Germany: anti-Semitism and citizenship
01 January 1991
Germany: anti-Semitism and citizenship
artdoc July=1992
CARF, no 7, March/April 1992
[Campaign Against Racism and Fascism]
The case of Eugen W has proved, once again, that the Federal
Republic of Germany is a racist, anti-Semitic state. Anjuli
and Biplab Gupta-Basu report from Germany.
In the midst of the inauguration of countless grandiose Jewish
cultural festivals in the Berlin of 1992, one solitary German
journalist dared to pose the audacious question. Why has there
not been one German post-war politician whose sense of
responsibility, loss or guilt has led him to say to the Jews:
come and live in Germany, it is not complete without you, it is
your home as much as ours? Whether, especially for a German Jew,
this can ever be an acceptable proposition is another matter, and
for each individual to decide.
Jewish, not German
The German Jew, Eugen W, did decide. Though no fellow German
invited him back to the country of his forefathers, Eugen W, son
of a German Jewish father and a Romanian Christian mother,
arrived in Berlin in 1982. After working for a state-owned
transport company for nine years, Eugen W applied for German
citizenship. The unthinkable happened. His application was
refused, on the grounds that his father was of Jewish, not of
German nationality. Eugen W appealed.
On 27 September 1991, the highest federal administrative court
in Berlin (Oberverwaltungsgericht) rejected Eugen W's renewed
application for German citizenship, giving him no further right
to appeal.The court issued the following judgment:
`Doubt is shed on the German ethnicity of the father of
the applicant on the grounds ... that from 1941-1945, the
aforementioned was required to do forced labour at
several places. As ... male Jews ... were, at the time,
deployed to do forced labour, it can be assumed that ...
the father of the applicant was regarded as a member of
the jewish ethnic group.
`Doubt is finally also shed on the German ethnicity of
the father of the applicant on the basis ... that,
according to the citizens' register of the State of
Israel, the father of the applicant was registered as
being `of Jewish religion' and "of Jewish nationality "
while the mother of the applicant is registered as
`Christian under the category of religion, and "not
registered' under the category of nationality.'
National consciousness
This is a Germany that has recognised as German Polish people who
were classified `Aryans' under the National Socialist regime; a
Germany that, if you are of `mixed' parentage, recognises your
`Germanness' only if you can prove that your German forefathers
served in the German world wars; a Germany which denies
citizenship to the children of Turkish parents on whose backs the
Federal Republic was built; a Germany that pays Israel
reparations for the genocide of the Jewish people but not a
single penny to the Sinti and Roma for the genocide of their
people on the grounds of their classification as `criminals' in
Nazi Germany. This same Germany tells Eugen W that he lacks `the
transmittance of ethnic characteristics and behaviour patterns,
as well as the historic experience passed down from one
generation to another'.
Surviving the holocaust does not qualify you to be a German. It
is not enough, for German courts, to be `of German culture'. No.
To be recognised, you must also be German by national
consciousness'. In other words, no proof or justification of your
German blood is required if you `happened to be' a member of the
SS, or classified as `Aryan'. But if you are of German Sinti,
German Roma or German Jewish parentage, the courts offer you the
following laws:
`a linguistic or cultural similarity with German ethnicity,
also to be found in conjunction with other nationalities,
is not enough. What is necessary is the consciousness of
having a natio