Former foreigners who have acquired German citizenship will lose it if they restore their previous citizenship. This precedent was set on January 10 by a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. The lawsuit of a citizen who lost his German citizenship after restoring his previous Turkish citizenship was not granted. A native Turk living in Frankfurt obtained German citizenship in March 1999, renouncing his Turkish citizenship at the time. In June of the same year, he applied to restore his Turkish citizenship, and it was granted in February 2001. In doing so, he sought to exploit a loophole in German legislation, which was only closed with the entry into force of the new Citizenship Act on January 1, 2000. Before December 1999, a 'new' citizen living in Germany could not be stripped of his German passport against his will, even if he acquired dual citizenship. Under the new law, a German citizen ceases to be one if he acquires another citizenship. Permanent residence in Germany does not change this.
Since this citizen received a Turkish passport while the new law was already in effect, the Frankfurt Foreigners Office deprived him of his German citizenship in 2005. The Federal Constitutional Court deemed this decision lawful.
The exact number of people who have restored their previous citizenship is not yet known. According to the online publication Faz.Net, this provision of the new law affects a large number of German residents. In a large-scale survey conducted in early 2005 in Bavaria, more than 5,000 citizens of Turkish origin voluntarily stated that they also hold a Turkish passport. The motivation for this survey came from information from the Turkish government that in 2000, about 50,000 German citizens of Turkish origin had regained Turkish citizenship.