Germany’s Basic Law
09:32 Pippa Goldschmidt – A German Jew’s granddaughter
11:59 Outro

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23 comments

  1. All this tell me they don't want to be german they like making money in Germany so even born there they choose the other country so now they take the German passport but there heart not with Germany

  4. This is crazy! I as a humanistic(more or less) 3rd world immigrant now living in Europe I find the whole idea of what the woman said about "live alongside each other many different cultrues we're living here togather" a joke. To say that all cultures can live togather in peace in a very naive human concept which is not realistic. I thing all of us should send migrant to Turkey such that Turkish people become the minority – it must be delightful to be a minority. It's like a person build ahouse through hard work and then someone eles comes in and claims that the house now equally belong to both.

  5. Poor Frau Goldschmidt thanks to Merkel Deustchland has import a different breed of Nazis who hate Jewish people and Westerners and their Judo-Christian values upon which Europe was built. As a hyper-integrated 3rd world immigrant now living in Europe it is easy to step outside of the box and see the eronious moves made by the European which will impede the progress of human species' rapid advancmeet. It is truly sad when bountiful resouce is squandered without thought much like how a precious pouch of water carelessly spilt in the Sahal's sea of sand.

  6. I have dual citizenship, neither of my parents were from the US but I was born here. Having European culture at home and American culture outside really gives an interesting perspective

  9. That she “had to choose between two identities and cultures” is underhanded cunning absurd the frame of thinking that disfigures

  15. Nothing even if you be a German citizen they underestimate you and in many authorities they don’t expect that you a German citizen 😂😂

  22. Frederik Vad, the Integration Spokesman for the Danish social Democrats recently held a speech, which took a hard look at the myths regarding integration. Highly recommended:
    "The first realization in the immigration and value policy was that the number matters, i.a. carried forward by good mayors of the Copenhagen suburbs. It is the recognition that it is easier for Slagelse Municipality to teach 50 people Danish per year than to teach 350 people Danish per year. The second realization in the immigration and values policy was that we have to pursue an active policy that gives people incentives to be able to get an education, to be able to get a job and to be able to refrain from crime. The third realization is the one we are facing now, and it has not completely seeped in, I think, in large parts of the population and not here in Christiansborg either. And it is, after all, an acknowledgment that work, education, housing, a tour pass for association life and an unblemished criminal record are not enough if you simultaneously use your position to undermine Danish society from within.
    Therefore, I would like to encourage everyone in the Folketing to read the report that came on 1 March from the crime prevention council in Sweden. It is one of the most precious documents we have, which shows the ruler's attitude in its perfect form. It shows how tens of thousands of people in clans and gangs and in certain ethnic milieus have infiltrated, and I quote: all significant sectors of Swedish society. This applies from the private to the municipal to the state; civil servants, case managers, prison officers, dock workers.
    We are not Sweden; Denmark is something else. But the culture that prevails here, and which comes to light in this report, we also see here at home. We hear about a police officer who calls a shelter and pressures the manager of the shelter to get a name of a specific woman who is at that center; a social worker who drops certain children's cases; a family therapist in a Danish NGO who, instead of helping children out of social control, contributes to the fact that a parent can kidnap his children and send them on a re-education journey. And most recently on Monday we saw B.T. uncover how researchers at the University of Copenhagen have knowledge of 550 divorce contracts that Danish imams in approved religious communities have entered into without the Family Court, without legal prenuptial agreements. Some of the things that are in these contracts are that the woman must pay herself off, live in celibacy from now on or give up her children in order to escape the marriage. And then the imams ask us for help instead of going out and reporting it to the authorities.
    So the examples are many. And all that I have mentioned here are actually examples from the last year – concrete examples brought forward by brave professionals or skilled journalists. We know this stuff exists, we just don't know the extent of it; the documentation is too weak; it interests far too few on the boned floors. The Social Democratic Prime Minister and the two Social Democratic Ministers of Foreign Affairs who have been since 2019 have succeeded in a lot. We have succeeded in sending far more people home than we have ever done before; we have succeeded in getting far more people from these groups into work than before; we grant far fewer citizenships than we did in the past. But in this area, we are all broadly behind in the Folketing – when it comes to the third realization.
    So what is the answer? Yes, the answer is that we gain a broader understanding of what the new value struggle is. It is no longer just Kærshovedgård that is the epicenter of the new value struggle, it is also Copenhagen University College. It is no longer just the number of police officers, teachers, educators or street plan workers that matters. It is also now about what pedagogy, what culture and what spirit the people who are at the front in our welfare society and in our civil society are carriers of. What do they meet those people with? A parallel community is no longer just a residential area in Ishøj. It can also be a canteen table in a government agency. It can also be a pharmacy in North Zealand.
    For the Social Democrats, the three immigration and value policy recognitions are the foundation for the policy we want to pursue, especially the third. And it does not contrast with the fight for people to be treated equally and not be subjected to discrimination. If you take this society to heart, and if you do everything you can to ensure that your children become fully part of Danish society, you will not have to face discrimination and discrimination. The Social Democrats will always aim for that, but we do not want a culture of honor, we do not want a collective concept of freedom, and we do not want people who are fluent in Danish, have gone to a Danish school and been in the Danish education system and have a Danish job, use their position in society to undermine Denmark from within."

  23. This is a ploy drom idlamic countries to tru to ommigrste to other countries without chsnging snything. Germsny should not allow this. they will have sharia law before they know it. thry will soon have town and cities where people of zgermsn dedcent spesking Getman, ate not allowed. Do not allow this.

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