Living in safety and freedom.
Exploring your identity.
Or reconnecting with family history.
What does German citizenship mean for
people with different backgrounds today?
It’s part of living in Germany:
I can have a say.
Although it was about the passport,
it was also about having to
choose an identity.
It felt like something positive
had come out of a
sort of terrible history.
Melisa Karakus feels at home in Berlin.
Born in Germany to Turkish parents, she grew up with two languages –
and two cultures.
But when it came to citizenship,
as a teenager, she was faced with a choice.
My mum came to me and asked,
so, what do you want to be?
German or Turkish?
And then it took a little while
to figure out what to do.
As a child, Melisa had Turkish citizenship.
Later, she chose to apply for a German passport instead.
Rules at the time meant she could only have one or the other.
Having to choose between two identities,
cultures, – we’re just talking about a passport,
but it was more than that –
of course, it’s not a nice feeling.
But for me it was clear quite quickly.
If you were German,
or if you were seen as German,
it was an advantage.
It was like the more you fit in,
the "better " you are.
Today, that’s changed, Melisa says.
She’s part of a generation now embracing their mixed identities –
and creating space for that in German society.
She runs a design agency focused on issues around diversity.
Its name, ‘renk, ‘ means ‘color’ in Turkish.
And she publishes a magazine exploring German-Turkish culture.
I created this image for myself
where I'm not sitting between
two chairs, but on
a bench I can slide around.
And I think that mindset is
something that's missing,
also in campaigns, on websites,
in so many things,
so the business really came
out of a need.
In Germany today, almost a third of the population have what’s known as
a migration background – meaning they or at least one of
their parents was born without German citizenship.
The arrival of guest workers in the mid 1950s marked the beginnings
of a more diverse society.
The majority were from Turkey – who came under a scheme for
temporary workers to help ease labor shortages.
Most returned.
But many stayed, and brought their families to join them.
Now, people with Turkish roots make up
Germany's largest minority group.
Many could benefit from a recent overhaul of the law easing
the path to German citizenship.
The change will also make dual citizenship possible for
many more people.
Previously, it was an exception, like for those from the EU.
People like Melisa, who once had to choose between two nationalities,
will now be able to have both.
It’s big news for her community – and
she wants to share it with renk’s followers.
We’re preparing a social media post
for our Instagram page.
We want to let people know about this new law.
And then the post is also about identity,
and what a passport can mean to people.
The new law allowing dual citizenship
is long overdue, Melisa says.
The mindset used to be, okay,
you have to make a decision so that you
can integrate better and choose
to be one thing over the other.
I think that was
absolutely the wrong strategy.
It can only ever be an advantage
to have another aspect, another culture,
another passport or another language.
That’s the reality in Melisa’s Berlin neighborhood.
She says we should come into the supermarket.
This blend of cultures it what she hopes for Germany’s future.
I really want this to be something
we can take for granted,
that we live alongside each other,
many different cultures,
we’re living here together –
that that’s a good thing –
that that’s not seen as a struggle
or a conflict, but as an asset.
An asset for German society – as well as its economy.
The country needs more immigration and is desperately trying to
attract skilled labor from abroad.
And more and more people are making Germany their long-term home.
In 2022, the number of people
granted German citizenship
hit a 20-year high.
More than a quarter of them were Syrians.
Many arrived here in 2015,
after civil war broke out in their homeland.
One of them: Munzer Khatab.
Almost ten years after arriving in Germany as a refugee, he’s now
a German citizen.
I’ve worked so hard to do
everything you can do in Germany.
And getting the German passport
at the end of it, it feels like
I’ve finally made it here.
Munzer fled war in Syria aged 21, along with his older brother.
He’s built a life here in Berlin, learnt German –
and started playing piano.
But he hasn’t seen the rest of his family for 10 years.
They can’t come to Europe, I couldn’t travel
anywhere else either.
You just couldn’t do it.
But now, my German passport makes it possible.
Up to now I just didn’t have the option.
So that’s why it’s really important to have it.
A full-time product designer, Munzer is also firmly embedded in
Berlin’s start-up scene.
He launched his first start-up just a year after coming to Germany –
an app to help other refugees navigate
the country's notorious bureaucracy.
Now that’s part of his current venture – a platform supporting
fellow migrant entrepreneurs.
I really believe that newcomers in Germany
have a different and unique
perspective on the country
and its structures.
They can look at Germany
with fresh eyes and say,
‘this or that’s not working,
we could improve on this.’
But it's also the job and
the responsibility of the German side
to accept that, to allow people,
migrants, to try out their ideas.
Making society better – that’s important to Munzer.
And his new citizenship also means he now has the right to vote.
Back in Syria, Munzer felt politics had nothing to offer him.
Here, he wants to make his voice count.
It’s part of living and working in Germany:
I can take part, I can
have a say.
He’s already had his first opportunity –
in a local election
at this city hall.
I’m looking forward to the next one,
the federal election next year.
I’ll actually be able to read
the campaign posters the parties put up
around the city, and they’ll have
a new meaning for me.
I can read them, knowing it’s also
relevant to me, I’m part of it.
Munzer says he’ll always have his Syrian identity.
But German citizenship means a sense of belonging here, too.
In a democracy like Germany, citizenship means
rights, freedom, protection -
as well as responsibilities.
Those who become naturalized citizens here have
to declare an oath – saying they’ll respect
and uphold Germany’s basic law, or constitution.
This year marks 75 years since it was adopted in
what was then West Germany in May 1949.
It’s still the basis for unified Germany today.
After the Second World War, the basic law was designed to
prevent the atrocities of the Nazi period from ever happening again.
The Nazis stripped Jews and other minorities
of their right to full citizenship.
During the Holocaust, they and
their collaborators murdered six million Jews.
The effort to remember this dark past
still shapes life in Germany today.
Memorials like this one are a reminder of
those who lost their lives.
Pippa Goldschmidt’s Jewish grandfather escaped that fate.
He fled Nazi Germany and found safety in England,
where Pippa grew up.
Decades later, she has reclaimed German citizenship.
As the descendant of someone persecuted by the Nazis,
that’s her right under Germany’s basic law.
Now she lives here in Berlin.
So citizenship for me is firstly,
it's a very practical measure.
So it is about the sort of present day.
It's about me being German and
being me being able to sort of come
and go, sort of where I like in Germany.
But it's also about the
sort of reckoning with the past.
It's about the citizenship
offered to me by
the German constitution.
So for me, that's why it's such
a sort of important symbol to have
been able to have, to sort of
reclaim my German citizenship
that I should have always had.
Pippa, a writer, is soon to publish a book about her story.
Today, her translator and publisher is visiting her at home in Berlin.
I’ve got a couple of things here
which I thought you might be interested in,
partly because they appear in the book.
So this is his German passport
that he used to get into England.
Pippa’s grandfather Ernst Goldschmidt was stripped of
his German citizenship by the Nazis.
For me, becoming German
has been part of learning about
my grandfather's life and
in as much detail as I can,
so that his memory gets carried forward.
He died in 1963.
So I never knew him.
He could never have envisaged that
that I would become German.
But it feels like I've made
that sort of family connection with him,
in the only way that I can make
a connection with him
after his death.
As well as her research and writing, Pippa says the culture of
remembrance in Germany has helped her bridge the gap between
then and now.
There is always a tension there
and like I say, the fact that German
people by and large know their history
really helps me overcome that tension.
They are trying to understand,
trying to not forget what happened
and maybe try and learn from the past.
Learning from the past and forging new beginnings.
German citizenship: Passports and politics – but more than that,
people, and a place to call home.
And with almost 85 million citizens – there's no one way to be German.