An increasing number of naturalized Germans are not required to renounce their original citizenship before receiving a German passport. The rise has been driven by internal EU migration and an uptick in refugee numbers, according to the Federal Statistics Office.
Of 112,211 naturalized German citizens last year, 68,918, or about 61 percent, kept their previous citizenship, Die Welt newspaper reported on Friday citing the statistics office.
German law generally discourages dual citizenship, but it does not always require that applicants renounce their citizenship before becoming German. Citizens of other EU member states have the right to dual citizenship inside the bloc.
Exception is made for refugees, who represent a growing share of dual nationals.
According to Die Welt, in 2017 not a single naturalized German from Iran (2,689), Syria (2,479), Afghanistan (2,400), Morocco (2,390), Tunisia (1,125), Algeria (462), Lebanon (1,294) and Nigeria (954) gave up their original nationality.
Out of the 73 million Germans living in Germany around 4.3 million people hold at least one other citizenship.
Population in private households by migrant background and dual citizenship
| Variable | Total | Population without a migrant background |
Population with a migrant background in the narrower sense | Germans with migration experience of their own | Germans without migration experience of their own | Foreigners with migration experience of their own | Foreigners without migration experience of their own |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| in 1,000 | |||||||
| Results of the microcensus of German Statistics Office on Population. More detailed results are contained in the specialist publication Bevölkerung mit Migrationshintergrund (only German). X = No data, cell blocked for logical reasons. / = No data because the numerical value is not sufficiently reliable. |
|||||||
| Total | 81,740 | 62,482 | 19,258 | 5,235 | 4,608 | 7,937 | 1,479 |
| Holders of dual citizenship | 1,949 | 242 | 1,707 | 899 | 654 | 130 | 24 |
| Foreign holders of dual citizenship | 155 | X | 155 | X | X | 130 | 24 |
| German holders of dual citizenship | 1,795 | 242 | 1,553 | 899 | 654 | X | X |
| By selected foreign citizenships | |||||||
| France | 54 | 19 | 35 | 13 | 22 | X | X |
| Greece | 52 | 9 | 43 | 13 | 30 | X | X |
| Italy | 115 | 35 | 80 | 16 | 64 | X | X |
| Poland | 235 | 10 | 226 | 192 | 33 | X | X |
| Romania | 68 | / | 67 | 55 | 12 | X | X |
| Russian Federation | 234 | / | 232 | 199 | 33 | X | X |
| Turkey | 238 | 17 | 221 | 39 | 183 | X | X |
| United Kingdom | 30 | 9 | 21 | 13 | 8 | X | X |
| United States | |||||||
Source: dw.com
