On becoming German
I am tall, bald, short-sighted, and have a pale skin (and happily married – be still you beating hearts!)?No one has ever asked me where I am really from, or where my people are from.[1]?But my mother is German, and I spent many idyllic holidays as a child in and around the Tegernsee, a beautiful lake in the Bavarian alps. The great thing is it is still there, largely unchanged, and I can happily recommend the best hikes, restaurants and beers.?Actually, that last is easy – it’s Tegernseer Helles,[2] still referred to by my uncle as ‘school beer’.
There is more to Germany than beautiful landscapes and refreshing beer. I spent much of my 20s and 30s studying and coming to terms with German culture and history. There is no coming to terms with some German history. But as a British tourist I was impressed by Germany’s post-unification efforts, in particular in Berlin, which memorialises Germany’s role in the war across large areas of its physical space: from Kollwitz’s statue in the Neue Wache, the Libeskind-designed Jewish Museum, to the Holocaust Memorial (covering 19,000 m2) very close to the refurbished Reichstag (itself with a new transparent Foster dome, pictured above).?T-34 tanks still guard the Soviet War memorial by the Brandenburg Gate.[3]
The Germans have a word for this process: Vergangenheitsbew?ltigung, which might be translated as 'coping with the past’.?Britain doesn’t really have an equivalent vocabulary, or practice. ?London Mayor Sadiq Khan recently announced plans for a slavery memorial,[4] but in the Docklands, well away from the centres of British power and flocking tourists.?Earlier plans for a statue in Hyde Park foundered when it proved impossible to raise the ￡4 million required.[5] ?In 2015, at the height of the Syrian refugee crisis, then Chancellor Merkel admitted 1,200,000 refugees, simply saying “we’ll manage it”[6].?Under the Dubs Amendment scheme, the UK agreed to accept unaccompanied child refugees.?The scheme closed in 2017: 480 (four hundred and eighty) children were admitted.[7] The current government is in the process of stopping those arriving in small boats from claiming asylum.[8] Informal removal of a statue of a slave trader in Bristol led to (unsuccessful) criminal prosecution.[9]
Late in 2016, after the vote, I researched whether I could claim German citizenship. I couldn’t because I had a German mother rather than father. Germany has since changed this rule because it amounted to discrimination on the basis of sex, and opened a 10-year window in which I could apply.[10]?The process is quite straight forward, and free, though it does entail assembling a number of documents (and I did end up instructing lawyers).?Changes to UK immigration law in 2012 led many UK citizens to be threatened with deportation – and some were deported - because they could not prove they were here legally. ?The Home Office had destroyed relevant documentation in 2010. The Windrush scandal is still playing out.[11]
I handed in my application to the German Embassy on Wednesday (friendly staff, short queue, in and out in 20 minutes - I do appreciate punctuality and efficiency!) ?To a large extent my motives are transactional - I’d like my children to have the rights I used to enjoy as an EU citizen. But there is more to it than that and I’m asking myself how German I feel.?Like everyone, I have multiple overlapping identities, and Germanness is part of me. There is much that attracts, much that repels, and challenges remain.?I have struggled long and hard with German grammar, and then there is the German sense of humour. ?Freddie Frinton and May Warden star in a short 1960s sketch ‘Dinner for One’:[12] he is her butler, and more.?It has become an institution, watched more avidly than any Royal speech every New Year’s Eve across Germany.?I just don’t find it that funny!
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/nov/30/buckingham-palace-aide-resigns-black-guest-traumatised-by-repeated-questioning
[4] https://www.london.gov.uk/mayor-announces-plans-landmark-memorial-capital-victims-transatlantic-slave-trade
领英推荐
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDQki0MMFh4???See also https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-wir-schaffen-das-5-years-on/?
[7] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/policy-statement-section-67-of-the-immigration-act-2016/factsheet-section-67-of-the-immigration-act-2016
[10] https://www.bva.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Buerger/Ausweis-Dokumente-Recht/Staatsangehoerigkeit/Einbuergerung/Ermessen/EER_Merkblatt_englisch.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2
Experienced leader and senior policy official, currently a volunteer school governor, fundraiser, Trustee Board member and teacher of English
1 年My mother was German, too, and a lot of what you say about overlapping identity really resonates - thank you for putting it so well! For me, part of the pain of Brexit was a sense that this shared European-ness I felt so deeply was being pulled apart. Thank you also for explaining that there might be a chance of dual British-German citizenship and for sharing the forms ??
Independent Wine Critic and Wine Consultant (WSET3 w/dist.). Retired Partner of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, specialized in State Aid and competition law.
1 年The funny thing is that the Germans believe “Dinner for One” being an example of British sense of humor… ??♂?. Good luck with your application. How will they deal with the general prohibition of dual citizenship? After Brexit, British citizenship is no longer “EU” citizenship - exempted from the prohibition of dual citizenship.
Competition Lawyer, Partner at Gómez-Acebo & Pombo
1 年Perfect! I knew it! Seriously, congratulations and what a superb post
Experienced legal, regulatory, compliance & corporate governance manager, with a focus on regulated industries
1 年Those mixed feelings are I think true for any dual nationals, even where it was the unique event that is Brexit that was the catalyst for many Brits both in the UK and in the EU seeking to acquire European citizenship to preserve their rights and personal situations.
Director, Economics
1 年Good for you! What an interesting article. The stats on child refugees are shameful ….