Germany before oath of allegiance – to Israel

Published 28 June 2024 at 08.19

Foreign. Now everyone who wants to become a German citizen must first swear allegiance to Israel, reports the Financial Times.

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A new citizenship law came into effect in Germany on Thursday. The background is that the red-green government under Chancellor Olaf Scholz has previously promised to approve dual citizenship and to shorten the waiting period for new citizens to five years. Previously, Germany did not allow dual citizenship for first-generation immigrants.

To become a German citizen, however, one must sign “German values”, according to the country's far-left interior minister Nancy Faeser.

– De who share our values ​​and make an effort can now get a German passport faster and no longer have to give up part of their identity by renouncing their old nationality, Nancy Faeser said on Tuesday according to the Financial Times.

She continued:

– But we have also made it equally clear that anyone who does not share our values ​​cannot get a German passport. We have drawn a crystal clear red line here and made the law much stricter than before.

The Ministry of the Interior confirms that it will be a requirement to, among other things, recognize Israel's right to exist. New test questions have been added on “anti-Semitism, the State of Israel's right to exist and Jewish life in Germany,” according to the ministry.

Imposing an oath of allegiance to Germany for new citizens would have been unthinkable and probably considered downright Nazi. All forms of patriotism are suspect in Germany, and in a classic scene from election night 2013, the then Chancellor Angela Merkel removed a German flag from the stage while her party colleagues celebrated the election victory: