Anuscheh Farahat and Kay Hailbronner has been abandoned. Only about 12,000 to 17,000 persons were naturalised each year from 1974 until 1989, in spite of an increasing number of persons having their permanent residence in Germany. This situation changed substantially with the new Nationality Act giving a legal right to naturalisation if certain conditions were fulfilled. As a result, the number of naturalisations went up substantially since the new law entered into force. With the Immigration Act of 2004 (Zuwanderungsgesetz) some amendments have been introduced in order to take account of the new integration requirements introduced by it as well as the security considerations resulting from the anti-terrorism legislation following 11 September 2001. Under Section 11 of the Nationality Act, the right to naturalisation is precluded in 2 cases. First, if a foreigner does not have sufficient knowledge of the German language. Second, if there are either sufficient facts indicating that the foreigner is engaged in or supporting activities directed against the free democratic order or the security of the Federal Republic or a Land, or if an applicant is intending unlawful disruption of the functioning of the constitutional organs of the federation or a Land or their members, or is endangering by use of force or preparatory actions the external affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany. A similar exclusion clause applies in the case of participation in terrorist organisations or support for terrorist activities. According to Article 116 of the Basic Law, ethnic Germans expelled as a result of post-war measures as well as their families, relatives and descendants are entitled to privileged acquisition of German nationality. The details are regulated by the Federal Expellees Act (Bundesvertriebenengesetz) since 19 May 1953. Between 1950 and 1987, a total of approximately 1.4 million ethnic Germans and their family members entered Germany, mostly without major integration problems. The law is inseparably connected to an assumption of the persecution of ethnic Germans who were expelled after the Second World War and their family relatives. Contrary to a frequently made assumption, there is no acquisition of German nationality for persons of ‘German ethnic origin’ as such. The law is therefore becoming obsolete with the disappearance of the consequences of expulsion for the second and third generation of expelled persons. With the large increase of the number of immigrants of German ethnic origin as a result of the liberalisation and democratisation in the Eastern Bloc, substantial changes were made in the law in order to gain more control over the immigration patterns of ethnic Germans. In 1993, an annual quota of 225,000 was introduced and on 1 January 2000 the quota was reduced to around 100,000 persons, a figure corresponding to the number of ethnic Germans entering Germany in 1998. In addition, prior to entry, a German language test was introduced. Until 2000, ethnic Germans possessing the legal status of a German without German nationality under Article 116 para. 1 of the Basic law were entitled to naturalisation on the basis of their admission to German territory. Since 1 January 2000, repatriated Germans and their spouses and children acquire German nationality automatically by entering German territory on the basis of a previous admission title. After 2000, the composition of the category of repatriate Germans (Aussiedler) changed as only a few of the family relatives and their descendants tended to be of German ethnic origin as well. Since family members did not have to prove sufficient knowledge of the German language in the admission procedure, unless they applied for repatriate status themselves, an increasing percentage of repatriate Germans did not have sufficient command of the German language and were therefore subject to social marginalisation. In the Immigration Act of 2004 the provisions of the Federal Expellees Act were changed by introducing a condition of proof of basic knowledge of the German language for non-German RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/5 - © 2020 Author(s) 21