{"id":13972,"date":"2026-06-15T06:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mth-partner.de\/?p=13972"},"modified":"2026-06-15T06:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T06:40:12","slug":"deutsche-staatsangehoerigkeit-abstammung-rechtsnachfolge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mth-partner.de\/en\/german-nationality-by-descent-and-succession\/","title":{"rendered":"German nationality by descent and the legal succession of the German State"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Holy Roman Empire to the Federal Republic of Germany<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Attorney Helmer Tieben, LL.M.<\/b> MTH Partner Lawyers, Cologne<\/span><\/p>\n

As of: June 2026
\nNote: <\/b>This article is for general information only and does not replace individual legal advice. Nationality law is complex and depends on the specific historical circumstances of each individual case. Please consult a lawyer for your specific situation.<\/i><\/p>\n

Anyone with German ancestors will at some point ask themselves a simple question: <\/span>Am I perhaps already German?<\/span><\/i> However, the answer to this is rarely straightforward. This is because German nationality law is not based on descent. It is not enough to prove German roots. A complete legal chain must be demonstrated \u2013 from a demonstrably German ancestor, through each individual generation, down to you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Whether this continuity exists or whether it was broken at some point depends not only on family documents. It also depends on which law applied at which time \u2013 and that means: it depends on the history of the German state itself. Because the German state as we know it today did not newly emerge in 1949 or 1990. It has a legal history that reaches back through the German Empire, the North German Confederation, and the German Confederation to the time of the Holy Roman Empire.<\/span><\/p>\n

This article explains why the continuity of the German state can be crucial for your claim to citizenship \u2013 and at which historical turning points the legal situation fundamentally changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Horizontal<\/p>\n

<\/span>Why state succession is crucial for nationality claims<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

A claim to the German nationality by descent<\/a> is a <\/span>legal claim<\/b>, no cultural or ethnic. It presupposes that an ancestor in the legal sense <\/span>German<\/span><\/i> war \u2014 also who has possessed the nationality of a German state \u2014 and that this Nationality by<\/a> has been effectively passed down through every generation without ever being interrupted.<\/span><\/p>\n

This means: If your great-great-grandfather emigrated from Bavaria to Brazil in 1880, it is not enough to prove his Bavarian origin. It must be examined whether he was a Bavarian national at the time of emigration, whether he retained this nationality abroad, whether the legal order of the German Reich recognised his nationality as continuing, and whether it was passed on to the next generation.<\/span><\/p>\n

And here the question of state succession comes into play: for if the German state has fundamentally changed several times \u2013 from the German Empire, through the Weimar Republic, the National Socialist regime, the occupation period, to the Federal Republic \u2013 does the law that your ancestor once acquired still apply at all?<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer of German constitutional law is: <\/span>Yes.<\/b> And it reads as follows, because from a constitutional perspective the Federal Republic of Germany is not a new state, but identical to the German Reich \u2014 a position that the Federal Constitutional Court has confirmed in constant case law (cf. BVerfGE 36, 1).<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Was there German citizenship before 1871?<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

<\/span>The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (1648\u20131806)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

The Holy Roman Empire was not a nation-state in the modern sense. It consisted of hundreds of territories \u2013 kingdoms, duchies, principalities, bishoprics, free imperial cities \u2013 each with its own legal system and subject relationships. A unified \u201eGerman nationality\u201c did not exist. Someone born in Nuremberg was a citizen of Nuremberg, not \u201eGerman\u201c in today's sense.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the practice of citizenship assessment, this means: <\/span>Ancestors from the time of the Holy Roman Empire do not in themselves establish a claim to German citizenship.<\/b> The legal chain is generally too remote, and the civil rights of that time can neither be equated with today's nationality nor reconstructed seamlessly up to the present day.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Holy Roman Empire is not a predecessor state of the present-day Federal Republic in terms of public law. There is no direct legal succession.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>The Confederation of the Rhine (1806\u20131813)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

The Confederation of the Rhine was a confederation of German states founded under Napoleonic influence. It formally replaced the Holy Roman Empire, but it had no common nationality and no lasting legal consequences. It has no practical significance today for matters of nationality.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>The German Confederation (1815\u20131866)<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

The German Confederation, founded at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, was an international association of 39 sovereign states. It was <\/span>no federal state<\/b> and had no common citizenship. Each member state \u2014 Bavaria, Prussia, Saxony, W\u00fcrttemberg, Baden, and many others \u2014 regulated the belonging of its inhabitants according to its own law.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyone who emigrated during the period of the German Confederation was therefore not a \u201eGerman national\u201c, but, for example, a Bavarian or Prussian national. For a modern nationality check, therefore, the <\/span>Specific nationality of the specific individual state<\/span><\/i> be proven \u2013 and that this individual state later acceded to the German Reich.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>The North German Confederation and the Birth of Federal Nationality (1867\u20131871)<\/b><\/span><\/h2>\n

The North German Federation, founded in 1867, was the first modern German federal state. It marks the beginning of a unified German nationality in the modern sense.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 1 June 1870, the <\/span>Law on the acquisition and loss of federal and state citizenship<\/span><\/i> in force. It established the basic structure that remained in place until it was replaced by the RuStAG of 1913. The essential principles:<\/span><\/p>\n