Need to leave the US?

Politics
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There’s some evidence that my ancestors, originally Gotreau (no one uses it any more), came from there; my dad told me that “a great-aunt changed it in Canada”. If I have any relatives there, or anywhere across the pond, they’re very far removed in distance and in being related to me. Mom joke.

But no one who knows anything is alive anymore. My brother had an ancestry.com account, but I don’t remember it having any answers to my questions. And then there’s the legends passed down from my mom and dad that have nothing to prove them. I’m fairly certain that my great-grandparents on both sides were born not in the US except for at least my Grandpa Mardorf (dad’s grandpa) but his people came from Germany. He was born in NJ, I think in Passaic.

In any case, my son and I are trapped; his grandmother on his dad’s side was born in Poland, but I don’t think that’s an option, even if there wasn’t a war going on nearby.

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I just responded to a DM asking about my German citizenship process. Others might benefit from it, so I’m sharing it here. Sorry, it’s a bit long.

OK, here is my story so far. My mother was German. (Her family were refugees after WWII – not from the Nazis, just DP’s – but that makes no difference in my case.) She came to the US in 1960, married my American father in 1961. I was born in 1966, and my mom became a US citizen in 1967. That puts me into one of maybe 4 or 5 eligibility classes in this recent German law, the §5 StAG law I mentioned. More on these shortly.

I started the process by contacting a couple of law firms that specialize in German citizenship. One of them, a firm in Germany, wanted a lot of money (like $5000). I ended up with an attorney in Miami with licenses in both countries. She was cheaper, but it still cost $2500, in addition to various other charges related to finding documentation. For example, I had to secure the services of a Polish attorney to locate various documents from the Polish archives. (My mom’s family was from a region [Silesia] that was transferred to Poland after the war.) Basically I had to prove my “provenance” via certified copies of birth, death, marriage and other certificates. Collecting all the documentation was a hassle and cost maybe another $1000 for everything. A lot of that was for the Polish document search.

Finally, just last August all the documents were shipped off to the German Bundesverwaltungsamt (BVA, Federal Office of Administration) in Cologne. And now I wait. Apparently for at least a year, maybe two. But, I am confident that all my papers are in order, so it’s just a matter of time.

Re the law itself, here’s the BVA page about it: BVA - Citizenship - Amendment to German citizenship law

If you speak German and perhaps have contacts there, you could possibly try to apply on your own. It would be much cheaper.

Victims of Nazi persecution and their descendants were already eligible under the existing law (StAG) – that information is here: BVA - Wiedergutmachungseinbürgerung nach Verfolgung

The 2021 amendment (§5) added those who were previously excluded by gender-discriminatory regulations from acquiring German citizenship at birth: BVA - Erklärungserwerb – this page lists the document requirements (under the “Erklärung abgeben” tab)

The various “discriminated child” categories under §5 StAG are a bit complicated. Here’s a FAQ (this is actually from the attorney I used, Ellen von Geyso). See also, Re-naturalization according to § 5 StAG and Declaration or application for German citizenship if you do have a German mother or father but never were considered German - Federal Foreign Office

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I would not be so cavalier about that, especially now.

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36

Recently I learned about an EU option that others might not know: if you have a parent or (more likely) grandparent who left what is now Czechia (not the Slovakia half of former Czechoslovakia) before the outbreak of WWI, you can get citizenship. You have to prove the connection and the timing, and if you are under 65 you will have to learn the language well enough to pass a proficiency test, but it is an EU option that most people don’t even think of.

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So close. Bravo at the attempt.

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Here is the other thread:

I might create it as its own post later and pin it so that everyone is likely to see it.

Only 15, so even closer.

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I just found this very useful Reddit post of a flowchart of paths to German citizenship:

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/citizenship/

Not all of the internal links work properly, unfortunately.

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As a reality check, here is the sticky post in the Germany subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1gk5ot0/want_to_move_to_germany_from_the_us_read_this/

I don’t think this applies so much to people here than to naive redditors who have wrong expectations what it means to emigrate but I think it’s important to highlight the difficulties, too

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Good points. However, my posts were about obtaining German citizenship, not simply moving to Germany.

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I’m really glad that Redditor wrote that. One item I’d add: If you are “mostly fluent in German”, you will still likely be unable to properly read the government paperwork for a residence application. “Deutsch” is much easier than “Amtdeutsch” (German as used in official documents). Allow room in the budget for hiring a professional to handle the paperwork. I’ve heard figures between three and five thousand Euro.

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:grimacing: yikes. Certainly reinforces the idea that emigrating is generally for those that can afford it. Though i’m sure it is money well spent, wouldn’t want a stupid mistake to be responsible for not getting paperwork approved.

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45

“legalese” is always hard to read, no matter the language. I remember trying to register as a freelancer in spain… and I’m spanish! is my native language! it could have been written in KLINGON for what is worth!

(i got it wrong and was fined for not declaring I was not selling my services to the EU… while not serving my services to the EU, and not declaring services sold in the EU. Because it was my first offense and I was already out of the freelance system and into normal employment they waived the fee but basically if I try to do freelancing again I will do my contracts via agents)

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That’s a subtle trap. Yikes.

Did you have to declare, every morning, that you were not currently on fire?

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47

You have to fill a lengthy form full of really obtuse definitions. I assumed marking the field forced me to declare transactions in the EU, when I did not plan to. Turns out it was the reverse, and marking it out opted out of that.

As I said, legalese is hard, us is not the only company guilty of this, and intuit is not the only company that benefits from legalese being obtuse. One of the reasons I stopped being a freelance is that filling taxes was so absurdly hard on my brain that I usually spent a week mentally recovering from the ordeal (if you’re employed the company fills the taxes directly and unless you have special requirements - disabilities, tax breaks, extra sources of income) annual taxes is pushing a button.

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So very true, all over the world.

A friend had the misfortune of being a plaintiff in a civil court case (stay out of court if you can, kids; he won, but still). He asked his lawyer one day about the legalese. “Is it possible to write this in plain English?” His lawyer answered calmly and quickly (my friend was obviously not the first client to ask): “Yes, I can do that. But to achieve the same precision with plain English as I can with legal jargon, I’ll need about two hours to write something that usually takes me 10 minutes. You pay for my time in six-minute increments. Your call.” My friend accepted the legalese.

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49

Same here. For a few years I was an “S-Corporation.” I felt prestigious but constantly confused. It all felt like playing a very strange game.

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Tbh, when I was a contractor I totally missed filing taxes that year (thought my wife was doing them, she thought I was). When I filed back taxes later they just said “this is what we have for you for year x, you have Y days to contest it. And I was like, that looks fine.” And that was that.

People act like the IRS is scary, but naw, they deal with dozens of cases like mine before lunch. And they’re happy to help you if there are any problems.

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i wish it was the same here man. They know what you owe them, but if you forgot to fill the taxes their first instinct is to fine you, and then is up to the benevolence of whoever handles your case to waive the fee. And no small fines either. They start at 5x the owed amount.

Summary, to avoid derailing this topic further: if you come to Spain hire someone to handle all the legal paperwork for you. And that probably applies to all EU (and the rest of the world TBH) countries. They know what you have to do better than you do and will translate legalese to human

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10 brilliant

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