Guernsey Press

Surge in numbers of Britons seeking to restore German citizenship

The number of people seeking to reclaim citizenship taken away by the Nazis has risen since the Brexit referendum.

Published

The number of people in Britain seeking to restore their German citizenship has jumped following the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.

A German government response to opposition politicians published on Friday says 1,667 people applied to Germany’s embassy in London last year to reclaim the citizenship they or their ancestors were stripped of by the Nazis.

The government’s reply to the Free Democratic Party query notes that the embassy recorded 684 such requests the previous year, most of them following the Brexit referendum in June 2016.

Tens of thousands of Germans, many of them Jewish, fled to Britain after the Nazis took power in 1933.

The figures, which do not include Britons without previous ties to Germany applying for citizenship, were first reported by Germany’s Funke media group.

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