Number of Brits seeking German citizenship jumps due to Brexit
More than 1660 people, some of whom are descendents of Jews who fled the Nazis, seek a German passport as Britain leaves the EU
The number of people in Britain seeking to restore their German citizenship has jumped following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.
A German government response to opposition politicians published on Friday says 1,667 people applied to Germany’s embassy in London last year to reclaim the citizenship they or their ancestors were stripped of by the Nazis.
The government’s reply to the Free Democratic Party query notes that the embassy recorded 684 such requests the previous year, most of them following the Brexit referendum in June 2016.
Tens of thousands of Germans, many of them Jewish, fled to Britain after the Nazis took power in 1933.
The figures, which do not include Britons without previous ties to Germany applying for citizenship, were first reported by Germany’s Funke media group.
This comes after Rabbi Baroness Julia Neuberger revealed she was applying for German citizenship after Brexit.
The peer, who resigned the Liberal Democrat whip in 2011, spoke about the move which is available to her due to her mother who escaped Nazi Germany. She made her remarks at the Bank of England’s ‘One Bank Flagship Seminar’ in June.
In September 2017, Jewish News reported on a British woman, Veronica Maguire, 64, who has been living in Germany for 43 years, who has offered to help to British Jews apply for German citizenship after watching a “very moving” BBC documentary showing British Jews applying for German passports in the wake of the Brexit referendum.
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