Paragraph 26 of the German Nationality Act gives a German citizen the right to renounce German citizenship if he holds other citizenships or has a guarantee of admission to a foreign citizenship. The application for renunciation of German citizenship is submitted in writing. In principle, I do not advise losing or voluntarily renouncing German citizenship. I have encountered many situations where a person, after living for some time in their country of origin, would like to return to Germany. Renouncing German citizenship is only worthwhile if there are very serious reasons for doing so.
Example from practice. A late resettler from Kazakhstan, Olga Schmidt (§4 BVFG), has been living in Germany for several years. Her daughter and family remained in Kazakhstan. Olga Schmidt suffers from loneliness and returns to Kazakhstan, assuming she will spend her old age surrounded by relatives and close ones in her daughter's family. But without Kazakh citizenship, she cannot be admitted to local social systems. And to obtain it, Olga renounced German citizenship. After eight months, she realized that she could not, for whatever reasons, get along and settle in her daughter's family, and would like to return to Germany. But the voluntary renunciation of German citizenship cuts off her path to return.
According to Paragraph 27 of the Nationality Act, a minor German child loses German citizenship upon adoption by a foreign parent. For example, a certain Russian citizen Olga Schmidt, in her second marriage, marries Russian citizen Oleg Ivanov. From her first marriage, she has a German child, David Schmidt. After several years, having become convinced of the reliability of the relationship between the father and child, Oleg Ivanov adopts his wife's child from her first marriage. As a result, David Schmidt loses his German citizenship. But there is an exception here. German citizenship is not lost if the child already holds the citizenship of the adoptive father.
A somewhat different example. Child David Schmidt at the time of adoption holds Russian and German citizenship; consequently, he cannot acquire Russian citizenship again because he already has it. Consequently, he does not lose German citizenship by virtue of adoption by Oleg Ivanov.
Paragraph 28 of the Nationality Act deprives of citizenship persons who voluntarily join the armed forces of a foreign state without special permission from the German Ministry of Defense. The second condition for loss of citizenship is that the volunteer is a person with dual citizenship and holds the citizenship of the country whose flag the armed unit flies. This is intended to prevent the participation of German citizens in armed conflicts undesirable for the German government. However, an ordinary German with only German citizenship can join the armed forces of other countries without any hindrance. This is an old regulation whose meaning is unclear even to me today.
I have not heard of such cases, but I cannot rule them out, since a large number of people from CIS countries have dual citizenship of their country of origin and Germany. Let's take the Schmidt family again as an example. In 1999, the family moved from Russia to Germany; in 2005, they returned to live permanently in their country of origin. This constellation gave the family dual Russian-German citizenship.
In 2011, Vladimir Schmidt, who as a child moved to Germany with his family and returned to Russia as a teenager, decides to sign an eight-year contract to serve in the Russian army. It is very likely that he will take part in armed conflicts in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Voluntary enlistment in the Russian armed forces deprives V. Schmidt of German citizenship.
However, V. Schmidt's enlistment in the Kazakh army does not affect his German citizenship. Here the German state somehow does not fear that German citizen V. Schmidt might participate in combat operations as a Kazakh serviceman. The significance of this law may also be important for persons with Israeli-German citizenship. Compulsory military service on the basis of conscription, on the other hand, does not lead to loss of German citizenship.
Perhaps the most important provision is Paragraph 25 of the Nationality Act. A German citizen loses citizenship in the event of voluntary acquisition of a foreign state's citizenship (exceptions for EU member states) upon his own application. Moreover, statements by persons that they were unaware of this provision of the German Nationality Act are not taken into account.
Example from practice. A local German, Johann Krall, worked for several years in the Moscow representative office of his company in Russia, where he married a Russian woman. Upon his own application, the native of Karlsruhe acquired Russian citizenship under simplified conditions. By doing so, he unknowingly lost his German citizenship. Mr. Krall was very surprised to learn that in the eyes of German authorities he was no longer a German but a Russian person who simply spoke German well. The former German was able to be helped using provisions on the restoration of German citizenship, but not everyone can count on this.
According to decisions of competent German courts, loss of citizenship does not occur when the person concerned did not know or could not have known about their German citizenship. For example, in 1944, the German occupation authorities granted Vladimir Schmidt German citizenship. His daughter Olga Schmidt, born in the Turkmen SSR in 1962, acquired German citizenship at the moment and by virtue of birth. In 1993, Olga moves to the Russian Federation and becomes a citizen of Russia upon her own application. The letter of the law deprives her of German citizenship by virtue of voluntary naturalization in Russia. She can successfully plead ignorance of her father's German citizenship and unawareness of the transmission of citizenship to Vladimir's children. If she can prove such a fact, she retains German citizenship.
Automatic acquisition of foreign citizenship by all permanent residents of a country, as happened in post-Soviet countries after the collapse of the USSR, does not harm holders of German citizenship. Competent German courts are favorably disposed here and in most cases rule in favor of the plaintiff, who proves his ignorance of the actual circumstances of the case.
The situation is more difficult for those who knew about their German citizenship but did not bother to inquire about the consequences of foreign naturalization. Here the law requires initiative from German citizens. For lawyers, the answer to the question is important: how much initiative can be demanded from a German citizen who does not speak German and lives in a remote area of the country? The answer can only be given on a case-by-case basis.
In all important life circumstances involving foreign law, I recommend that German citizens seek preliminary advice from a specialist regarding the possible loss of German citizenship in each individual case.
T. PUE, German lawyer.