Nationality Reform — Conditional Birthright Citizenship Introduced
Schröder's coalition reformed Germany's citizenship law, ending a system based almost purely on jus sanguinis (descent) that dated to 1913. From 2000, children born in Germany to long-term resident foreign parents could acquire German citizenship at birth, and naturalisation residency requirements were shortened — a genuine departure from a century of ancestry-based nationality law.
Gerhard Schröder — SPD–Green Coalition
In power 1998–2005
⚠️ What this enabled
AfD's "remigration" plan threatens to reverse this reform and target naturalised citizens Imminent
AfD leader Alice Weidel has committed to launching mass "remigration" efforts within the first 100 days of an AfD government, targeting over a million people including some who German courts have not ordered deported. Reporting by CNN and PBS Frontline has documented AfD-linked figures discussing plans that could extend to naturalised German citizens, not only recent arrivals — directly reversing the premise of the 1999 reform that birthright and naturalised citizenship should not be conditional on ancestry.
The 1999 reform ended a citizenship model based on descent that Germany had held since 1913 — the same ancestry-based framework the Nazi regime later built on for the 1935 Nuremberg Laws' citizenship provisions. "Remigration," a term with explicit far-right and Nazi-era lineage, proposes re-introducing ancestry as the deciding factor in who is allowed to remain in Germany, regardless of legal citizenship status. This would not be a return to pre-1999 law so much as a step beyond it.
CNN — AfD Manifesto and "Remigration"Source
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