Germany has received more than 170,000 citizenship applications since 2023 from victims of the Nazi regime and their descendants, and Israelis are leading the list by a wide margin, according to German authorities.
Close to 45 percent of all such applications worldwide are being filed by Israelis. Immigration offices in Germany describe the wave of requests in recent years as unprecedented.
The sharp rise was made possible largely by a 2021 reform of German law. The change widened eligibility to include descendants of people who were stripped of their citizenship, or forced to give it up for political, racial or religious reasons, between 1933 and 1945, even if the descendants themselves never held a German passport.
Official figures from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office show the number of approvals jumped by about 60 percent last year, reaching 11,500 worldwide. Of those, 5,924 went to Israelis, up from 3,640 approved in 2024. Americans came in second with 2,995 approvals last year, also a jump from 2,025 in 2024.
Experts at the statistics office and at Germany’s migration research center link the surge directly to world events. The wave began with British Jews seeking to keep their European Union rights after Brexit, continued with a smaller stream from Ukraine after the Russian invasion, and most recently has included a jump in applications from Americans, which the experts attribute to President Trump’s return to office.
In Israel, applications have broken records since the October 7 massacre and the ongoing war. German officials say the passports do not necessarily mean immediate immigration. For many Israelis, a German passport is a calculated fallback plan, and many older Israelis are using the law to obtain citizenship for their children and grandchildren as an insurance policy for emergencies.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
