Anuscheh Farahat and Kay Hailbronner Between 1969 and 1990, the debate on German nationality focused upon issues concerning the division of Germany. While originally the law in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) provided for a common German nationality, with the adoption of the nationality law of the GDR (Staatsbürgerschaftsgesetz) in 1967 the idea of a common German nationality was relinquished and replaced by separate citizenship of the GDR. The Federal Republic of Germany reacted by insisting upon a common German nationality, based upon the nationality law (Reichs- und Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz) of 1913. Thereby, every German, acquiring German nationality by descent, was still considered a German national, regardless of whether the person permanently resided in the Federal Republic or the GDR. The legal basis for this position was the insistence upon an inseparable common German nationality attached to the legal continuation of the German Empire.4 This concept enabled the Federal Republic to issue passports and to claim as German citizens every citizen of the GDR who managed to legally, or illegally, leave the territory of the GDR and arrive at a consulate or embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany (Hailbronner 1981: 712-713; Vedder 2003: 11 ff.; Klein 1983: 2289). The Treaty on the Basic Relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR of 12 December 1972 (Grundlagenvertrag), as well as the treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland of 1970 and Czechoslovakia of 1973, omitted the controversial issue of German nationality. It was explicitly stated in a protocol attached to the Grundlagenvertrag that the treaty would facilitate a solution to issues of nationality. The Federal Constitutional Court held that these treaties could not be interpreted as causing a loss of such for Germans who acquired German nationality under the nationality law of 1913 or under the Basic Law.5 After the reunification of Germany on 3 October 1990, the East German laws and regulations on nationality were abolished. With the accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic, the nationality legislation valid in the Federal Republic became fully applicable in the territory of the former GDR and in Berlin. A number of questions, however, remained to be resolved concerning the effects of naturalisation and other issues related to the effects of East German nationality legislation (Renner 1999: 230). These issues have yet to be completely resolved. Subsequent changes to the nationality legislation were primarily devoted to a solution to the problem of integration of the immigrant population by facilitating access to German nationality. In the early 1990s a discussion started about the political rights of the immigrant population. By the end of 1998 there were 7.32 million foreign nationals living in Germany, accounting for 9 per cent of the German population. Most foreigners living in Germany had been living there for many years. By the end of 1997, approximately 30 per cent of all foreigners had been in Germany for twenty years or more, 40 per cent for at least fifteen years and almost 50 per cent for more than ten years. Almost two thirds of all Turks and Greeks, 31 per cent of Italians and 80 per cent of Spaniards had lived in Germany for more than ten years and 1.59 million (21.7 per cent of all foreigners) had been born in Germany. The figures showed a basic dilemma of German immigration policy: An increasing number of children of migrant workers had been born and had grown up in Germany, received their schooling and professional education in Germany, would eventually work in Germany and yet were children of ‘foreign’ nationals (despite the fact that their nationality has frequently become a mere emotional attachment to the home country of their parents, and is sometimes considered a mere reassurance, a sort of ‘alternative’ nationality). There is in principle no dispute about the need to integrate large parts of the foreign population into 4 5 Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court, vol. 36, p. 1. Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court, vol. 40, p. 141; vol. 41, p. 203. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2020/5 - © 2020 Author(s) 3